Bees swarm, attack and kill 3 horses in Texas: 'They didn’t give up'

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Baillie Hillman knew something wasn't right.

In the cool spring morning, she had put three horses out on the fresh grass of her front yard. Now, instead of grazing, the horses were standing still, heads down – a large cloud of flies surrounding them.

"When she went outside, she realized it was actually bees," said Shane Stalnacker, administrative officer with the Comanche Volunteer Fire Department in Texas. The huge swarm was attacking.

Over the course of that morning on May 9, Hillman, her partner James Ramirez, firefighters from two counties, emergency medical technicians and veterinarians would fight to protect the horses from the bees, believed to be Africanized honey bees — known as killer bees.

Despite all their efforts, they would fail. All three horses succumbed to the attack and died.

When the yard was finally cleared of bees, thanks to Stalnacker's quick thinking and a bottle of Dawn dish soap, the cause was discovered. A tree at the edge of their property was infested with the bees. When it was cut down the next day, authorities discovered just how many bees they'd been dealing with.

"The hive was approximately seven feet long. There were millions of bees in there," said Stalnacker.

Hours of fighting the bees

When Hillman ran out to check on the horses, she immediately realized it was not flies but bees that were attacking them.

"They attacked me as soon as I got outside," said Hillman. "They were in my ears, my glasses, my hair," She went back inside to call first Ramirez and then 911.

The Comanche Volunteer Fire Department, local emergency services and sheriff's officers arrived to help, finding swarms of what they believe were Africanized honey bees in the area where the horses were standing.

"We haven’t had it confirmed that they were Africanized, but everyone’s saying they couldn’t imagine it being anything else due to their sheer numbers and their extremely aggressive behavior. They didn’t give up," said Hillman.

"We got assistance from the Guthrie Volunteer Fire Department, who brought bee suits," Stalnacker said. He also thought to ask them to bring some Dawn dishwashing soap so it could be mixed in with water to spray on the bees and the hive, to make them unable to fly.

The soap was added to the firetruck's water tank and the horses were sprayed with soapy water which killed the bees.

"The Comanche firefighters and Ramierez donned the bee suits and proceeded to do what they could to clear the bees that remained on the horses," he said. In the process, one of them kicked Ramirez but he continued working to save the animals.

The horses were finally moved away from the bees, but sustained tens of thousands of stings, many of them around the their eyes nostrils and mouths.

"Their bodies were covered in welts," said Hillman.

A local veterinarian and vet tech arrived to treat the horses but unfortunately, their injuries from the massive numbers of bee stings were too great and all three horses died.

“I just hope the story can get out there so people can be aware,” said Hillman. “You hear that the Africanized bees are here and that they’re around but you don’t realize what that means. If they can kill three horses, what could they do to kids or an elderly person that can’t run.”

"They just had tens of thousands of stings all over their bodies," Hillman said.

Rodeo horses died after attack

The three were all American quarter horses, nine-year-old Clovis, five-year-old Pepper and six-year-old Ace.

"James is a rodeo cowboy with the PRCA Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association. I compete as an amateur," said Hillman.

"Pepper was my up-and-coming carrel horse, Clovis was my team roping horse. Ace was James' up-and-coming calf roping horse," she said.

Clovis died in the couple's backyard within hours. "His head swelled up and we think he died of a seizure," she said.

Both Ace and Pepper made it to the veterinarian. Despite working on Ace for 45 minutes, they were unable to save her from massive seizures and eventually had to euthanize her.

Pepper's throat swelled up so much the veterinarian had to perform a tracheotomy so she could breath. But after a day, she too ended up having seizures and died.

An enormous but unsuspected hive

After some hours the authorities were able to work out what had happened. The grass in the front lawn had been allowed to grow uncut during the spring, for the horses, so the owners had not been out into the area to inspect it. Next door, the neighbors had just mowed their lawn early that morning.

"Bees are pretty dormant in the cool mornings, then when the temperature started to warm up, the bees came out and were upset and they found the horses and attacked them," said Stalnacker.

The hive was discovered in a tree just at the property line between the two houses.

A beekeeper who came to take down the hive told the couple he believed it might have been an existing honey bee hive that was taken over by killer bees. Known as usurpation, Africanized honey bees are known to do this, killing the resident queen.

Prior to the attack, Hillman said she'd never once been stung by a bee.

What are killer bees?

The bees are believed to be Africanized, a cross between local honey bees and African honey bees that first appeared in 1956, when a beekeeper in Brazil accidentally released 26 Tanzanian queen bees and their swarms into the wild.

The bees had been brought from Africa in an attempt to increase honey production. Once they escaped, they thrived.

While similar in appearance to common honey bees, the African bees are much more dangerous. They have a high tendency to swarm and exhibit highly defensive behavior, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

By the early 1990s Africanized bees began showing up in the southern United States and have now been found in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Invasive Species Information Center.

Killer bees have been seen in the area before, said Stalnacker.

"Last year an individual was clearing some land and disturbed a hollow tree that had bees in it and they went after him," he said. "They placed the gentleman in the back of a truck and they raced down the road – it was half a mile before the bees gave up."

(This story has been updated to add new information.)