Angry bees closed two popular hiking trails in Arizona on Tuesday after attacking eight hikers, sending one to the hospital. The incident occurred on Camelback Mountain northeast of downtown Phoenix. At 9:15 a.m. on May 19, the Phoenix Fire Department (PFD) received a call from a hiker who had been attacked and stung by bees. As more calls started coming in from other hikers, the firefighters upgraded their response to a “greater alarm mountain rescue” and dispatched a team to the scene.
“Units were immediately sent to both the Cholla and Echo Canyon trails, with our drone and the Phoenix Police Department FireBird helicopter providing aerial reconnaissance to locate anyone in need,” the Phoenix Fire Department wrote in a Facebook post about the incident.
Both technical rescue teams and firefighters began hiking the trails in search of bee sting victims. In total, they found and treated eight hikers, one of whom required further evaluation and was taken to the hospital.
The city of Phoenix closed both the Cholla and Echo Canyon trails for the remainder of the day on Tuesday. They reopened on Wednesday morning.
This is not the first serious bee incident Arizona has seen this spring. In April, a hiker was hospitalized after Africanized honey bees attacked and stung them more than 100 times.
Arizona’s Africanized Honey Bees: More Aggressive & Dangerous
All bees in Arizona are Africanized honey bees (sometimes called “killer bees”). While their venom is almost identical to that of European bees, Africanized honey bees are far more aggressive. They react to disturbances or threats 10 times faster and swarm their targets by the hundreds and even thousands. They also pursue victims much further — up to 400 m (or more than 1,300 feet).
According to a Tech Tips sheet for U.S. Forest Service (USFS) workers who might be exposed to these bees, “Africanized honey bees were accidentally released from a research laboratory in Brazil in 1956. They crossbred with more docile European honey bees (Apis mellifera) and began to migrate north. In 1990 they reached the southern United States.”
The Tech Tips sheet recommends keeping your distance from hives, wearing appropriate clothing while hiking, being careful while operating machinery that causes vibrations or disturbances, and keeping dogs on a leash at all times.
If you’re attacked, the instructions are very clear: “Run away!” it reads. And “Keep running!”
“Do not swat at the bees or flail your arms,” the instructions read. “Bees are attracted to movement. Crushed bees emit a smell that will attract and anger more bees.”
More information about Africanized honey bees and what to do if you encounter them can be found on the U.S. Department of Agriculture website.
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