Africanized Swarm Blamed in Attack on Desert Beekeeper

A swarm of apparent killer bees attacked a San Bernardino County beekeeper, stinging him more than 100 times.

Beekeeper Billy Decker was moving a beehive Thursday at his ranch in Newberry Springs, a Mojave Desert town about 15 miles east of Barstow, when a swarm of bees emerged and attacked him.

Decker, wearing a veil to protect his face, tried to fight them off with a tree branch.

“I decided I would kill them, but I couldn’t,” Decker said. “They were just too aggressive.”

He and his wife ran into their house, where they remained for several hours as the bees continued to hover around the windows.

Decker said he suffered swollen wrists from the stings.

Firefighters were called to kill the bees. Newberry Springs volunteer Fire Chief Thomas Stickley said it took 1,700 gallons of foam to do the job.

County officials last week confirmed that aggressive Africanized honeybees, popularly dubbed killer bees, were in one of Decker’s beehives. However, Decker said he thought authorities had gotten rid of all of them.

Africanized bees have been blamed for more than 1,000 human deaths since 1956, when a colony escaped from a laboratory in Brazil.

Three people in Texas have been killed by Africanized bees since the insects entered the U.S. in 1991, federal agriculture statistics show. Fewer than a dozen people have been stung since the bees began moving into Southern California.

Bee expert Simon Sharf said people should be prepared for the bees to move farther north.