A dog owner has told how his pets were crying out in terror when a swarm of bees attacked them, and one of the canines did not survive.
Brandyn Tagg from Tucson in the US State of Arizona said his chihuahua pug mix Earl died from cardiac arrest after suffering dozens of stings.
Brandyn told KVOA News 4: “I heard the dogs screaming and ran out here and it just looked like a massive dust storm in the backyard. Everything was dark and the back walls were crawling.”
While Brandyn’s other three pooches managed to escape the swarm by dashing inside, two-year-old Earl did not survive. His girlfriend Brennah immediately took the pup to a local veterinarian but to no avail.
Brandyn explained: “He was stung over 100 times. Just with how small his body was, the venom or toxins shut down his nervous system. And he had heart failure.”
The heartbroken Tucson resident emphasised: “My dogs are like a family.”
Brandyn, who described Earl as “the energy of the house”, said about his other dogs: “You can tell it hit everybody pretty hard. They’re a lot quieter now. They just lie on the couch all day.”
The swarm consisted of Africanised bees, according to local media.
Entolomogists have warned that this hybrid subspecies reacts to disturbances ten times faster than other types of bees.
The Smithsonian – a renowned American research centre – informs in a fact sheet: “Africanised honeybees are dangerous because they attack intruders in numbers much greater than European honeybees.”
Experts say that anyone targeted by a bee swarm should calmly walk away in a straight line and hide in an enclosed facility.
