A group of cyclists ended up lost in the Colombian jungle for several hours after they dumped their bicycles and fled into the woods when they were attacked by a swarm of bees.
The six men eventually escaped by jumping into a stream but then realised they were completely lost.
The agitated swarm – reportedly a colony of Africanised bees – began to sting the cyclists while they were biking in a mountainous area near El Retiro, a town in northwestern Colombia.
One of them, identified by local media as Mauricio Castano, said that he and his pals had been forced to abandon their bicycles and run away.
They found safety in a creek into which they jumped in a desperate bid to escape the insects.
Film and photo footage shows the group of friends standing in the stream after having fled the swarm.
The ordeal of the hobbyist athletes came to an end after six hours when they called the fire brigade from an abandoned house.
A spokesperson for the regional fire department said locating the group took another six hours. Five hours later, the firefighters eventually reached the building.
Later on, the rescue team also managed to retrieve the group’s bicycles.
The whole operation was hampered due to the terrain and muddy conditions.
While all members of the group – whose nationalities were not disclosed – suffered stings, one of them had to endure vomiting and fever due to his allergic reaction.
Emergency staff managed to stabilise his condition before taking him to a hospital.
Africanised honeybees are a hybrid of different pollinator species.
They react to disturbances 10 times faster than European honeybees, according to experts at the Smithsonian, a renowned American research centre.
On its website, the Smithsonian warns: “Africanised honeybees are dangerous because they attack intruders in numbers much greater than European honeybees.”
The institution underlines: “Since their introduction into Brazil, they have killed some 1,000 humans, with victims receiving 10 times as many stings than from the European strain.”
