Colony of Honey Bees Kills Dog In Plantation, FLA.

PLANTATION (CBSMiami) – An American Foxhound died after being attacked by a swarm of bees in Plantation Friday afternoon.

It happened on East Acre drive.  The family dog known as ’Babydoll’ was stung more than one hundred times according to witnesses

Plantation firefighters apply foam to the bee hive located in the rear of the home at 640 E. Acre Drive. Firefighters had to remove part of the wall to expose the hive. (Source: City of Plantation)

The dog’s owner Ted Delgaizo said he’s sad for his loss but glad his kids weren’t attacked.
“My dog was 60 pounds, and it killed a 60 pound dog.  My four year old son weighs 25 pounds.  I have an 8 and 6 year old who were in school.  I’m sad for my dog but grateful it wasn’t one of my kids.”
After trying to rescue the dog, Plantation firefighters applied foam on the back of the house where the hive was located.  The foam application was able to subdue the bees quickly.  Firefighters first had to remove a portion of the wall to expose the hive.
The dog was in the backyard when neighbor Betty Chenet noticed it was covered in bees.  She tried to spray a garden hose on the dog but then she says the angry bees turned on her.
“It was scary. I was traumatized. I had never seen something like this.”
Chenet said when the bees came after her she jumped in her pool and ran in the house.  But the bees continued to follow her into her house.
“I feel bad I couldn’t save the dog.”
A Plantation Police Officer responding to the emergency call, didn’t fare any better.
“He was stung 30 to 40 times in the face, neck and arms,” said Detective Robert Rettig of the Plantation Police Department.
Neighbor Philip Garretson heard the commotion and also tried to rescue the dog.  He said he was stung up to 30 times.
“You could see the swarm like a cloud over the dog.  I hit them with water and they came after me. They came after me immediately,” said Garretson.
“As sad as I am I lost my dog, it save my kids life because it could have been my kids.  We had no idea the bees were there,” said Ted Delgaizo.

Honey Bee swarm invades MLB Baseball Game!

This was cool!  A honey bee swarm landed (alighted) right near the Colorado Rockies Dugout at Coors' Field! In Colorado, wild honey bees are relatively low in numbers (compared to Florida anyway, which is LOADED with wild, African Honey Bees!!), so the right call was made. A beekeeper used a 'bee-vac' to vacuum the honey bees up, and he will either add the bees to an existing hive box of his, or start a new colony. Bravo!  Check out the video and cool play by play!

Thousands of honey bees invade mobile home park

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — WFTV news

Thousands of bees are invading and stinging residents at a Volusia County mobile home community.
The bees live on a property in Deltona, across Interstate 4, but they're drawn to the Country Village community pool off Hollow Ridge Drive, residents said.
The management company at the mobile home park said it is doing everything it can, but the bees keep coming back.
It seems like the honey bees are in search of water, swarming bird baths and the community pool.
“You can't relax. It's no fun,” said one resident. “You can't, because you got to watch out for the bee on the top of the water."
Bees can be seen swarming the sides of the pool and the deck for water. It's a problem community managers said is getting worse with the lack of rain, and they said no chemicals or spray can keep them away.
To keep the bees away from the pool, the managers added more bird baths and hired a bee expert.
The expert pinpointed their source to more than 100 beehives directly across I-4. They belong to Horace Bell Honey, based in Deland, which refuses to move them.
The community management filed a complaint with the city of Deltona and with Volusia County. The city of Deltona is checking to see if the honey company is in fact allowed to keep the bees on the vacant land.

See the rest of the story(including video) here

Swarm of Bees attacks boy

(Townsville Bulletin)

A TEENAGE boy was stung more than 100 times in a freak bee attack at Pallarenda yesterday.

Royce Abraham, 15, was bushwalking with his father, brother and two others at Bald Rock when he was attacked by the swarm of bees. It is believed the teen disturbed the hive as he walked past, with the European honey bees stinging him largely on his face, neck and ears.

PAINFUL EXPERIENCE: Royce Abraham, 15, struggles with the pain after being stung more than 100 times by bees while bushwalking yesterday

Royce's father Gary Abraham said he picked out at least 100 stingers from his son.
"They swarmed him and he cried out and tried to get away," he said.
"He was in a lot of pain. He rated it as eight or nine on the scale.
"It wasn't very good watching him getting hoed into."
Fortunately, the Pimlico State High School student didn't have any allergic reactions to the stings, and was taken in a conscious state to Townsville Hospital for treatment.
Mr Abraham said the attack was not likely to discourage his younger son from the outdoors.
"He's an adventurous, outdoorsy guy - always out and about," he said.
"He'll be keen to do it again, he'll just be a bit more cautious I think."
James Cook University biologist Professor Simon Robson, an expert on bee behaviour, said he had never heard of an attack of this level in the area.
"Bees usually keep to themselves," Prof Robson said.
"They've been bred to produce honey and they're relatively calm.
"Honey bees are not like the killer bees from South America."
Prof Robson said Royce could have died from so many bee stings.
"He's very lucky boy, that must have hurt," he said.
"One hundred stings are a lot of toxins; he must be a good, robust person and he's done very well to come out the other side.
"Some people will have one bee sting and it will put them into anaphylactic shock; he's clearly not allergic to bee stings."
Prof Robson said the incident sounded like a "really unfortunate accident".
Read the rest of the story here:

Two girls fatally injured in Africanized Bee Attack

Two young girls die from killer bee stings

COLOMONCAGUA, Honduras,-- Two young girls died in Honduras after they were attacked by a swarm of Africanized bees, officials said.
The bees had built a hive in an avocado tree behind a home in the village of San Antonio near Colomoncagua, Honduras, La Prensa reported Monday.

