A dog suffered hundreds of stings when a Californian homeowner decided to remove a beehive without professional guidance.
Bryan Engen’s Pitbull Mastiff needed emergency treatment at a veterinary clinic after the incident in Lake Mathews.
His neighbour, Tommy Baker, told broadcaster ABC7 he had discovered the colony of undomesticated bees while trimming trees in preparation for deconstructing an old fence.
Instead of calling in an expert, Tommy just watched some videos on the topic online.
Reflecting on his attempt to remove the hive, he admitted: “It got very intense.”
Tommy – who wore a beekeeping suit during the procedure – revealed: “It got to the point that I could not see very far in front of me. There were so many bees just swirling around.”
He eventually jumped into his golf cart and drove off. The thousands of insects followed him before assaulting Chance, his neighbour’s pet dog.
Tommy eventually decided to ask a professional beekeeper for support.
According to the homeowner, the pollinators were identified by the expert as Africanised bees, a hybrid subspecies.
The Smithsonian – a renowned American research centre – informs in a fact sheet that the insects react to disturbances 10 times faster than European honeybees.
The institution warns: “Africanised honeybees are dangerous because they attack intruders in numbers much greater than European honeybees.”
