{"id":41557,"date":"2025-09-03T20:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T20:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/41557\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T20:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T20:08:07","slug":"honeybee-behaviour-that-killed-mayo-woman-unprecedented-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/41557\/","title":{"rendered":"Honeybee behaviour that killed Mayo woman \u2018unprecedented\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The aggressive behaviour of a colony of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2025\/09\/03\/mayo-beekeeper-kathleen-devine-dies-after-suffering-multiple-stings\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2025\/09\/03\/mayo-beekeeper-kathleen-devine-dies-after-suffering-multiple-stings\/\">honeybees that fatally attacked Mayo beekeeper Kathleen Devine<\/a> has been described as unprecedented. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">As tributes to the well-known honey-maker and mother-of-three were being paid following her death on Monday, the Mayo Beekeepers Association said the incident had shocked the entire beekeeping community. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Ms Devine (73), a highly regarded former nurse, died after suffering a number of stings while tending one of her hives near Ballycastle in north Mayo on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Association member Helen Mooney offered her sincerest sympathy to Ms Devine\u2019s husband, Des, and their family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In a statement, she described the deceased as a cherished member of the beekeeping community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">\u201cThis tragedy has shocked the entire beekeeping community across Ireland,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cKathleen loved beekeeping and, along with her husband, Des, often helped and mentored other beekeepers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ms Mooney noted that honey bees are not usually aggressive, \u201cso for a colony to become this defensive is unprecedented\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/health\/2025\/09\/02\/severe-reaction-to-bee-stings-is-potentially-life-threatening-and-demands-emergency-care\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bee stings Q&amp;A: Severe reaction is potentially life-threateningOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">\u201cWhen removing the honey crop, one has to be careful, and sometimes we have to do these jobs in poor weather conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Ms Mooney said the bees were now being managed by club members.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt is worth noting that this was not a swarm of bees, as that season has passed \u2013 swarms usually issue from strong colonies from mid-May often right into July, depending on the weather.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She noted an outpouring of sympathy as news of Ms Devine\u2019s death spread across beekeeping organisations in Ireland. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ms Devine was remembered for her dedication to the craft of beekeeping as well as her attendance at shows across the country, where she and her husband won numerous prizes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Her funeral is to take place on Friday at the Church of Christ the King in Knockmore. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The aggressive behaviour of a colony of honeybees that fatally attacked Mayo beekeeper Kathleen Devine has been described&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40402,"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-41557","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\/41557","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=41557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}