RivCo Dog Stung By Hundreds Of Bees After Hive Removal Goes Wrong

LAKE MATHEWS, CA — Chance, the dog who was attacked by a bee swarm and stung hundreds of times last week in the backyard of his Lake Mathews home, has died, ABC7 has reported.

The dog was taken to the emergency vet after it was severely stung. Over 700 stingers had been removed from his body.

The fatal bee attack occurred last week when resident Thomas Baker was attempting to take down a bee hive on his property by himself while replacing a stretch of the backyard fence. According to a report by Fox11, Baker had the bee suit, and the equipment he thought he needed to remove a hive on his own, but the project quickly went wrong. He fled in a golf cart to escape the agitated bees, and they swarmed the neighbor's yard. The bees focused their swarm on Chance, the 2-year-old Rottweiler pit bull mix, according to a GoFundMe page set up to cover veterinary care.

That fundraiser was disabled Monday morning after topping $10,000.

Owner Bryan Engen talked to reporters from Fox11 before the dog died, and was moved to tears. "He's a loveable dog," he said, voice ragged with emotion. "He's always been just a happy-go-lucky dog. He's part of our family."

Chance was being kept comfortable, his owner Brittany Engen shared in a message over the fundraiser site.

"As any animal lover knows, they aren't just animals, they are family," she wrote, adding that the donations are making it possible to continue fighting for his life. "10,000 thank you's to all and to our INCREDIBLE friends who started this movement to help with the expenses."

Could the bee swarm have been avoided?

According to a report on Fox11, the Baker family reached out for help with bee removal, but after no responses, they decided to move the hive themselves after "looking up how to do it."

"I saw how big [the hive] was. It was very surprising to me. That was not what I expected when I opened it up," Baker told Fox11 reporters. " How agitated they were was not like anything I had ever seen before." Disturbed, the bees set to swarming, as bees will, according to Wildlife Removal Services expert Eric Voigt.

He spoke with Patch in a phone conversation focusing on humane bee removal in Southern California. Though Youtube videos detailing bee removal exist, Voigt said this sort of hive removal is best left to professionals.

"The danger of removing bee hives is each hive contains between 5,000 to 50,000 bees," Voigt said. "Just 50 stings could kill someone. Most people don't have the equipment or know-how to deal with bees in the area."

Wildlife Removal Services has been in business since 2008, focusing on humane animal removal and bee removal in San Diego County, Riverside County, and Orange County.

"The majority of bees in the area are hybrid bees," he said. According to Voigt, you can tell whether the bees are hybridized or Africanized based on the aggressiveness of the bees when you get into the honeycomb.

"Africanized bees are more sporadic with the way they build their hives," he said. The inside of honeybee hives is linear. "Africanized bees just make more bees. They are brooding hives, and they just hatch the new bees. There's no way to tell what kind of bee is which anymore just by looking."

Still, removal experts like Voigt do try and save bees whenever possible. The character of the worker bees can be changed by reintroducing a new queen. "It can change the course of the hive," he said.