20-Year-Old Ohio Man Expected to Recover After Being Stung 20,000 Times by Bees, Family Says

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"He had bees inside of him, and they suctioned bees out of him until Sunday morning," Austin Bellamy's mother Shawna Carter told a local news station of her son


An Ohio man is expected to recover after being stung approximately 20,000 times by bees and ingesting about 30 of them while cutting tree branches last week, his family said.

The incident occurred when Austin Bellamy, 20, climbed a tree Friday morning to help a friend trim its branches before he accidentally cut into a nest full of African killer bees, his mother Shawna Carter wrote on a GoFundMe page established to help with his medical expenses.

Research from the United States Department of Agriculture shows that Africanized honey bees "are more defensive, stinging more with less provocation than other honey bees."

According to WCPO-TV, Carter said the Ripley Fire Department told her the bees were killer bees. Per the outlet, a Southwest Ohio Beekeepers Association spokesperson said a bee sample would need to be analyzed to identify the species.

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