My most memorable encounter with honey bees in kill mode, happened at Balboa Naval Hospital pruning a line of big redgum eucs.
I was prunin away about ninety feet up, when the dude next tree down in a bucket, cut a big lateral that swiped the lower trunk of my tree, busting a huge beehive in half, releasing thousands of murderous bees in a thick cloud, that rose up and attacked me up top.
This was circa 82, and I was climbin on three strand rope, that quickly coiled beneath my tautline hitch, as hundreds of bees swarmed and stung me as I frantically untangled coils n fought my way down, literally carpeted in bees.
Made it to about three feet off the ground, when the company owner and another climber ran into the swarm and lifted me up enough to unclip and run for my life.
Now I had been stung well over 125 times at that point, and things became quite surreal, as I shed my saddle, a section of bees attacked the saddle covering it, same with my shirt. I remember being amazed as they chased me down hallways and into a restroom, I had to kill every bee in there before finally sitting down and catching my breath.
Both the owner and climber that rescued me were stung a half dozen times each.
But the drama wasn't quite over yet, immediately upon leaving the restroom they attacked again, so
I ran towards the parking lot for the safety of my truck, but had to divert to the nearby pool, covered in bees again.
I dove into the pool, and looking up underwater saw a carpet of bees floating on the surface above me, leaving me no choice bot to swim some distance underwater before rising up and taking air. This went on 3-4 times before I steeped out n ran to my truck, then killed every that followed me in.
I rested a while, then drove to the nearest ER, I had to pull over n puke on the freeway once, then made to the ER, where they meticulously picked hundreds of stinger tails outta my scalp and shot me up with antihistamines or somethin.
This of course my first week climbin for that outfit.
Now I have a beesuit.
Havin that much bee venom in yu's like snortin two grams of fine Peruvian flake!
Must be a second cousin to good ole adrenaline!
Jomo