Men Hospitalized After PURPOSELY Driving Into Beekeeper's Yard

[matcom]

<snip>

LAKE COUNTY, Fla. -- Deputies said some young men chose the wrong place to vandalize. They drove right into beehive colonies to see what would happen and the result was what you might expect. Several of them were taken to the hospital.

"By throwing it off, the bees got all stirred up and come up in the air after 'em," explained beekeeper David Miksa. "It's very upsetting. We have a lot of work to re-do, to fix up the hives."

Two boxes make up a colony, with 25,000 to 30,000 bees in each one. So it's not the best idea to drive into them and see what happens. But Miksa said teenagers usually try it at least once a year.

"There's no excuse to be near the bee yard that close," Miksa said.

The bee yard is hidden away inside acres of orange groves. But deputies say 18-year old Adam Tyson, 20-year-old Jason Krueger and two younger teens found them anyway, backing their truck right in. But then their truck got stuck in the sand and they had to call 911 when hundreds of thousands of bees started swarming.

"A lot of 'em were probably just trying to get back to their home and their home was mashed all over the ground," Miksa explained.

All of the boys were stung. At least two went to South Lake Hospital for treatment. Miksa said, with millions of bees in his hives, the boys could have been killed.

"I don't want to see anybody get stung up bad and I think it's a lesson to be learned by anybody who wants to try to mess around with beehives that the possibility of being hurt is definitely there," Miksa said.

The trespassing charges the four already face are sort of like traffic tickets, but deputies said they could also face a more serious charge of criminal mischief for disturbing the hives.

Miksa said the damage to his hives could cost him up to $5,000. Many of the bees were queens that were disturbed in the middle of the mating season.

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/4724597/detail.html

[Spinzonner]

1. Do you really have to drone on about this stuff ?

[RPM]

2. good god

i had a multistate bar exam review question on similar facts yesterday...

[NuttyFluffers]

3. bees don't mess around in crime and punishment do they?

"destroy my home will you! feel my wrath! NOW!" -- with love, deadly swarm of bees

the part that got me was,"Two boxes make up a colony, with 25,000 to 30,000 bees in each one. So it's not the best idea to drive into them and see what happens. But Miksa said teenagers usually try it at least once a year." Once a year? Is there really nothing else to do than molest tempermental stinging insects?

if only we could harness the power of bees to punish bad republican behavior.... O8)

[hobbit709]

4. TSTL

Too Stupid To Live. If you haven't learned at an early age not to mess with a bee, much less several hives worth, then there's no hope for you.

[pinniped]

5. Those dummies must have seen the honey badgers on tv and...

tried to emulate them. They did, honey badgers also get stung!