HikeArizona.COM

Linda Vista Trail
http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/2222 ... king-trail

good heavens i was there this morning!!

Are these attacks always this common during this time of the year?

Just saw a brief post about the climber who died in Tucson last week. Definitely died of venom poisoning according to his autopsy. He rappelled right into the bee hive and never had a chance.

Still get a little nervous if I hear more than a couple of bees buzzing around me now.

Reminds me of "Day of the Animals," that low budget sci fi movie from 1977 about ma nature striking back for ozone depletion, etc. (the angry sun). The palo verdes and other shrubs/bushes are flowering right now and bee activity is in frenzy mode, so guess the risks go up too.

So how about instances where people get too close to bee hives and nothing happens? A few weeks back at Papago Park I walked directly under a bee hive and rubbed by and against some shrubs covered with bees. They showed no interest in me, and I ended up walking back by the same way. I didn't realize there was even a hive until scrambling around close by about 10 minutes later and looking back. By all recent warnings about bee aggressiveness, I should be dead. Should I consider myself lucky, or was it because I was moving slowly through their area and making no noise and posing no threat?

I'm no bee expert, but I ran across a hive of bees when I was grocery shopping. They had all swarmed onto a tree next to my car during the hour I was inside shopping. I was able to load my groceries without incidence. So I think that if you see a swarm on a tree, you might get lucky.

From my experience and from reading the account of the guy who died on Mt Hopkins it appears that the bees get aggressive once they have found permanent residence in a rock formation of some sort. When I got attacked on North Mountain I was about 15 yards away and saw the bees just pouring out of a small cave on the side of a cliff.

If the bees are out house shopping, they will leave you alone. But once they have found a home, will defend it to the death.