100,000 Killer Bees Attack Picnick Island Park Workers [Video]

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.

According to the Epoch Times, Africanized bees are a hybrid of western honey bees and African honey bees. The bees started spreading from South America about a decade ago and have since moved into Central America, Mexico, and several southern states along the border of the United States. Simkins believes that the killer bees at Picnick Island Park may have arrived in Tampa from a South American ship.

Here’s a video about the killer bee attack at Picnick Island Park.