There was a deadly attack by killer bees over the weekend. The victim was a farmer from Roaring Creek who was overcome by a swarm of Africanized bees. Keith Swift has more.
Keith Swift Reporting,
These are five out of the swarm of killer bees which attacked and killed 77 year old Domingo Mendoza. The attack occurred on Saturday morning under this tree on his farm in Roaring Creek. His son Fidel Mendoza says that when he found his father around 11:30 on Saturday morning he was already dead.
Fidel Mendoza, Son of Deceased
“He was over there lying down with a red towel over his head. When I found him I hauled him and pulled him out because he had his head underneath some grass. When I picked up the man from where he was, I took off the towel from off his face, which he had wrapped around his face.
When I took off the towel from across his face, I noticed that ‘lone bees bite up di man in his face. And meanwhile I was taking off the towel, he had a lot of cold coming out through his nose and when I opened his mouth he
had blood in his mouth and thing. And when I checked his hands, his hands were blue, his ears mi done get blue already. So I had my cousin with me, he met halfway on the road and I told him to come and assist me.
So I took him out and I put him on the ground over here and I told him to reverse the vehicle and let’s try to get him out from here and take him to the hospital as fast as possible but when we took him to the hospital it was already too late. He was done dead already.”
Fidel says that Saturday morning his father was on the farm spraying gramaxzone to kill grass. Tragically, Domingo Mendoza didn’t know that there was a swarm of killer bees in this bri bri tree above him.
Fidel Mendoza,
“The man was spraying in this area here. He sprayed his first can of poison. When he finished the first can he mixed the second can and while mixing the second can he came out and the bees looked like they decide they
are going to attack him. He put down the tank of poison, got into the vehicle, rolled up the two back glass, rolled up the passenger glass at the front, started the vehicle and tried to reverse coming out.
But when he reversed coming out, the bees flocked him in the face and were biting him. So he took a towel from how I see it, he took his towel and he wrapped it around his face. But meanwhile he was reversing out, the amount of venom which was already in him got him weak and so the vehicle shut down on him and he decided to come out of the vehicle. Then he came out of the vehicle and he stumbled on a log.”
This is that log that Domingo fell over. Today when we visited the Mendoza farm, the bees were still swarming around the tree. If you look closely enough you can see. They may look small and harmless but in swarms they are deadly. In fact while we were with Fidel, he got stung on his face and his forehead became swollen.
Fidel Mendoza,
“The bees live in a hole in the tree. If you want you can turn the camera to the bees right there. See them right over there.”
Keith Swift,
“So he was attacked because he was spraying the poison on the grass?”
Fidel Mendoza,
“Yes, probably it seems that the scent that the poison let go, the first can which it sprayed, the first half can, he released it and it has a funny scent and to me it got to the bees and so the bees came out and then they attacked the man.”
It is a difficult loss for the family of this senior but active farmer.
Fidel Mendoza,
“It is really a shock for we to understand how the man dead because the man is not a man who suffer from no kind of sickness and thing. The only thing the man had was his arthritis pain and the man is a man who doesn’t give up. The man even had his crotch-stick which he walks with. His arthritis could di hambug he but he still wouldn’t give up. He would still come here with his crotch-stick and he would chop. He has his bucket which he sits on. When he is tired he would rest and sit down on that bucket and relax a little bit and get up and chop again because he always tell you that the way how his parents bring him up, that is the way how he survived and that is the way how he bring up his pickney them. He raised all of we on the farm and thing and ih really rough for we mein. Up to yet I still can’t believe that the man dead and thing but I have to accept it.”
Reporting for 7News, Keith Swift.
The bees that are on the Mendoza farm are reportedly from a swarm that came from Guatemala. The Mendoza’s have basically been told by the ministry of agriculture that they’ll have to get rid of the bees themselves because the tree is too high. So Fidel Mendoza says they plan to burn down the tree. They plan to do it at night which is when bees reportedly have a problem seeing.
It is of note that Africanized bees are known to be aggressive and defensive. Typically, they attack perceived threats and they do so in large numbers which might explain Saturday morning’s unfortunate and deadly attack.
