For over a year, Brian De Jesus and his family lived with an active beehive outside the bay window of their Deerfield Beach home.
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At least twice a day, De Jesus, his wife and toddler daughter took their two dogs into the front yard, Maggie, an 8-year-old American bulldog, and Max, a senior pug. The bees didn’t bother them.
But on a morning in early July, he used a lavender-scented disinfectant to clean the patio — and immediately heard buzzing sounds closing in.
“Before I knew it, there were bees all over us,” said De Jesus, who was stung over 20 times. “I looked at my dog, and there wasn’t one spot on my pug that wasn’t covered by bees.”
Max died that afternoon from the stings.
Maggie, the family’s other dog, was also swarmed during the attack but survived after a trip to Quiet Waters Animal Hospital. De Jesus’ wife and daughter were not stung.
The estimated lethal dose of bee venom is about nine stings per pound of body weight, so for a roughly 15-pound pug like Max, that would be about 135 stings — well within range of what a disturbed hive can cause in seconds.
“We procrastinated getting rid of [the bees] because we thought as long as we don’t bother them, they’re not going to bother us,” he said. “But they can turn on you any second.”
The inspector who removed the hive a few days after the attack believes the bees were Africanized honeybees, which are a subspecies of European honeybees that Florida requires to be destroyed when found. Africanized bees generally can’t be differentiated from their calmer counterparts just by looking at them.
And despite the “killer bee” nickname, Africanized bees are the same species used by beekeepers and in pollination in agriculture, according to Christopher Oster, lab manager at the University of Florida’s Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory, where he’s worked for more than five years.
“They are much more defensive and can excessively sting when they feel threatened,” Oster said.
The difference, he explained, comes down to their behavior. Bees kept by beekeepers have been bred to be safer to work with and have a much higher threshold before they perceive something as a threat. European honeybees typically need significant disturbance to be provoked, whereas Africanized bees can be set off by sound, movement, or — in De Jesus’ case — certain scents.
“It’s not impossible for different smells and chemicals to push a hive that’s already on edge over the edge,” said Oster, noting that lawnmowers, small engines, loud vibrations and fumes can all upset a colony.
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Their venom isn’t more potent than that of standard honeybees; what makes Africanized bees dangerous is how many of them respond to a perceived threat and how far they’ll chase it.
“[De Jesus] was a considerable distance away [from the beehive], and there’s some shrubbery in between them, so for them to attack like that, that’s a key indicator that those bees are Africanized,” said Ben Anderson, the inspector who removed the hive after De Jesus destroyed it on the day of the attack.
He called the colony “massive,” noting that while an average hive houses about 20,000 bees, this one was home to about 80,000.
He warned against letting hives linger.
“Sometime people just leave [hives] there, but it’s going to get worse,” he said. “One bee sting in the wrong place, like your eye, can blind you for the rest of your life.”
He noted that when bees start to chase or swarm, the safest response is to move indoors as fast as possible, either into a building or vehicle, and to never jump in water — because Africanized bees are more likely to chase and hover over the water.
If stung, the best approach is to scrape the stinger out with a blunt edge like a fingernail or credit card to slow the venom release. The area should then be washed with soap and water.
Symptoms such as hives, trouble breathing or dizziness signal a more serious reaction and warrant calling 911.
Rubbing stings with a meat tenderizer paste for 20 minutes can act as pain relief and lessen swelling. Aluminum-based deodorant will also do the trick.
Bees tend to favor dry and sunny spots near water and flowering plants, sheltered from any wind. But Anderson said there’s often no predicting where a colony will settle — under a tire, on a tree branch, or in De Jesus’ case, outside a bay window.
“[Bees] will just start to form honeycombs out of nowhere,” he said. “There’s no rhyme or reason to it. They just pick a location and get to work.”
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