Dudleys Diary

he was working for the lawn service and he and a co worker were fertilizing the front yard of a house. A second crew from their service was mowing a yard three or four houses down. Frank said they heard someone screaming loudly and they looked down the street and saw one of their co workers running across the front of a house. They took off running that direction and saw the co worker fall to the ground and he appeared to be in serious distress and was continuing to scream. As they got within about thirty yards, Frank said they saw their co worker was being attacked by several hundred angry bumble bees. Frank said the bees then started to come after him and his co worker, they both quickly turned and ran away from the scene. Frank said they had to run for a great distance before the bees quit chasing them. Frank was lucky, he had taken his hat off and was swatting at the bees and he somehow managed to escape getting stung. His co worker was not so lucky, he got stung in the ear. They called 911 and an ambulance was dispatched. There were some guys working across the street for a landscaping company and they ran over and tried to beat away the swarm with plastic trash bags, and they threw some bags on top of the poor guy laying on the ground to try and keep the bees off of him. The poor guy was stung many many times by the angry bumble bees. They put him in the ambulance and treated him there at the scene. He was lucky, he did not have an allergic reaction to the stings. I bet he is going to be miserable for a few days. Frank's boss rushed down there and after things calmed down he went and got the homeowner and they went out into the back yard and found the bee colony. They were up in a tree for some reason. Bumble bees usually nest underground, my guess is they got disturbed somewhere else and flew into this guys yard and were looking for a new home. While they were out there, the homeowner got stung in the eye. I don't think they will be mowing that guys lawn until the bumble bees are removed. I guess he will have to call an exterminator to come get rid of them. Bumble bees are very protective of their nests. When Dudley used to use a tractor to plant cover crops for deer hunting, he and his father in law had to watch out for them when we were shredding the grass and weeds prior to plowing. If you disturbed one of those underground nests, the bees would chase you for a long distance. We carried wasp spray on the tractor and when we got into a nest, we would put the tractor in neutral and raise the shredder off of the ground and leave the PTO engaged so the blade would keep spinning, the bees would see the blade spinning at idle speed and would continue to attack it and give us a chance to make our escape.