Montana insect experts say wild honeybees are the insects that several weeks ago stung to death a 14-year-old half Tennessee walker and half Appaloosa horse named Fury in northwestern Montana.
Cam Lay of the Montana Department of Agriculture said Fury likely was hypersensitive to their stings.
Ruth O’Neill, a research associate with the Wanner Crop Entomology Lab at Montana State University in Bozeman, also identifies the insects as honeybees.
Fury died within 15 hours of the insect attack on June 16 after apparently scratching so hard on a tree he knocked a clump of the bees onto his rump.
A veterinarian who treated Fury says the horse went into anaphylactic shock and died quickly.