South End residents plead for relief from "huge swarm" of insects on the attack
BOSTON - Swarming insects are attacking residents in the South End. The last straw was when Pippy got stung. The South End pooch was out for a walk this week, when a swarm came up from behind. "She was limping," said her owner, Laurel McConville. "So, I just scooped her up and walked home and realized she had a hornet stuck in her fur."
Then there were more. McConville herself was stung twice on her stomach. Her neighbor Ashley Flynn's two dogs got stung, along with Ashley's mother. "We tried to just walk quickly past, and my mom was like 'ow ow!'"
Their neighbor Ben Arnold said his wife was stung. "You literally see hundreds of them swirling around the tree in the air like a huge swarm," he said.
The casualties are piling up, and nobody knows if they're bees, wasps, or hornets. Bentley University insect expert Tony Kiszewski has an educated guess. "The most likely thing it can be is an exotic invasive from Europe called the German yellow jacket," he said. "Bees and wasps release something called an alarm pheromone. It's a chemical that warns the other wasps that the nest is being attacked. So, all it takes is for one wasp to get swatted if it lands on somebody. It releases that chemical."
It has set off a swarm of complaints to Boston's 311 app. When one resident sent a video of a nearby trash bag the bees had taken over, a Boston Public Works crew came to remove the bag, but the hive was still there Friday afternoon.
"I've tried the Parks department, I've tried Animal Control, I've tried Sidewalks, I've tried the Tree department, the Trash department," said McConville. "Everyone keeps telling us it's a different department."
After WBZ inquired with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's office, a spokesperson with the Inspectional Services Department said a crew was headed to the spot Friday night to investigate.