Africanized Honey Bee Nest aka Killer Bee Nest

Yerlin Anaim Yanes Sanchez, 6, and Dayli Carolina Yanez, 5, were killed in Wednesday night's attack. Another girl and her mother were hospitalized recovering from bee stings, La Prensa reported.
The bees were allegedly provoked when a boy threw a rock at the hive.

Read more here

Beekeepers feel the sting in Central Florida

Beekeepers feel the sting

Honeybees and their keepers are both facing threats.

The bees help make Florida one of the top-five honey producers in the country, with an annual worth of $13 million. But a strange phenomenon of disappearing bees has caused the honeybee population to decline, jeopardizing the livelihoods of commercial honey makers. One honey producer says he is losing thousands of hives a year because of the die-offs that recent studies link to insecticides.

"Bees don't want to make honey anymore," said Bill Rhodes, owner of Bill Rhodes Honey Co. in Umatilla. "I'm trying to keep from going bankrupt."

Beekeeper hobbyists, meanwhile, help fill some of the void created by large losses of bees. Their bees help the environment by pollinating gardens and groves, and the keepers get a little honey from their hobbies.

But some small-scale beekeepers are being told "not in my backyard." Several Florida counties and cities have banned or restricted beekeeping, and the Florida State Beekeepers Association is pushing for new legislation that would leave beekeeping to the expertise of the state.

Senate Bill 1132, sponsored by Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, would establish that the Florida Department of Agriculture has sole power to regulate beehives, and prevent counties and municipalities from enacting beekeeping laws. The bill has passed three committees and last week was placed on the calendar to be heard by the full Senate.

The bill primarily protects non-commercial beekeepers in residential areas, said Gary Ranker, president of the beekeepers association. He said 73 percent of the association's members are small-scale beekeepers who have a handful of hives in residential areas and are not trying to make a living at beekeeping.

read the rest of CHRIS GERBASI'S article at the Daily Commercial

Entomologist's Comment:

A well researched article by Chris Gerbasi that adequately explains some of the pressures both commercial and residential beekeepers are facing these days. 

While some commercial beekeepers are experiencing high mortality with their bee hives, many others are managing well. Yes, the numbers of colonies lost are higher than experienced a decade ago, but, with increased care and applied treatments to bee colonies, most seem to be weathering this recent malady well enough.

And while it seems to be in vogue these days to blame Colony Collapse Disorder on Nicitonoid pesticide use, current research is leading us away from these pesticides as likely culprits. Yes, they can cause mortality, but usually it's a very quick effect and emulates a more classic pesticide poisoning. Drupke's research implicates the current method of seed coatings and the way seeds are planted in fields, but only in acute toxic events, not in CCD.Changing the seed coating methodology will likely reduce the events that beekeepers have been seeing when placing bees near corn and other crop plantings.

Even the current boogey-corporations, Bayer & Monsanto, have been reaching out to the beekeeping industry, offering to investigate and perform research into effects of these insecticides. If you think about it, it makes no business sense to sell and promote products that cause great harm to beekeeping, as eventually research would show the effects & implicate the pesticide. 

Richard Martyniak, M.Sc., Entomologist

The Buzzkillers, LLC

ALLFloridaBeeRemoval.com
800-343-5317 toll free

Beekeeper had no idea killer bees were on her property

3 people stung: Amateur Beekeeper had no idea killer bees were on her property

PEORIA, Ariz. -- Peoria Homeowner Lesley Brewer has a lot of explaining to do.
There were hundreds of dead bees leftover from Tuesday.
“Bees were everywhere and coming after me.  I didn't know what to do. I took my stuff off and took off,” said Latroy Campbell, 17.
On Tuesday, Campbell ran from a swarm of bees coming from the 7200 block of West Yucca Street.
The teen was stung multiple times so was a firefighter.
Brewer said admits four years ago she kept Italian honey bees but never Africanized killer bees. She went on to say that didn't know the bees were on her property.
A Peoria code enforcement officer stopped by Brewer’s home Wednesday.
Brewer told the officer things got ugly when her husband went to move their old bee-keeping box.
She told 3TV she wasn’t raising the bees for honey.
The story is a little different from what Peoria Deputy Fire Chief Rick Picard presented.
“This was an amateur bee keeper and he had hives all over his backyard,” he said.
A firefighter climbed over Brewer’s back wall and got quite the surprise.
“[He was] coming over the wall and disturbed the bees and, of course, they swarmed all over him. He was almost covered with all the bees when he came out,” Picard said,
The deputy fire chief wants amateur bee keepers to buzz off of residential neighborhoods.
“In close neighborhoods, just like there is all around the Valley, it’s against code to do it. Because people walking down the road will be attacked,” Picard said.

Read the rest of the story here
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