{"id":39756,"date":"2025-09-03T00:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T00:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/39756\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T00:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T00:40:07","slug":"woman-70s-dies-after-being-stung-by-swarming-bees-in-co-mayo-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/39756\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman (70s) dies after being stung by swarming bees in Co Mayo \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman has died in hospital after sustaining multiple stings from a swarm of bees in north Co Mayo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The incident happened early on Monday afternoon while the woman, aged in her 70s, was tending to beehives near her home in Ballycastle.<\/p>\n

Emergency services were contacted and the woman was collected by the Coast Guard\u2019s Rescue 118 helicopter and taken to Sligo University Hospital.<\/p>\n

A local man, who did not wish to be identified, said neighbours rushed to assist the woman as soon as they became aware of the situation. Some of the locals were also stung by the swarm while attempting to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeighbours raised the alarm and the victim was on the ground when I arrived,\u201d the man said. \u201cTwo local people were treated by ambulance personnel at the scene for stings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man said there was a \u201cshock, horror and disbelief\u201d in the community as a result of what happened to the woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand the woman who died showed an improvement while in the rescue helicopter but died later,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il councillor Michael Loftus described the incident as \u201ca tragedy\u201d for the woman, her husband and family \u201cand the entire north Mayo community\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all shocked and taken aback about what is considered to be a relatively rare event \u2013 the death of a person from bee stings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Asian hornets in Ireland would be \u2018a disaster\u2019 for bees and biodiversity, expert saysOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the public interest, the full circumstances of what happened will have to be fully investigated..<\/p>\n

It is understood the woman and her husband are well-known beekeepers in the area and have won many awards for their honey over the years.<\/p>\n

The coroner for Sligo, in whose jurisdiction the death occurred, has been notified and an inquest will be held at a later date.<\/p>\n

The Department of Transport said the Coast Guard at Malin Head, Co Donegal, received an alert about the bee swarm attack on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sligo-based Coast Guard helicopter, Rescue 118, was tasked to the scene. One on-scene casualty was assisted and transferred by helicopter to Sligo University Hospital,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n

\u201cKillala Coast Guard Unit also assisted on site, where other casualties were treated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Federation of Irish Beekeepers Association (FIBKA) declined to comment in the absence of greater detail surrounding the circumstances of the woman\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Ireland has approximately 100 species of bees, including the honeybee, solitary bees and 21 species of bumblebee.<\/p>\n

Irish native honeybee colonies typically swarm during May and June, with swarms generally being an uncommon sight past July. Swarms \u2013 a split in a bee colony \u2013 are prompted by fine weather and happen as a means of reproduction when bees are seeking a new suitable nesting place.<\/p>\n

When a swarm does occur, the bees are usually docile. <\/p>\n

Honeybees are unlikely to sting people and will only do so in defence of their hive. For most people, a honeybee sting is no worse than a nettle sting, but those who are allergic may need urgent medical help if stung. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman has died in hospital after sustaining multiple stings from a swarm of bees in north Co…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,2354,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-39756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-mayo","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}