DEADLY African bees have moved into a house on Croal Street here in the city and attacked one of its residents, stinging him on the lip as he opened his door Monday night.

The man told the Guyana Chronicle Tuesday that he’d observed the insects over two months ago, but had never expected them to attack since they never did while they lived at the premises for a period of time in the past.

“Is over two months I notice these things, but I didn’t realise that is the African bees,” he explained.

They seem to be especially attracted to the lights on the inside and outside of his home at nights. The man said he heard the persistent buzzing of the swarm while in bed sometime last night, and realized the bees were attracted by the lights in his home.

He opened his front door and immediately one of the bees stung his lip. He quickly observed a swarm of the African bees dancing around the light just above his front door on the outside.

“I had to creep on the floor and get back inside the bedroom,” he said.

When the Guyana Chronicle visited the residence Tuesday, two women were going about their normal duties in the compound. The front door to his home was opened and while about seven of the bees seemed asleep on a wall over the door, the man’s helper was ironing clothes nearby inside of the house. A woman who lives in another apartment in the building was washing carpets in the back of the yard.

Some of the bees were seen zooming in a crisscross over the compound as the sun shone brilliantly ahead. Some made their way in and out of their nest through a crease by a wall outside of the house and yet more of the small black and yellow bees settled on a wall outside the home while some which appeared dead or half-dead were scattered in the yard.

Meanwhile, Acting Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) Michael Welch, he said the bees are not “killer bees” as they are branded in certain movies, but are defensive and only attack if they feel someone is too close to their hive and a threat to their family.

The bees lay large numbers of eggs and thousands live in a single hive, and are very defensive. He said if someone comes into contact with African bees they will attack, but not without warning.

“If you come into contact with a hive of honeybees – they set up what you call scouts – they will come and bump you. Bumping is to tell you ‘wait a minute you’re coming into my zone. If you come any further, I have no alternative but to defend my turf’,” Welch told the Guyana Chronicle in an interview yesterday.

He said some people are unaware that they are being bumped or the reason the bee or bees attack them in that way, and are violently attacked, even killed, for lack of knowledge.

“If you know why you’re being bumped you will take action that will take you out of that zone, the fright zone, and as a consequence you will not have problems with the bees,” he explained.

He said the African bees are the most aggressive of bees in the world and are easily agitated by noise and the aroma of certain chemicals, and if a person attacks one, it has ways of calling in reinforcement.

“The noise agitates them and then they will come and attack. The carbon monoxide… once they smell that they will attack. If you have highly scented cologne and you come into a certain distance of the hive of the bees, they will respond, because the bees are very very aggressive when it comes to defending their territories. If you spray one of the bees with Baygon, if you kill one and they send out this signal that distress signal, then they send for reinforcement … they come by hundreds, thousands, to defend their territory,” he pointed out.

The best way to deal with such bees is to go far away from their habitation.

“Half a mile, quarter mile, you move from where they are – from the fright zone – and they will no longer do you anything,” he said.