100,000 Killer Bees Attack Picnick Island Park Workers
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
100,000 Killer Bees Attack Picnick Island Park Workers
100,000 Killer Bees Attack Picnick Island Park Workers
100,000 Killer Bees Attack Picnick Island Park Workers
100,000 Killer Bees Attack Picnick Island Park Workers
Nearly 100,000 killer bees attacked a couple of workers at Picnick Island Park in Tampa, Florida.
According to the KY Post, David Zeledon and Rodney Pugh were removing a pile of trash near the entrance of the park when they accidentally tipped over an old truck tire. That’s when the bees attacked.
The two park workers were swarmed by more than 100,000 Africanized honeybees.
Pugh said:
“It was like a thousand little knives poking me in my body … It was like bees all in the cab … So I’m trying to swat, and they say never to swat bees … My ears were just throbbing with pain. It’s the worst feeling because you just had so many and they wouldn’t stop.”
The men were eventually able to escape but not before they suffered hundreds of stings each. The two men were taken to the hospital where they were treated with antibiotics. They are both expected to survive.
After the attack, the park called Jonathan Simkins of Insect I.Q. to exterminate the hive. Simkins said that taking care of the hive near the truck tire wouldn’t be a problem but added that it wouldn’t be the end of the park’s bee problems.
Simkins said that the Africanized bees send out swarms up to 17 times a year and that there were probably more hives throughout the park.
Simkins said:
“The problem that we’re having is the wild bees … This pile of rubbish wasn’t moved for three years. So this colony’s been breeding and sending out colonies … The European bee will swarm once or twice a year. The African bee will swarm up to 17 times.”
Africinized bees are also hard to identify. According to Simkins, killer bees are nearly identical to regular honeybees. The one difference is that killer bees are far more aggressive.
Here’s a video about killer bees from National Geographic.
“It was like bees all in the cab,” Pugh, 41, told ABC Action News. “So I’m trying to swat, and they say never to swat bees.”
The men fled the front-end loader and ran from the bees, but each suffered almost 100 stings before they were able to get away.
Jason Deeringer of Insect I-Q told WFLA that the bees are most likely “Africanized” bees — colloquially called “killer bees” — which are much more aggressive than other types of honey bees.100,000 Killer Bees Attack Picnick Island Park Workers
“[Africanized bees] have a horrible attitude. Highly defensive,” Deeringer told the station.
Jonathan Simkins, who was called to exterminate the flying insects, told ABC that the bees had probably arrived in Florida on a port ship coming from Africa or South America.
Simkins noted that the pile of debris had not been moved in three years, meaning that, most likely, “this colony’s been breeding and sending out colonies” that now live elsewhere in the area.
Pugh and Zeledon are expected to fully recover. Not all victims of Africanized bees are so lucky. In 2011, an elderly couple in Texas was stung to death when they disturbed a hive while cleaning out their hunting cabin.100,000 Killer Bees Attack Picnick Island Park Workers
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100,000 Killer Bees Attack Picnick Island Park Workers