Bees swarmed a man in the backyard of his Houston home on Thursday, killing his dog, according to KHOU-11.
Manuel Rodriguez Sr. was mowing the backyard of his son when the bee swarm attacked him and a dog, which was tied up in the back.
“Ace was tied up here and he was over here,” his son, Manuel Jr., told the station. “He heard him barking so he brought him some water. He heard him barking and yelping again and he saw the bees.”
The trees emerged from an oak tree.
Manuel Jr., added: "I mean -- I had seen a couple before but I didn’t think it was anything to this extent.”
Isaac, the grandson, said, “I loved that dog. I was thinking ‘man I didn’t want Ace to die like this.’”
Manuel Sr. was stung a number of times and was taken to the hospital. He is expected to be released on Friday.
Claude Griffin with Gotcha Pest Control, who looked at the tree, said there were 15 feet worth of bees inside the oak tree.
“The case is you have some African bees and some honey bees,” Griffin told the station. “They are fighting over who’s going to live in this house.”
He said there are likely hundreds of thousands of bees inside the tree, and officials told neighbors to keep windows closed and pets inside when they go to work.
Last week, a couple in North Texas were attacked as they were exercising their miniature horses.
The horses were killed in the attack. Officials believed they were “killer” Africanized honey bees.
“They were chasing us down, they were following us,” Kristen Beauregard said of the incident last Wednesday, according to AP. “We swept up piles and piles of them … it was like a bad movie.”
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