WHEN BEES BECOME WEAPONS: Police Face Stinging Assaults
Nature’s buzzing insects have turned deadly against law enforcement officers in terrifying attacks across the globe.
Spanish Traffic Stop Turns Into Nightmare
The morning of May 30, 2025, started like any other routine day for two officers of the Mossos d’Esquadra along the N-II highway near Cervera, Spain. Their target: a van driver weaving erratically without wearing a seatbelt. What followed would haunt the officers for days to come.
The 70-year-old beekeeper behind the wheel immediately set a hostile tone, greeting the officers with the chilling words: “I should have run you over!” When officers detected the smell of alcohol and asked him to take a breathalyzer test, the man’s rage escalated. The first test showed he was over the legal limit, but when officers requested a second test to confirm the reading, the elderly man snapped.
“Now I’m going to kill you,” the beekeeper shouted before marching to the back of his van. He threw open the doors and unleashed hundreds of angry bees directly at the two officers. The insects immediately swarmed the unsuspecting police, who had no protective gear against such an unusual assault.
The officers fled toward a nearby restaurant, desperately seeking shelter from the relentless attack. Even the restaurant customers tried to help treat the numerous stings covering their bodies. Despite their efforts to escape, both officers required medical treatment at a health center for multiple bee stings. The stress and pain from the attack left them shaken and injured.
Los Angeles Volunteer’s Televised Horror
Thousands of miles away in Encino, California, another police officer faced a similar nightmare — but this time, it was caught on live television. Gary Knabenbauer, a 71-year-old volunteer with the Los Angeles Police Department who had served for 18 years, was directing traffic when a swarm of bees suddenly turned on him during a May 2023 response call.
“I started getting stung on the face,” Knabenbauer recalled. “They went right for the face, and it was like a cloud. They were everywhere.” Television news helicopters captured the horrifying moment as Knabenbauer flailed desperately, trying to swat away the aggressive insects. The bees continued their relentless assault as he stumbled and fell to the ground, striking his head on the pavement.
The volunteer officer wanted to retreat to his patrol car but hesitated, thinking: “If I open this car door all the bees are going to come zipping in, and we would be in an enclosed area, so then my partner would start getting stung.”
Fire department officials estimated that Knabenbauer suffered between 50 to 100 stings, though he believed it felt like many more. The attack left him with a fractured eye socket that required surgery and five days of hospital recovery. When he finally saw his reflection in the hospital mirror, the veteran volunteer was shocked by his swollen, damaged face.
Massachusetts Woman Weaponizes Her Hives
In a disturbing case from Longmeadow, Massachusetts, authorities faced a different kind of bee attack — one that was completely intentional. Rorie Woods, a 55-year-old professional beekeeper, arrived at a home where deputies were serving an eviction notice in October 2022. She drove up towing a stack of manufactured beehives with her SUV.
Woods immediately began trying to open the lids of her hives to release the bees. When a deputy attempted to stop her, she smashed the lid of one hive and flipped it off her flatbed truck, deliberately agitating the insects inside. The angry bees swarmed the area, stinging several officers and innocent bystanders nearby.
One deputy required hospitalization for treatment. Meanwhile, Woods put on her professional beekeeper suit to protect herself while she carried a tower of bees toward the front door of the home, attempting to stop the eviction through her insect assault. Deputies eventually arrested her, with the sheriff condemning her dangerous tactics.
California Officers Face Nearly 40,000 Attackers
In February 2020, firefighters and police in California responded to what seemed like a simple bee sting report. Instead, they found themselves under assault by a swarm of nearly 40,000 Africanized bees. Three first responders were rushed to the hospital, while others quickly shut down an entire city block.
The massive swarm had grown far beyond normal size, creating a dangerous situation that overwhelmed the emergency workers who came to help. The incident demonstrated how quickly bee encounters can spiral out of control, even for trained professionals.
Texas Man’s Fatal Encounter
Not all bee attacks on those in public service end with medical treatment and recovery. In April 2025, Steve Daniels, a 66-year-old man, was mowing his lawn near an abandoned building in Eastland, Texas, when he disturbed a massive beehive. The swarm of approximately 22,000 bees followed him into his car as he tried to escape, causing him to crash his vehicle.
