science · 11 September 1999 · 25 years ago
In 1999, the death of an 83-year-old man stung by a swarm of Africanized “killer” bees marked the first fatality by that cause in the state of California (USA). The victim, Virgil Foster, was a bee-keeper, who was mowing his lawn in Los Angeles County on 31 Aug 1999. He was stung at least 50 times by the highly aggressive bees, receiving a high dose of toxins. He was not breathing when paramedics arrived, and then went into cardiac arrest. For two weeks he was kept alive on a respirator. Foster's three hives had been taken over by wild Africanized honeybees. Originally hybridized in Brazil in the 1950s, the killer bees had migrated north through Mexico. They were first seen in the U.S. in Texas on 15 Oct 1990. Before spreading into California, killer bee attacks had already caused fseveral deaths in other U.S. states.
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