Mayor Orilake said on Monday that three people in the French town were in a “critical but stable state” after 24 passers-by were injured after an unusual bee attack on the weekend.
When hundreds of bees suddenly attacked people in central towns on Sunday morning, 24 people were injured and three were taken to hospital.
According to local media reports, one of them was a 78-year-old woman who had been stinged 25 times and had to resuscitate after a cardiopulmonary arrest.
Police and firefighters flocked to a beekeeper to smoke – a safe way to calm the insects.
A local named Andrée said he witnessed “very panicked people” trying to defeat the bees. He told French media: “I can say they are being attacked by something, but I don’t know what.”
According to reports, Orilake Mayor Pierre Mathonier said the Asian wasps that threaten the hive could be the catalyst for the attack.
But Christian Carrier, president of the Regional Beekeepers Alliance, is skeptical.
He told France that bees usually avoid leaving the colony altogether in front of the Asian Hornets.
Instead, he said the anomaly may be due to the bee colony becoming too large to carry out the hive and becoming “overactive” when the beekeeper handles it.
“Maybe (bees) don’t have enough space and their colonies have no intention of flocking to it. This will trigger a strong aggression,” Carrier said.
