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| rxwine Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 189
Posts: 18755 | Small, but their fury is mighty. Quote: The Concord beekeeper who set off an attack by a swarm of suspected “killer bees” over the weekend was an experienced hobbyist who had the beehives for 15 years and didn’t notice anything amiss with his honeybees until he tried to move the hives so his father could do some backyard landscaping.
Nothing was out of the ordinary when Arthur Janke, 41, moved the first hive on Friday. But when he tried to move the second one, those bees went berserk...
“I’ve never seen a behavior like that,” said Alex Janke, whose son has kept bees for 15 years. “There was a big swarm, and they were trying to sting everything. Arthur tried to move as many as he could back in the hive, but there was still a cloud of bees in the backyard. They were all over.”
Mike Malley, who lives across the street from the Jankes, said he got stung about 16 times on his face and arms on Friday.
“I could hear the mail lady screaming from my house,” Malley said. “She took off screaming and ran down the road. Two guys in a pickup truck stopped to help her, and the bees attacked them. So they ran the other way and left their pickup idling for about two hours.”
Malley said he tried to help the postal worker, Melissa Weisner, who was “was covered in bees.”
A jogger running down Hitchcock Road on Saturday also got swarmed by bees, Malley said. “He made a helicopter out of his shirt and was swatting to get them away.”
His neighbors found their two dachshunds, Milo and Gunner, covered with bee stings in the backyard when they returned home that night. A veterinarian found at least 50 stingers in their bodies, authorities and neighbors said. The dogs died.
The furious onslaught continued Sunday in the well-kept neighborhood of one- and two-story houses, and very few people were venturing outside. Play structures, basketball hoops, decks, gardens and other features of suburban life stood empty.
The bees, however, buzzed around people’s heads and stung those who stepped out of their cars, including several reporters. The bees circled a vehicle of one fleeing driver Sunday, apparently waiting for the person to emerge.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/How-bee-rampage-terrorized-neighborhood-killed-2-7470176.php You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really? |
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| Fleastiff Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831 | I thought San Francisco was too cold for the Africanized variety though I might be wrong about this.
It does sound like an Africanized colony in its behavior of going after every moving thing in the area... don't bother swatting, just run like hell. They will chase you until you are far enough from their hive to please them. Dogs often swallow bees by the dozens getting stung several times by each one as it goes down its throat, but dogs have no other way except to run and often will defend their masters and not run.
There was no mention of his smoking the hives to sedate the bees or his having a smoker at standby.
Now you know why that beekeeper who sold his honey at a farmers market dressed in such a manner that no bees could get trapped in his clothing and feel threatened. One sting and the pheromone is released and they all pile on. Running to a pool or lake might help but they will hover above the surface waiting for you to come up for air. Its distance, not time, that you need. They will go after pumps, lawnmowers, anything making noise or moving.
Concord, CA is still a nice town. These things happen. Even birds will defend their nesting area without concern for sidewalks or pedestrians. |
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| AZDuffman Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18204 | This sounds like more than just moving the hive, like the hive was getting ready to swarm and he hit it at the wrong time. Kind of strange. The President is a fink. |
