He Picked Up a Bag of Soil, Was Killed by Swarm of Bees – IOTW Report

He Picked Up a Bag of Soil, Was Killed by Swarm of Bees

Thursday, 21 September 2023, 19:15 BFH Uncategorized 25

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A cautionary tale for gardeners: Authorities in Kentucky say a swarm of bees killed a man who picked up a bag of soil on his porch, reports the Courier-Journal. Michael Alford, 59, of Dizney inadvertently disturbed a colony that had set up shop within the bag, per the Washington Post. His family administered CPR until an ambulance arrived, but Alford was pronounced dead at the hospital. It wasn’t clear whether he was allergic to bees. “The male subject was moving an old bag of potting soil from his porch when he was stung by a swarm of bees from inside the bag,” says the coroner’s office in a Facebook post.

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25 Comments on He Picked Up a Bag of Soil, Was Killed by Swarm of Bees

  4. …they declared him at the hospita, which is not uncommon because in many jurisdictions an MD has to make the declaration; but both the squad and the hospital should have been able to counter anaphylaxis, especially in a witnessed arrest with CPR quickly initiated, unless there was some time lapse before discovery, the ambulance took too long, or the man had some other factor working against him like he inhaled some of the insects.

    If it WAS bees, each can only hit you once.

    If it was yellow jackets, more likely because they ground nest, they can hit you again and again, which seems more likely.

    So the takeaway here is “let the wife do her own darn gardening”?

    Not sure what other caution we are to draw from a cautionary tale like this…

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  5. This is a bad article and blames bees not yellowjackets, wasps, hornets and other such stinging insects which have bad dispositions.

    Honeybees are not that aggressive and the Africanized honeybees don’t like cold weather so they are staying in the southern portions of the US.

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  6. About 20 years ago, my wife and the next door neighbor lady were out on the sidewalk in front of our houses watch to the moron across the street try to throw a bucket of bleach and water on a swarm of bees in his yard. Although I was farther back in my driveway in the process of doing an electronics upgrade on my boat one little lone rogue bee flew across the street and past the women and up to where I was in the cockpit of my boat and the little bastard STUNG ME ON THE FOREHEAD FOR NO FUCKING REASON WHAT SO EVER! I was over 50 yards away and wasn’t a threat…but he thought it would be a good idea to give me a FUCK YOU STING!

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  7. Take home message – buy the soil and use the soil. I have picked up bags of mulch, etc. that have been colonized by thousands of ants before. Not too bad as they weren’t fire ants or similar. Made me realize that storing stuff like that outside was only asking for trouble.

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  8. Had the same little bastards get under the siding of my house back in the patio.

    Didn’t mess with them – called the professionals and a week later they had all crossed the rainbow bridge.

    Hate them almost as bad as snakes.

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  14. About three weeks ago…

    Gravel area between the walk and house with a storage box (small) and recycle bin on top of that. Thought I noticed the yellow jackets and decided to move the recycle bin and then the storage bin to deal with the nest in the ground later that night.

    Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

    Put the storage container down about four feet from where it was and got swarmed. Face and left hand seven stings. Sprayed the crap out of the depression under the box and later that night (still too warm) thought I’d kick the box over on its side to discover a large nest attached to the bottom. Ditched the project to seek safe haven in the house and brought some in the house with me to get two more stings in the exact same places.

    Following day sprayed the crap out of the nest, dismantled it, kept spraying. Five layers in the nest which accounted for the depression in the ground under where the box was.

    Hate Yellow Jackets and have had a number of other run-ins with them and always killed them off with sometimes paying a price. As a kid there was a metal can like a car polish size that If memory serves called Cyno Gas or pellets or powder. Was cyanide based and that shit WORKED. Tablespoon dumped into the ground nest and nothing escaped and all returning dropped when they got about four the five inches above the nest.

    Unfortunately some people must have screwed up using it cause they took it off the market.

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  15. twice, we have had yellowjackets nesting in the attic….in the oldentimes, i could hear them chewing through the drywall ceilings into the upstairs…..the first time, i didn’t realize what i was hearing, and when they broke through into the upstairs bathroom, we had a real fun time, what with kids in beds and all…closed doors to isolate them, but still, i ended up getting multiple stings, which was bad, since i am deathly allergic…..luckily, my doctor understood that, and i had enough prednisone on hand to stave off disaster…..can’t do that now, the new doctor doesn’t believe in taking my word for it…..what a surprise….

    next time, i heard the little buggers and called the exterminator….they never got into the downstairs…..

    meanwhile, the new doctor still doesn’t understand that I KNOW WHEN I HAVE AN EAR INFECTION, I AM SEVENTY YEARS OLD AFTER ALL….

    no can’t get antibiotics from her even if i come in….she don’t like antibots….

    hello canadian pharmacy…?

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  17. Doc that is one of your funniest comments ever, and yes I have been bit by those bastards many times.
    The worst was going over a nest with a weed eater on a steep slope 21 stings and then hit another one later in the day in a rockery 9 more stings, what a day.

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  18. I always try to make friends with yellow jackets. Let them see me often. Let them have free access to my dinner plate, etc. (like I’m going to stop them!). However, they never forgive my presence when painting, for some reason. Hell, the paint smells good to me. Don’t know what THEIR problem is. 😁

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  20. My doofus fuzzy bear loves to eat flying bugs, especially bees, chomping them like an alligator. Never had a yellow jacket issue here but those European ground hornets are 5 inch horror shows.

    I live in fear of a sting to her tounge but for some reason (God, I suspect) she has never been stung there. Still has a sting scar under her snozzer though…

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  21. Had a nest of yellowjackets under a bush beside the back sidewalk where every time you walked past it you got hit. I waited until night and covered the bush with clear plastic taped to the house. Then I sprayed wasp killer into the base othe bush. All it did was piss ’em off – the massive buzzing of pissed off Yellowjackets could be heard 10 feet away and it did not subside. Thought about it for a few minutes and got out a can of laquer thinner. poured some into a tupperware container and dumped it in thinking that it it kills the bush, so be it. Checked it in the morning – no activity. Took the plasic off and left it. Jackets dead and gone. Laquer thinner work immediately. The interesting thing is it didn’t bother the bush at all!
    Since then I’ve used that techique a few times. Pour it in the nest and the little bastards are dead right now!

  23. They sell a product called Demon WP. It is a pouch with little bags of powder that dissolve in water. Put two in a garden sprayer with 1.5 gallons of water and spray everything. That stuff literally melts June bugs and everything else overnight. A quick spray into a fire ant bed and they are history.

  25. Doesn’t matter what the cause of cardiac arrest is…if it happens outside of a hospital your odds of survival are not good. In some cases less than 10%. In others 50-50 at best, depending on the cause.

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