re: Texas man killed by swarm of bees while mowing lawn

The hive takes on the personality of the queen. If she’s aggressive it will be an aggressive hive. Sometimes they will attack certain people but not others, and every time that person comes around they’ll attack. Presumably it has something to do with smells. and sometimes they overthrow the queen, hive all attacks her and kill her and set up a new queen.

A beekeeper told me all this. Bees are fascinating.

First time I ever got stung was when I was in second grade. Playing on the playground at school during summer (dad was there volunteering doing some handyman stuff). I jump onto a platform that had a wasp hive under it. It dislodged. Hit the ground. And like a bomb of wasps came out. I was surrounded by a tornado of them. I was frozen in the middle of this vortex. Felt a tickle on my right pinky looked down and saw a wasp on my hand and saw it sting me. Hurt like all frick. I screamed and took off for the gym.

My dad was also renovating our yard in Atlanta one year. With a backhoe. Hit a wasp nest. Shut the thing off and sprinted for the house.

I’m moderately allergic and getting stung hurts and messes me up for an entire day. Some people get stung and are just like “ouch”. And go about their business.

Henry Winkler?

I have run over yellow jacket nests with a mower 3 times in my 50 years. Once at my childhood home when I was 13. And twice (5 years apart)at my first home, My son was 6 at the time and walking behind me as I was mowing. I heard him start screaming and flailing about and then I got tagged a few times too. I grabbed him and ran for the house and yanked his shirt off. He had 8 wasps inside his shirt and had been stung 14 times. He ended up being alright after we iced them all down but I was determined to get revenge.

This became my biggest almost Darwin moment of my life. I decided to kill them the next morning with fire. I put on long socks and sweat pants and taped around the bottoms. I put on a thick flannel shirt and gloves and taped around the shirt cuffs. I got a pillowcase and put one hole in it to see through and taped around my neck. All skin areas was covered and sealed up.

I went out and as I got close to the hole in the ground, there were a few just hovering around the hole. As I got closer , more came out and they started landing on me but couldn’t sting me. I took the gas and poured it in the hole and lit it at the same time trying to be quick. The gas ignited and in a millisecond had run up the gas can in my left hand. Now I have a fireball in my hand and freak out and sling the fireball about 10 yards into the yard and it eventually flames out after a few seconds.

I wish somebody would have videoed. That makeshift outfit looked like a cross between Jason Voorhees and The Elephant Man with the one eyed pillowcase. Can’t imagine what a neighbor would have thought if they saw me walking in the yard. And then the flaming fire ball being slung. I looked like a killer in a horror movie.