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Man Stung to Death by 40,000 Killer Bees


Ashotep

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This poor man was stung so many times there wasn't a place on him that didn't have a mark. His neighbors wife and daughter tried to help but they were getting attacked also. He died at the scene.

Another invasive species that I wish we didn't have.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/03/texas-man-stung-to-death-by-40000-killer-bees/

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Someone counted exactly 40,000 bee stings on him?

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From the article, this happened in Moody, a city not too far from Waco. There's a lot of people in that area. This could happen again!

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Well to be fair, if it didn't happen in America it'd have just happened where they're native, somebody would still be dead. I haven't read the article but bees normally attack only when provoked or they feel very threatened. And they must have for 40,000 to have attacked him.

The bad thing about African Honey bees the whole colony will gang up on you and with European only about 10% of the colony will attack.

His tractor hit a pile of wood they were in.

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So not that long ago we were told about bees diminishing, looks like they have no intentions on doing that.

Rightly pointed out, they rarely attack unless provoked, so unless the flowers around that area have all been wiped out or interfered with, then the man must have done something to upset them somehow or maybe the bees are just evolving to survive and they see man as their biggest threat?

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"The station reported that Goodwin was stung so much, there was no exposed skin that did not bear the marks of the attack. He was pronounced dead at the scene." Quote

How horrible :(

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I don't think "attacked" necessarily means stung. He was attacked by an estimated 40,000 bees and he was stung "thousands" of times which I can believe without counting if his body was completely covered in marks.

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These Africanized bees should never have been. Some white coat. That had a local worker in South America ACCIDENTALLY released them many many years ago. Over the years they have slowly worked their way to N. America where they have killed many children. The funding agency that funded this researchers work should be held accountable for all deaths and attacks caused by these bees.

Like the movie: Jurassic park white coat research!

Makes one think what other deadly surprises are in store for all of us from white coat research.

Edited by cerberusxp
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I remember seeing 'Killer Bee' movies back in the 70's when the African Killer Bee was first thought to be a threat here in North America.

What a terrible way to go.

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What a horrid way to die. I have to kind of wonder how big this brush pile was since he was using a tractor and they found 22 combs in it. That's a lot of combs all clustered together.

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vibrations in the ground is enough for bees to attack!! Believe me....it happens to farmers all the time....and I was never aware until last summer when me and my husband was mowing our yard....he was on the rider and I was trimming with the push mower.....he went by a few pieces of wood by the old dog house....I came along right after and bees came out from under that wood and attacked me....stung me 12 times before he got the waterhose and got them off me....it was horrible....I have never been stung like that and it was horrific ....so I cannot even imagine what that poor man went thru!!! I had no idea they built their hives under old wood laying around till I read up on them online. I now stear clear of any wood laying around!!! Apparently he stirred them up with the vibrations of the big mower and I came along and got the results!!!

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This probably a weird question, and I don't want it to sound insensitive. I am very curious, though. When bees attack, how do they home in on a living victim? Or do they try to sting anything in the vicinity?

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This probably a weird question, and I don't want it to sound insensitive. I am very curious, though. When bees attack, how do they home in on a living victim? Or do they try to sting anything in the vicinity?

In a swarm situation they attack the first thing they can sting, then pharamones from the first, second, third etc stings lead all the other bees to the victim. Once you are a certain distance from that first attack they will eventually stop attacking (usually about 200 yards). This isn't true with killer bees though. They will chase a victim for close to a half mile before giving up.

They key to surviving a bee attack is to run as fast and far away from the initial attack site as possible and keep your face covered. Once you are far enough away, remove as many stingers as you can by scraping a fingernail horizontally across the sting sites.

Edited by BiffSplitkins
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Africanized bees are a whole other ballgame.

You upset a bee hive and you might get a few stings while running away (kinda like the Duck Dynasty guys trying to get honey)

But you just enter the area where the African Bees are and they attack and they are relentless.

All because someone in Brazil had the bright idea of cross breeding the two different species.

He thought he could breed the killer instinct out of them and instead it went the other way and bred the killer instinct into otherwise harmless bees.

Then along came a worker and noticed the screens that were being used to keep the queen locked down and thought they didn't belong there and TADA!

Killer Queen on the loose. (and not the Freddie Mercury kind either)

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vibrations in the ground is enough for bees to attack!! Believe me....it happens to farmers all the time....and I was never aware until last summer when me and my husband was mowing our yard....he was on the rider and I was trimming with the push mower.....he went by a few pieces of wood by the old dog house....I came along right after and bees came out from under that wood and attacked me....stung me 12 times before he got the waterhose and got them off me....it was horrible....I have never been stung like that and it was horrific ....so I cannot even imagine what that poor man went thru!!! I had no idea they built their hives under old wood laying around till I read up on them online. I now stear clear of any wood laying around!!! Apparently he stirred them up with the vibrations of the big mower and I came along and got the results!!!

