Ft. Worth, TX: Bee Stings shorten Men’s golf tournament

The final round of the UTA/Waterchase Invitational in Fort Worth, Texas, was canceled last Tuesday for one of the more bizarre reasons you will ever hear about. Less than two hours after the K-State golfers had started play, a tree limb holding a beehive fell to the ground near the 18th green, sending more than 7,000 bees into a frenzy. At least a dozen different competitors were stung by the bees, and after a lengthy delay in which a beekeeper was summoned to evaluate the situation, the continuing threat caused officials to cancel the final round and reduce the tournament to the 36 holes played on Monday.
"It was very unfortunate because each of our guys had played five or six holes and our top four scorers were around even par," said head coach Tim Norris. "This is my first experience of something like this happening, but I know our guys are excited to get back out on the course in a couple of weeks at our home tournament."
As for the bee-shortened tournament results, the Wildcats carded a 36-hole score of 19-over-par 595, which gave them a seventh place finish out of 19 schools competing in the tournament. For the second consecutive week, the Wichita State Shockers came out on top, this time with a 36-hole score of 6-under-par 570. They finished four strokes ahead of second-place Sam Houston State.
Individually, the Wildcats were led by freshman Kyle Weldon, who was making his debut on the five-man scoring roster. Weldon recorded a score of 1-under-par 143 in the two rounds on Monday, leaving him in fifth place and only four strokes behind 1st-place finisher Rafael Becker of Wichita State. The fifth-place finish is the highest for a K-State golfer so far in the young season.
Other Wildcats competing in the tournament included junior Curtis Yonke, who finished 4-strokes-over-par 148, tying him for 24th place overall. Finishing two strokes behind him, and tied for 36th place individually, was senior Kyle Smell. Ben Juffer, junior, tied for 70th place with a 12-over-par finish. Fellow junior Chase Chamberlin rounded out the scoring for the Wildcats by carding a 36-hole score of 15-over-par 159. He tied

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Malaysia: Preschooler dies after feral honey bee attack

• MALAYSIA

Pre-school pupil dies after bee attack

The Star/Asia News Network
Tuesday, Sep 27, 2011

BESUT, Malaysia - A five-year-old kindergarten pupil died after he was stung by bees while on his way home to Kampung Pengkalan Nyireh here.
The victim, Tengku Hafizul Hafiq Tengku Anuar, was riding pillion when the incident occurred at about 1pm on Sunday.
It is learnt that as he and his mother neared their house, a beehive suddenly fell from a nearby tree onto their motorcycle.
Rakiah Ismail, 31, said she had to stop the motorcyle after they were attacked by the bees.
"I told Hafizul to run as fast as he could to a neighbour's house.
"However, he was already stung by more than 50 bees," she said adding that Hafizul died four hours after the incident at Besut Hospital.
"His whole face was swollen and he lost consciousness soon after the attack.
"I never thought I would lose him like this," she said.


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Roselle Illinois: Man dies after attempting bee removal in his house

September 27, 2011 (ROSELLE) (WLS) -- A Roselle man died after being stung by a swarm of bees while removing a hive at his northwest suburban home.

Officials say Bruce Madiar, 62, collapsed on the front stoop of his home Monday night as he was using repellant on a beehive lodged under the overhang. The Roselle Fire Department, assisted by Itasca paramedics, were called and found him unconscious, but breathing. The medical examiner's office is still working on an exact cause of death.
"From what I understand, they did some CPR and advanced life procedures with the paramedic, rendering care and drug therapy," Roselle Fire Chief Bob Tinucci said.
"I did see them bring Bruce out administering CPR and oxygen, so I knew it was something pretty serious," said Mike Weflan, neighbor.
Weflan was at home Monday evening when he says the large response of fire trucks and ambulances blocked off the street. Attempts to resuscitate Madiar were unsuccessful and he was taken to Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, where he was pronounced dead.
Weflan says he knew Madiar casually, but that he was a long time resident of the neighborhood.

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How Careless can we get about feral Honey Bee colonies?

How careless can we get?

