Aggressive loner bee?

General Bee Chat
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I keep walking outside my house and I get chased by one bee!! I want to apologize in advance for this being so long.

Here’s some context, I don’t own any hives although I have researched it, my uncle has beehives on his land but I live in an apartment community in good ol’ phoenix AZ!

I have had a fear of bees my entire life.But after being stung in 2021 by a scorpion and then being stung by a wasp in 2022, my fear of bees has been very minimal. Before the last six months, I have even been able to be in close approximity with bees and never have an issue. because for the most part, i’ve never had to deal with aggressive bees. I’ve had bees be curious, land on me, but never deliberately being chased.

In november, there was a hive removal on one of the townhouses down the road. I take the back road to pick up my kids from school.And I guess because it was cloudy outside, the bees were already agitated along with the hive removal. I remember hearing a really loud buzz over my head.Wondering what was going on?But continued walking. Suddenly I was stung on my face by a bee! a regular honeybee! When I look down at my arms, I saw that I was covered in more bees. I had my baby with me in a stroller.Which they seemed very uninterested in him, and continued to terrorize me. I got very lucky and someone was driving by soaw me Struggle and helped me. I made it to the school, but had a fear of walking home, so I gotta ride home even though I was so close to home. I just didn’t wanna deal with the bees again.

So in december, I was trying to gain my witts and walk by the area I had been attacked at originally ( the townhouse that got the hive removed ended up catching on fire, which I think is totally unrelated.But it’s weird that it happened Two days after) because the route to the kids school, I have to walk by to some degree. I didn’t want this one off incident to cause my bee phobia to get worse. Exposure therapy seemed like the only way!

I feel like the hive relocated somewhere even closer to my house, because now, every time I even walk out the front door there is a singular bee doing a really loud buzzing above my head and then will dive bomb me if I don’t go inside immediately. None of my kids get attacked in the same way, not even my spouse.It’s just me and I am not doing anything that I am aware of to upset the bee. It seems to be unprovoked, but does give me a warning buzz above my head.

Well, my birthday was on december 30. Everyone I talked to about this makes me feel like I am crazy.So I figured if I sat outside and didn’t move, then I would be okay. Within five minutes of being outside the bee, did the warning buzz and then dive bombed my face. I had to go inside. This has turned into a nightmare for me because I can’t even go a different way to get to my car.He finds me no matter what way I go. Is it possible that they remember me from the swarm? Could there be a hive near my house? I do not see any other bees.It’s just this one and I don’t know what to do.

Any advice is appreciated.

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Hi Amy, welcome to the forum.

I understand your plight. What I do if a single bee starts annoying me outside the door is allow it to chase me inside the house, which might sound irresponsible, however once the bee is inside, it wont take long for it to want to get back outside again. It will head for the closest window to try to get out, which is where it will remain until it runs out of steam, or gets killed. A simple, effective strategy.

It sounds to me like the bees have settled somewhere close to your house. Keep looking for signs of bees coming & going. Early morning is a good time to look up into the sky. They stand out in the early morning sunlight.

By doing the inside trick, you’ll soon know whether you have a loner or a nearby colony to deal with.

Good luck with that, cheers

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Hi Amy, welcome to the forum - although I’m sorry it’s not under more pleasant circumstances! Jeff’s advice will do the trick - I’ve shaken off many a persistent guard bee this way, and it works every time :ok_hand:

Another thought I have is that there are Africanized bees in your region. They are known to be much more defensive than ‘regular’ honey bees, so it might be worth talking to your local bee club about it to see what else would be recommended.

All in all, I am very glad the bees didn’t bother your baby that time, and I commend you for being so levelheaded in dealing with this! I think I would completely freak out if I had been stung by a scorpion :face_with_peeking_eye:

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