‘Killer Bees’ Swarm Likely Riled By Lawnmower Kills Texas Man

BRECKENRIDGE, TX — An aggressive swarm of “killer bees” attacked and killed a 70-year-old Texas man as he was mowing his lawn, but a firefighter saved the man’s wife by throwing off his own protective gear and putting it on her.

She also was stung in the Monday attack by the swarm of Africanized honey bees but not as severely as her husband, the Breckenridge Fire Department said in a news release. She was treated at a local hospital.

The rescue squad “did everything they could to make this a positive outcome, but multiple issues turned this into a tragedy,” the fire department said.

Besides taking care of the people who had been stung, first responders also had to deal with the bees — a “daunting task,” the fire department wrote, because the killer bee attack was still going on.

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Local beekeeper Joey Venekamp offered his services; he found the hive, then removed it with hand tools and foam, according to the release.

Africanized honey bees are rightly called killer bees and differ greatly from the typically docile honey bees that get drunk on nectar and pollen from flower gardens.

The vibration of the Texas man’s lawnmower is believed to have riled the bees.

“Africanized (honey bee) colony is a whole different ballgame and the way they are managed and behave,” Bobby Chaisson, operations director at Georgia Bee Removals, told CNN. “Especially when you are dealing with that species of honeybee, absolutely, the vibration of a lawnmower, the vibration of a weed eater, kids banging or stomping around close by — they will get defensive.”

These more-aggressive bees are a 1950s-era hybrid of the East African lowland honey bee crossed with various European honey bees to increase honey production.

But that didn’t work out as planned.

Instead, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says, killer bees hurt honey production. Other species of honey bees lose out when they have to compete with Africanized honey fees for nectar and pollen.

The Africanized honey bees were first found in southern Texas in 1990, about four decades after the hybrid was created in Brazil, according to the USDA. They’re now widespread throughout the Americas.