Africanized Honeybees Kill Arizona Woman

MESA, Ariz. —  Hundreds of Africanized honeybees swarmed from the wall of a vacant house and stung an 88-year-old woman so many times that virtually every exposed area of her body was covered with stingers.

Mary Williams of Apache Junction died on Tuesday, four days after a neighbor found her lying in the street, covered with bees.

The bees swarmed from an 8-by-13-foot hive and attacked Williams as she walked home from her sister’s house near Mesa, about 35 miles east of Phoenix.

The neighbor who found Williams called 911 and threw a blanket over her.

Firefighters used water to wash the bees off Williams, then sprayed them with foam to suffocate them. They also sprayed foam on the hive.

Dr. Bob Laney, who treated Williams at Valley Lutheran Hospital in Mesa, said: “There were many bees that were still in her hair, many live bees that we picked out of her hair.”

Others said she had been stung inside her mouth and nose as well.

At the hospital, a nurse used a plastic card to flick the stingers out of Williams’ skin. A relative said the stingers littered the floor like cigarette ashes.

Williams was the state’s first person killed by the Africanized bees, which first appeared in Arizona in 1993. It was the third U.S. death blamed on the hybrid bees since they entered the country in 1990, officials said.

Agriculture officials say the Africanized honey bees, who sting once before dying, began migrating to Arizona in 1993. They reach from Nogales on the Mexican border to Parker on central Arizona’s western border with California.

A number of animals have died in Arizona as a result of stings by the Africanized bees.

The bees generally attack only when they are disturbed. It was not immediately clear whether Williams had disturbed the hive.