September 22, 2011 | By KNews | Filed Under Editorial 

Africanised bees have struck again and they have claimed yet another human life. These were bees that came into this country from neighbouring Brazil and have corrupted the hives of the ordinary honey bees we once had.
As their name suggests, they came from Africa either by human hand or by way of experimentation. Some Brazilian beekeeper allowed one hive to escape and Guyana is now their home. These bees have spread all over the country contaminating hives and making their own hives.
The movement of animals and insects is nothing unusual. What is unusual is that people through their uncaring ways have allowed these insects to prosper. People must have seen them trying to invade some lodging or some clump of bush or even some old discarded vehicle, and did nothing.
In the case of the recent Eccles incident in which a man died, people saw the bees setting up residence in four different locations and did nothing. In the end the bees set themselves up in a fashionable house in the neighbourhood, expanding their hive and when things got out of hand, moving to other locations nearby.
This speaks a lot for people in a community. There have been warnings from the outset that should people see bees swarming in a community they should call the Ministry of Agriculture. However, the attitude that if something is in no way affecting us at this time then we do nothing.
This was the case on the Essequibo Coast in some villages where the bees eventually struck with deadly effect. The same thing happened in the residential community of Queenstown, Georgetown. The bees were seen entering the community and installing themselves in an old car. When a man, after some time, decided to week the area he angered them with fatal consequences for some dogs. Human beings were also attacked but they managed to survive.
We have reported on numerous incidents of these bee attacks. In another East Bank Demerara community a man and a horse died.
The cold hard fact is that we contribute to the disaster because through our selfish actions we condemn a community to disaster, in this case, attacks from the bees.  Similar selfish actions actually saw armed gangs attacking homes, safe in the knowledge that people would remain ensconced in their homes while their neighbours are being terrorized.
In those communities where people respond en masse criminals tend to stay away. People do what was always the case, “Look out for each other.”
Sparking electric wires trigger some response because a fire may not be confined to a single home in the area but this community-minded action is not often transferred to other cases.
But there is more to this. The Ministry of Agriculture has no one who can respond and deal with cases of bee invasion. People needing help must call private individuals. True, the Agriculture Ministry would provide the numbers but since these are private individuals there is no guarantee that a bee control worker would respond in a timely manner.
Within the past few years, six of these people have been killed. There was no compensation from the government because the conclusion was that the operator went there in his private capacity.
Given that bees have been no stranger to Guyana for decades one would have expected that the Ministry of Agriculture would have had a section that could have been dealing with bees. And the people of Guyana, cognizant that the government offers assistance to the public at no cost, expect the same when it comes to protection from insects such as the Africanised bees.
In this case the private operator who arrived there was accosted, threatened and even chased with an implement for taking too long to arrive. No one paid him and the expectation is that he would always be there to respond to a bee crisis. This may not be the case.
The onus is therefore for the people to be vigilant for their own survival. There will be other instances of the Africanised bees entering other communities and there are those communities in which they have already set up hives. People need to take action, even if for their own safety.

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Fatal Africanized Honey Bee attack in Guyana leaves one dead

Killer bees exterminated after stung Eccles mechanic dies

Written by Whitney Persaud

Wednesday, 21 September 2011 02:38

SHEIK Iman Hassan, the 48-year-old mechanic who was attacked by a swarm of killer bees, at his Lot 238 Anaida Avenue, Eccles, East Bank Demerara address, on Friday has died. He and his co-worker were attending to a customer’s vehicle at the time of the attack and Hassan’s wife, Savatri, said he was left lying on the road for about five minutes before being transported to the Balwant Singh Hospital, in East Street, Georgetown, where he succumbed later the same afternoon. DEAD: Sheikh Imran Hassan, 48 The woman said the two men tried to fight off the insects. He put his head in a barrel of water and the other man hid in the car on which they were working. Savatri said she went to assist them but, in fear of her own life, she abandoned the effort, noting that the bees were there for between half an hour to 45 minutes,  during which no one else intervened. “The carpenters in the areas tried their best to help; they even lit a fire to try and smoke them out but their efforts were unsuccessful,” the grieving woman said. The widowed woman said it was the first time that such an incident occurred in the area.  She is left to mourn with three children. The neighbouring house where the bees hive was Meanwhile, the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) said, following the occurrence, immediate action was taken to exterminate the killer bees in the area. The agency said it contacted a private beekeeper, Mr. Carl Persaud, who responded to the scene and did what was necessary, including rescuing two dogs. He said, based on the number of bees that were exterminated, he believes there are other colonies of them within the area. The GLDA is advising that the bees are hostile and should be reported immediately to telephone numbers 220-6556/7. It extended its sympathy to the family of the dead man and those persons who were stung and injured in the process.

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