A massive swarm of killer bees killed a Texas farmer this weekend and injured two women who came to his aid.
According to NBC News , 62-year-old Larry Goodwin was driving his tractor on his property in central Texas Saturday when he ran into a pile of wood containing a massive hive of Africanized bees — better known as “killer bees” — causing the insects to attack.
After running into the hive with his tractor, Goodwin sprinted to a nearby house and tried to use a garden hose ward off the swarm.
His attempts, however, were unsuccessful as the aggressive insects attacked every inch of his body, covering it in stings.
Goodwin was pronounced dead at the scene.
His would-be rescuers — a woman and her daughter — were taken to hospital after being stung about 100 times.
The older woman is in a serious condition, authorities say.
Allen Miller, owner of Bee Be Gone, who later destroyed the bees, said as many as 40,000 were guarding 22 honeycombs in the giant hive.
“You can’t believe how bad they are,” Miller said of the Africanized bees, which are believed to have reached the United States in the 1990s. “They make me want to get out of this business.
“They can get up under your clothes where no other insect can go. In a hive of ordinary European bees, about 10 percent will attack if the hive is threatened, but with African bees, all of them attack you.”
Miller noted eight to ten stings per pound of body flesh is thought to be enough to kill a person.
The Texas AgriLife Extension Service reports that eight people have died as a result of bee stings from the hybrid bees since 1990.
Just two and a half months ago on March 15, emergency crews were called out after thousands of the bees swarmed inside a family’s home in Wichita Falls, Texas.
More on the fatal killer bee attack in Moody, Texas below: