A swarm of as many as 800,000 bees attacked landscapers in Douglas, Arizona, this week, killing one man and injuring three others.
A 32-year-old man, who was not identified, went into cardiac arrest during the Wednesday attack, and was treated at the scene by paramedics before being taken to
Cochise Regional Hospital, the Arizona Daily Star reported. Capt. Ray Luzania, of the Douglas Fire Department, told the newspaper that the man later died.
Luzania said the men got the landscaping job through Douglas ARC, which helps people with developmental disabilities find work. They were mowing the lawn and weeding for a 90-year-old homeowner when they were attacked by a swarm of Africanized bees that had built a 3-by-8-foot nest
up near the attic, according to USA Today.
Authorities said one of the men was stung more than 100 times by bees, but was treated and later released from the hospital.
It's not clear exactly how many bees attacked the landscapers but the hive contained between 300,000 and 800,000 of the insects, Luzania said.
Jesus Corella with Southwest Exterminating told KOLD-TV that the he was able to take apart the large hive with the help of firefighters, using a foam pesticide to quell and kill the bees.
"It was massive," Corella said, estimating it to be at least 10 years old. "I mean it was probably a good two feet wide by six feet long, stuck right in the rafters of the eaves, in between the ceiling and attic, I guess. [It was] old honeycomb, brownish and colored."
Douglas Fire chief Mario Novoa told the television station that the honeycomb had become so compressed that it outgrew the hive and the bees had begun building a new hive a short distance away.
The bees were "very aggressive" in protecting their home, Corella said.
"They were already dropping down at me even before I started approaching it. That was before I started spraying, [then] they were dive bombing me and that's a sign to back off, back way off."
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