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Bees Attack Neighborhood

Residents Stung; Car Crash Reported

POSTED: 8:24 am EDT June 25, 2008
UPDATED: 8:33 am EDT June 25, 2008

A Marblehead neighborhood was attacked Sunday by a swarm of thousands of escaped honey bees that stung several residents, a pet dog and caused a minor car crash.

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“These little bees that you think you can get away from, you can’t. They chase you pretty good,” said Christopher Hood who was stung 10 or 15 times. “I was running around the yard trying to get away from them, thinking I was going away when actually I was getting closer.”

The bees escaped from the home of a beekeeper Paul Price on Rockaway Avenue. Price said that the bees had lately seemed agitated and he was preparing them for a move to Essex.

“We put a strip of mesh screen in to cover the hole. When we were loading it in the truck, I don’t quite know how it got dislodged and suddenly we were getting bees pouring out,” Price said.

“I just couldn’t see, they were everywhere,” said Hood.

“It was bizarre, I had never seen bees act the way those bees did. They were pounding the storm door when we’d go in and out, said neighbor Erin Browning.

Danvers beekeeper Frank Herschede said try to put yourself in the position of the bees who were lost and realized their nest was gone.

“How would you feel if someone came into your house at night and grabbed you and threw you in the back of a pickup truck. You’d fight for your life, too,” Herschede said.

One woman told the Salem News that her husband hit a stone wall after he lost control of his truck when the bees got inside his vehicle.

The couple's pet dog was stung about 100 times.

Police officers who arrived had to retreat from the bees.

Residents stayed inside until dark when the swarm finally gathered at Price's home. Most have been moved to their new home in Essex.

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