2 women critical after massive bee stings

Can you explain this to me? Is there any explanation? Two women were out for a walk when a swarm of bees attacked them and stung them repeatedly. The women are now in critical condition with over 100 stings. The article said something about the color of their clothes, but do you think that can really set the bees off? Did the color of the victim's clothes match that of the perp who was throwing rocks at the bee's hive? Hmmm...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ariz-women-critical-condition-hundreds-bee-stings/story?id=10149997

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

There is a better than good chance that they were attacked by Africanized bees.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I believe you are right.

From the OP link:

 

Why are African bees so aggressive?

 

The answer that Sandy would understand: God made them that way.
The real answer: They evolved in different conditions that favored agressive behavior.

 

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Duh. Like what kind of conditions?

 

Animals trying to steal their honey.

 

Ah, see, I could have looked that up but it was so much more rewarding having you explain it to me. Thank you.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

No problem. Anytime.

 

According to Al Sharpton, it's because their ancestors were oppressed by European bees.

 

From wiki:

 

The European honey bee is a semi-domesticated animal, the result of thousands of generations of selection - some deliberate, some accidental - by human beekeepers in an environment generally cleared of bears and other predators on honey stores.

 

I thought it was because they were from Africa. . . and, well. . . you know!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

~String

 

Bein from Africa equats to "Agressive".???

 

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Thanks. Interesting.

No, I don't. Do tell.

 

Yup -- just like fire ants. They're evil because they're from HELL

Actually, the killer-bee problem is one of the more famous invasive species stories (doesn't everybody and their grandmother already know about this??). It was some guy in Brazil that was cross breeding different types of bees, and some of them escaped. It's also listed in the wiki.

 

Luckily for humans, bees are on their way out.

 

In the realm of varieties of animal that in other places are domesticated, with regard to humans: yes.

There are poisonous snakes all over - some African ones will chase people.

Native African cattle (not the herded bovines back-imported from Asia) are some of the most dangerous animals on the planet, and encountering them in the wild is a life-threatening event.

African honey bees will attack, in swarm, people who have not even closely approached their hives, or molested them in any way.

African elephants, despite their superior intelligence and size and athleticism, are not found in circuses doing tricks very often, nor do Africans capture and train them for logging and other work - there's a reason for that.

The attempt to domesticate African ostriches in the US, despite the obvious commercial potential and on-paper can't-miss economics, has faded with the realization that they are real trouble on actual farms.

A variety of explanations have been offered for this pattern, the null hypothesis being it was just bad luck that not a single large domesticable draft or meat animal is found among the native fauna of Africa; my own and other people's suspicion is that in Africa people and large meat animals got to know each other early, before we had all the tricks figured out, and the surviving large meat animals have a genetic, evolutionarily fixed memory of what humans are up to and how best to react when you see one of them sneaking around.

 

Good queston... Sandy.!!!