Take heed of bees buzzing in Valley neighborhoods and scenic desert hotspots, experts warn.
As daytime temperatures rise, bee season springs to life.
The Valley's exceptionally rainy winter and abundance of pollinating desert plant life mean a higher risk of bee attacks as people enjoy the outdoors, experts say.
This year, bees in the Valley have attacked at least 19 people, including a South Mountain hiker who was airlifted to Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center last week.
Bees have also attacked four dogs, including two in Gilbert that later died.
Banner Health Poison Control Center said it has received 178 calls about bee stings so far this season from Maricopa County residents and hospitals.
Last week, a Fountain Hills attack sent one man and four responding emergency workers to the hospital, including one who suffered an allergic reaction.
"When people are outside, it's not just their outside, it's the bees' and flies' outside, too," said Rural Metro Fire Department Assistant Chief Kora Redden.
"If there's a lot of trash cans and pollinating plants in the area, there may be bees."
Jarrad Hall of Atomic Pest Control in Phoenix said he has received 30 to 45 calls a day this season about bee removals.
That's more than the past couple of years, he said.
The busiest months are usually from February to May, before the summer heat sets in, Hall said.
Hall, a veteran beekeeper, said he tries to remove bees without killing them.
But removing an established, live colony is too dangerous, he said.
Hall advises residents to inspect their property and act before a bee colony becomes aggressive.
"If you have an established colony on your property, you need to get it taken care of," Hall said.
"Just because a colony is docile and calm one day doesn't mean it's going to be docile the next day. They are unpredictable."
Bees will protect a radius of about a quarter mile around their colonies, said Carl Olson, associate curator of entomology at the University of Arizona.
When someone enters that area and disturbs the bees, the first bees will bounce off of them as a warning.
"If you stick around, then they start to sting," he said. "Once one stinger is in place, it sends a signal to the other bees. It's like a target."
Bees aren't aggressive by nature, Olson said.
"They're really a pretty safe organism unless you get close to their hives," Olson said. "The best course of action for anything in nature is to avoid the problem."
Dawn Gouge, assistant professor of urban entomology at the University of Arizona, said a healthy adult can survive as many as 300 stings.
About 40 people a year in the U.S. die from poisonous insects, and about half of those are the result of bee attacks, Gouge said.
Most deaths occur during an attack when people panic and run into traffic or fall off cliffs, Gouge said.
The most important thing is to stay calm, she said.
The second most common risk from bee attacks is anaphylactic shock, or, as Gouge described it, a "hypersensitivity response," including tightening of the chest and difficulty swallowing or breathing.
"It's an immune response," she said. "It's the immune system going crazy and reacting to proteins in the stingers."
Valley bees usually attack in spring because that's when swarms of female honeybees set out to find new places to colonize, Olson said.
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