When police officers arrived at the scene, they found Daniels still being swarmed by bees inside his truck. The responding officer reported that Daniels “seemed out of it, had labored breathing, and was slurring” with “multiple bee stingers embedded into Daniel’s skin as his face began to swell.”
Officers quickly evacuated Daniels from his vehicle to the safety of a patrol car, but the damage was already done. He became unresponsive and stopped breathing during transport to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead from circulatory collapse due to bee stings.
Colombian Political Rally Under Siege
Politics and bees collided in a shocking incident in Colombia during a June 2018 campaign rally. Former President Alvaro Uribe was promoting a political candidate in the hamlet of El Paso, Cesar, when a swarm of Africanized bees attacked the gathering. Sixty people were injured, with fifteen requiring hospitalization for serious consequences from the stings.
The local health office collapsed under the flood of victims seeking medical assistance. Uribe took to social media pleading for medical supplies: “Please, in the hospital of La Loma we need hydrocortisone, adrenaline and tavegyl.”
Some suspected sabotage, with one local official claiming “cases of bees were thrown at the meeting.” However, authorities also considered that the two helicopters landing in the normally quiet hamlet may have agitated the native bee population.
The Spread of Dangerous Encounters
These attacks represent a growing pattern of encounters between law enforcement and aggressive bee populations. Africanized honey bees, accidentally released in Brazil in 1957, have spread throughout the Americas, reaching as far north as southern California and as far south as northern Argentina. These hybridized insects are known for their extremely defensive behavior and tendency to attack in large numbers.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, bee attacks are statistically more dangerous than encounters with massive predators like tigers and sharks. Between 2000 and 2017, approximately 1,109 people in the United States died from bee, wasp, or hornet stings — an average of 62 fatalities annually.
When Nature Becomes the Weapon
The cases of intentional bee attacks, like those in Spain and Massachusetts, represent a disturbing trend where individuals use insects as weapons against law enforcement. These incidents highlight the vulnerability of officers who are trained to handle human threats but may be unprepared for biological assaults.
The psychological impact on victims can be severe. Many officers report lasting trauma from these encounters, struggling with the memory of being helplessly overwhelmed by thousands of stinging insects. The random nature of such attacks — whether accidental or intentional — adds an element of unpredictability to police work that few training programs address.
Professional beekeepers and entomologists warn that as bee populations continue to expand and adapt to new territories, encounters with law enforcement and emergency responders will likely increase. The cases documented here serve as a reminder that sometimes the most dangerous threats come from the smallest creatures.
SOURCES:
Primary Spanish Case: https://www.odditycentral.com/news/angry-beekeeper-sets-bees-on-police-during-routine-traffic-stop.html
Los Angeles Volunteer Officer Attack: https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-police-volunteer-stung-by-beeswarm-eb5e7407f7dfcf6c05c76a481607844b, https://www.insideedition.com/gary-knabenbauer-interview-swarm-bee-attack-lapd, https://www.newsweek.com/video-shows-volunteer-cop-collapse-while-being-relentlessly-stung-bees-1800835
Massachusetts Beekeeper Case: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/massachusetts-woman-accused-assaulting-officers-with-swarm-angry-bees-2022-10-20/
California 40,000 Bee Attack: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/21/us/bee-sting-attacked-california-trnd/index.html
Texas Fatal Attack: https://people.com/texas-man-killed-swarm-bees-while-mowing-his-lawn-11737292, https://www.kwtx.com/2025/05/15/one-man-dead-after-bee-attack-car-eastland-pd-says/
Colombian Political Rally: https://colombiareports.com/amp/bees-attack-campaign-rally-in-colombia-60-injured/
General Bee Information and Statistics: https://www.newsweek.com/5000-bees-kill-two-dogs-sting-ex-police-officer-40-times-there-was-nothing-i-could-do-1613632, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7938407/
NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popular conspiracy theories, is not an AI voice.
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