Good Lord

Before I bought a cab bed tractor, I always wore a long sleeve shirt (thick cotton type Wrangler) and used one of those full pullover mosquito headnets you can find in the camping area at Walmart.

Bee hoods are available on several websites for around $20.

This one of the most terrifying threads I've ever read on the OB.

Those are some real life horror stories.

My neighbor was shredding some of his property that adjoins ours a few years ago. He said he hit what he thought was an old log on the ground and got swarmed. Luckily he had a cabbed tractor and just kept on driving.

About two years ago I was hooking up a tractor to a shredder that hadn't been used or moved in about a year or so. Had hell getting it hooked up and was down crawling all over the shredder to get everything set up and having to bang on stuff with a hammer because it had gotten seized up. Finally got it on and started up the shredder and was driving off when I noticed a lot of bees flying around. Drove on for a while before I shut it down, got off and looked up under the shredder from a distance. About 1/3 of the shredder underneath was covered with honeycomb with other huge piles of it on the ground where it had been sitting. Can't believe how lucky I was that they didn't swarm me when I started the tractor and shredder up.

I use this jacket now when working our hives. MUCH cooler than a normal suit & haven't had any bees get in even though it's a pretty open weave (there's multiple layers). Well worth the small investment.

Damn hardest funeral or funeral Mass I ever attended..... Boy was in my daughter's class... He was a surprise kid and much youger than his siblings... His death damn near killed his Mother.

Stop the tractor or excavator BEFORE you jump... I am sure it is hard in the heat of the moment, and especially for a kid, but practice it and go through it with someone prior to so maybe it will be somewhat familiar if the time ever comes, God forbid.

RIP Jason.

[url] http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/wall-boy-dies-after-bee-attack[/url]

I remember the thread we had on that. Always sad, happens too often, bees or no bees.

I always suggest a cab on any machinery you're going to to be running in any situation where you may encounter bees.

Follow up Article

On a related note I see bees swarming the top of one of the column at my front porch. Great.

Damn

Definitely a problem in the valley. Last week the former police chief and mayor of La Joya took a pretty good beating out at his ranch.

Story goes he was running a shredder and there was a swarm in an old bbq pit casing. Made it back to his truck and was near passing out when his son in law who was headed over to help saw him on the road.

Apparently the chopper was fixing to head out but paramedics from McCook were able to respond. Heard he still looked real rough a few days later at the coffe shop.

Gotta be careful out there.

Had my share of bee encounters throughout my years:

As a young kid with my dad at a baseball game sitting on the bleachers. Nest of yellow jackets underneath that I unfortunately disturbed and was stung multiple times. At that point I found out I was allergic to them.

Grandmother and I went to the barn to feed the cows. She opened up the barn door and a bumble bee flew out and nailed me behind the ear!

I was raking a hay meadow on a Farmall B tractor with my younger cousin riding along on the left side axle housing. He started screaming and jumped off the tractor. I looked back an saw a huge black cloud heading our way...bumble bees. I jumped off the tractor with it still in gear and we both ran in opposite directions while the tractor proceeded on. They chased my cousin and I was able to stop the tractor before it hit a fence. He had multiple stings while I pulled a muscle in my bad bailing off the tractor.

My dad and I did customer work, bailing, combining, etc. for surrounding neighbors so I saw many a swarm of bumble bees over the years mainly in the meadows. Dad would always tell be to just rev up the tractor engine and keep on going!

Was four wheeling in my dad's pasture last year and discovered a swarm of bees in the junk pile. Turns out they took up residency in an old clothes dresser. Still there today.

Had a swarm of bees take up residency in a hand carved wooden table we have on our porch last year. The wood cracked and is hollow so they had a nice cozy place until I discovered they were not domestic bees. Sprayed them immediately.

Dad had a swarm in their walls of the house last year. Stucco wall that had a crack in the corner near the eave.
He tried several things to kill them to no avail until he tried malathon...worked great. They were so bad they were getting trapped between the windows and storm windows buzzing up a storm trying to find a way out.

They came back this year in their bedroom area walls. He was stung several times the other day but eventually wiped them out with malathon again. Mind you he's 83, so he was dang lucky this time. My sister said she must have vacuumed up a hundred dead ones in the carpet.

Had a swarm set up shop in our Pavestone retaining wall in the back yard a couple of years ago.

Had a swarm set up shop in a tree in the backyard by the creek. Was going to get a bee keeper retrieve them but a storm blew in the next day and knocked the tree down. The hive (about 5 layers) was exposed so they disappeared the next day. At the same time, found a swarm in the ground in the yard about 15 feet from the tree. Wiped them out with gasoline.

Just found another swarm in another tree about 5 feet from where the other tree was at. Going to try to get a bee keeper here to check them out.

Found out my next door neighbor was attacked by bees that were in a tree in his back yard a few years before we moved in. He's an elderly retired professor and was dang lucky he made it into his house before they did him in.

I love me some bees, especially for the honey and for my garden, but dang...these killer bees are out of control and extremely dangerous.

Run at top speed like a mofo. 700 yards ormore.

Even honey bees will attack when disturbed by mowers. My beehives are peaceful as all hell, but when I don my bee suit and make ONE PASS around them with my zero turn, they will ALL VACATE THE HIVES IN SECONDS. If you are within 50 feet of them when that happens, they will key in on the machine and they will follow. It also depends on time of year as well. During late late summer, if honey stores are low and nextar is in short supply, they will defend their hives with little agitation. It is a matter of life and death for them. Sometimes I can mow relatively close to them without a suit, and other times, even at great distances they will go out of their way to locate me and hit me a few times.