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- An East Side neighborhood found itself
under siege Monday by a swarm of angry bees that stung several residents
" one many times " and left three dogs near death.
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- The attack was the worst in a busy weekend
for the Metropolitan Health District's vector control unit, which responded
Saturday alone to about eight calls throughout the city for bee swarms.
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- A homeowner in the 100 block of Quinta
Road called the San Antonio Fire Department on Monday afternoon after thousands
of bees attacked her pit bull, Fire Department Capt. Chris Steele said.
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- Firefighters donned protective gear to
rescue that pit bull and another, one of which was tied in the homeowner's
back yard, he said.
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- The owner of the home, Tony Muñoz,
had started a small fire in his back yard to smoke out the bees, which
fire crews extinguished, Firefighter Brian Jaks said.
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- In the process, Muñoz himself
was stung as many as 30 times under the chin, in the nose and on the head.
He was treated by EMS at the scene.
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- The swarm ranged hundreds of yards from
Muñoz's back yard, and bees pursued and stung neighbors and onlookers
a block over on Pecan Valley Drive. Two or three were treated by EMS.
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- "I think I saw my friend down the
block, he got it pretty bad," Muñoz said.
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- A handful of dogs were attacked, and
three were feared dead. Jaks said he didn't have much hope that Muñoz's
pit bulls, Rocco and Milo, would survive. Another dog attacked near a coin
laundry on Pecan Valley also was said to be close to death.
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- Police used loudspeakers to keep cyclists
and pedestrians off of parts of Quinta Road and Pecan Valley Drive. Residents
were warned to stay inside their homes and protect their pets.
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- A city vector control worker, Joe Alaniz,
couldn't find a bee colony or swarm after checking several homes on Quinta
Road. Alaniz said he would return later Monday evening when it was cooler.
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- He said the aggressive behavior was typical
of Africanized bees, which have appeared with more frequency in Southern
states.
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- "The bees are all the way on the
other block," he said. "That's normally the way the Africanized
bees are. Africanized bees can follow you all the way for 400 yards."
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- Alaniz said vector control had not yet
determined whether any of the bee swarms encountered in recent weeks were
Africanized bees.
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- The division is waiting for results from
a bee specimen collected from Chloe Road on the Far East Side, where a
pit bull was stung to death last week.
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