I got stung over 20 times when I was 12 years old just from my friend and I walking (sliding really due to the slope) over a nest of bees built into the muddy wall of sheer creek embankment. I was delayed in running away because their nest was on a steep facing that ended into a creek which we were descending into, and the embankment on the other side was vertical and about six ft. high. I had to jump and pull my body up and out which took a few attempts and all the while they were swarming around me and stinging me. Even after I got up and over we ran about 50 yards away through the woods before the attack was over. I found a bee still hanging by its stinger several minutes later that had somehow crawled down my sock before stinging my ankle. That one was particularly painful. It was scary and I probably would have gotten stung many more times if I spent any more time trying to escape that creek bed. I felt nauseated for a few hours after the attack but didn't seek medical attention.

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Well to be fair, if it didn't happen in America it'd have just happened where they're native, somebody would still be dead. I haven't read the article but bees normally attack only when provoked or they feel very threatened. And they must have for 40,000 to have attacked him.

So not that long ago we were told about bees diminishing, looks like they have no intentions on doing that.

Rightly pointed out, they rarely attack unless provoked, so unless the flowers around that area have all been wiped out or interfered with, then the man must have done something to upset them somehow or maybe the bees are just evolving to survive and they see man as their biggest threat?

" killer Bees " do not need to be provoked. Just getting to close to them ( not even knowing ) is enough some times.

They are more agressive, thus " killer bees"....

Africanized Honey Bees will attack when unprovoked, and they respond rapidly and in large numbers to disturbances that European Honey Bees would ignore.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/Apis_mellifera_scutellata.htm

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Africanized bees are a whole other ballgame.

You upset a bee hive and you might get a few stings while running away (kinda like the Duck Dynasty guys trying to get honey)

But you just enter the area where the African Bees are and they attack and they are relentless.

All because someone in Brazil had the bright idea of cross breeding the two different species.

He thought he could breed the killer instinct out of them and instead it went the other way and bred the killer instinct into otherwise harmless bees.

Then along came a worker and noticed the screens that were being used to keep the queen locked down and thought they didn't belong there and TADA!

Killer Queen on the loose. (and not the Freddie Mercury kind either)

I thought the cross breeding was to produce more Honey?

edit :

We were both wrong, and right....

Creation of Killer Bees


  • Killer bees were the creation of a laboratory project led by the government of Brazil. Brazil hired geneticist Dr. Warwick Kerr in 1956 to create a bee that could survive the tropics of South America, as European honeybees could not. The goal was to create a gentle yet hardy bee by breeding European and African honeybee varieties. This did not happen. In 1957, a few of the experimental—and aggressive—bees escaped and began colonies in the Brazilian forests. This "killer bee" species has been spreading ever since.

Edited by Sakari
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Seems to me that if 100% of these bees attack, that when they all die (Don't these bees die after stinging, like regular bees do?)... leaving the hive basically undefended. That is probably why normal honey bees don't do that. It would seem that if someone could build a rolling robot that imitated a large animal (heat, smell, skin texture) that it would be relatively easy to wipe out such bee hives.

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I'm still learning beekeeping but... I don't think even with killer bees the hive empties out 100%. To my understanding at least the queen remains in the hive, probably with a few hive attendants. And drones don't have stingers.

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Another man was attacked in San Antonio this afternoon (he was mowing). I guess the rain recently has stirred the Africanized bees up. They hate lawn mowers and tractors, small engine sounds.

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Another man was attacked in San Antonio this afternoon (he was mowing). I guess the rain recently has stirred the Africanized bees up. They hate lawn mowers and tractors, small engine sounds.

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I got stung over 20 times when I was 12 years old.... I felt nauseated for a few hours after the attack but didn't seek medical attention.

You should always seek medical attention for that many bee stings. I'm glad you made it through that alive.

Africanized bees are a whole other ballgame.

You upset a bee hive and you might get a few stings while running away (kinda like the Duck Dynasty guys trying to get honey)

LOL, I laughed my ass off at that episode.

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I thought the cross breeding was to produce more Honey?

edit :

We were both wrong, and right....

Creation of Killer Bees

  • Killer bees were the creation of a laboratory project led by the government of Brazil. Brazil hired geneticist Dr. Warwick Kerr in 1956 to create a bee that could survive the tropics of South America, as European honeybees could not. The goal was to create a gentle yet hardy bee by breeding European and African honeybee varieties. This did not happen. In 1957, a few of the experimental—and aggressive—bees escaped and began colonies in the Brazilian forests. This "killer bee" species has been spreading ever since.

you are correct.

I got off on a tangent there.

Honey was the main purpose for the breeding, the theory that the aggressive nature could be bred out of them was the hope.

I just forgot to mention the honey producing part.

My bad.

Thanks for clearing that up though. probably makes a lot more sense now. :)

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scary stuff in nature. That is why you should never mix the genetic pool . Goes for all living things including viruses, insects or other animals as you never know what the end result is. Everything in nature is created in an orderly fashion and for survival on this planet. You mess with things no matter what your intention is it will come back eventually and bite you in the behind.

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These things are monsters, there is also evidence they are adapting too colder weather which means their spread North will happen with a few decades.

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