Two dogs died after been attacked by thousands of killer bees, also known as Africanised bees, in Texas. The highly unusual attack took place last week in McAllen, according to Fox News. The outlet said that city officials received a call on Thursday morning about an incident at the empty house. When they reached the spot, the owner of the house did not allow them to extricate the hive. So, the officials obtained a warrant to get inside and remove it.
Local television channel KSAT quoted the officials as saying that this was unusual behaviour for the bees that are usually not aggressive unless threatened or provoked.
"Typically Africanised bees have a memory of three days. So when they get disturbed by someone using a lawn mower or some loud noise, they are going to be on high alert for three days," it quoted Devon Johnston from bee removal service R9 Hive & Honey as saying.
Ms Johnson further said she believes the bees were agitated by someone who ran off near the two dogs.
The dogs, who were in a fenced patio, then became the target of the bees' stings, she added.
"The dog's owner took me into the residence where the dogs were and there were hundreds of dead bees in the patio. He had sliding glass doors and there were muddy paw prints and even a little bit of blood from where the dogs were desperately trying to get into the house," the bee removal expert told the local outlet.
Fox News said that Africanised honey bee is a cross-breed between the European honey bee and the African honey bee. They were created in experiments in Brazil decades ago, and migrated to the US.
The outlet further said that these bees are on guard constantly for possible threats to their hive, and even find the colour of a shirt or scent of cologne as threatening.
