Bees sting man '1 000 times'
2006-10-27 09:12
Pretoria - A bee-keeper from Randfontein on the West Rand was stung "almost a thousand times" and also broke his left ankle when he attempted to remove a bees nest from the chimney of a local primary school.
Gerrie de Lange, 52, was approached by Randfontein primary school on Monday morning when staff members realised that a swarm of angry bees had made their home in a school chimney.
The principal, Frik van den Berg, said on Thursday that one of the gardeners at the school was first attacked by the bees.
"They were mowing the lawn and probably disturbed the bees. When we realised the bees had become agitated, we closed the windows of all classrooms to protect the children.
"We then contacted the municipality, the emergency services and the fire brigade for help but all of them said they did not remove bees," Van den Berg said.
Gap in uniform
Someone at the school then recommended De Lange.
"He climbed onto the roof at about 11:30, covered from head to toe in his apiarist outfit, and intended throwing poisonous pills down the chimney but some of the bees managed to find a gap in his uniform and started stinging him.
"The ladder had fallen over and we indicated that he should move to a section of the roof where he could jump off."
He fell awkwardly, breaking his left ankle and spraining the other.
De Lange was taken to the Robinson hospital in Randfontein.
He said Thursday, where he was waiting for surgery on his ankle, that he counted some of the bee stings and calculated that he must have received about a thousand.
"The swelling has gone down now and I'm okay. If any of the children been stung so many times, it could have been fatal," he said.
According to De Lange the hot weather contributed to the bees' aggression.
"In such warm weather the honeycombs start melting and the bees then think they're being attacked," he said.
The nest has since been removed.