SAN ANTONIO \u2013 It appears everyone who was stung by a swarm of bees in a Northeast Side neighborhood is on the mend now.<\/p>\n
The attack by the angry hive happened Tuesday afternoon along Stockdale Street, not far from Perrin Beitel.<\/p>\n
The San Antonio Police Department said someone was cutting the grass when the bees suddenly went on the attack.<\/p>\n
Police said four people, including a member of their own crew, suffered bee stings.<\/p>\n
The firefighter and two civilians had to be rushed to a hospital.<\/p>\n
One of the civilians was described as being in critical condition at that time.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for SAFD was unable to offer an update Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
However, a man seen leaving the home where the attack happened said that he and another victim were both home from the hospital.<\/p>\n
He invited KSAT 12 News to knock on the door and speak with the other victim, but a large swarm of bees kept circling the doorway.<\/p>\n
SAFD spokesperson Woody Woodward said the firefighter who was injured suffered a bee sting to his lip.<\/p>\n
The fourth person appeared to be Fritz Arriaga\u2019s 98-year-old stepfather, who he said had been stung on his chin.<\/p>\n
Arriaga was in his own backyard when the attack happened on the street behind his home. He said he heard someone there cry out, seemingly in pain.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust the tone of his voice, when I heard it, you know, \u2018Help! Help!\u2019 I knew something was going on,\u201d Arriaga said.<\/p>\n
Immediately, Arriaga said, he and his stepfather jumped onto his golf cart and made their way around the block.<\/p>\n
He said he saw a man who handed him his cell phone and asked him to speak to 911 dispatchers, who were on the other end of that line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know what\u2019s going on,\u201d he said. \u201cThen all of a sudden the bees started swarming me, and I\u2019m, like, I know what\u2019s going on now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arriaga said he was concerned for his stepfather and quickly drove his golf cart to a safer spot.<\/p>\n
Still, the bees managed to sting the older man one time.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Arriaga said he noticed one of the other victims badly in need of help.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had bites all over his body, and you could see the little stingers,\u201d he said, estimating that the man had been stung \u201chundreds of times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fire crews arrived and began treating that neighbor, who was among those taken to a hospital.<\/p>\n
Molly Keck, an entomologist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, said these kinds of encounters tend to happen more often at this time of year, when bees are on the move.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir populations are rising, and they\u2019re on the population increase, and they\u2019re outgrowing the places that they were in,\u201d Keck said.<\/p>\n
In this case, Keck estimated that the hive may have been there for a while because honeycomb was present.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll honeybees can be aggressive,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re social insects, and when they perceive a threat to their home, they will attack that threat.\u201d<\/p>\n
If an attack does occur, Keck said the best thing to do is separate yourself physically from the swarm.<\/p>\n
She said to get inside a building or into a vehicle as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n
In hindsight, Arriaga said he has no regrets about ignoring that advice and heading toward danger.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I was in that situation, I would want somebody to come and help me,\u201d Arriaga said. \u201cI had to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read also:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 It appears everyone who was stung by a swarm of bees in a Northeast Side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[19915,634,82,84,83,51314],"class_list":["post-321585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-bees","tag-northeast-side","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-we-follow-through"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}