A close friend of the man found dead in an RV Tuesday said the bees had been living in a storage tank underneath the trailer for 15 years.
Scott Moore, the friend of Dick Scott, the man found dead, said Scott had never been able to clear the bees out of the RV.
Ector County deputies found Scott in a bee-infested RV in Pleasant Farms when they were called about the body around 10:07 p.m. Tuesday in the 13500 block of South Bonanza Avenue, an Ector County Sheriff’s Office news release stated
Paramedics told deputies they couldn’t stay inside of the trailer due to the swarm of bees, the release detailed, and a bee expert was called to the scene to help in processing and the removal of the body.
Scott’s body was sent to Plains Forensic Center in Lubbock for an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Officials said the man was in his 60s.
Crystal Biles, whose father was friends with Scott, said she looked at him like an uncle, said Scott was friendly, but tended to stick to himself.
“He would tell us some crazy stories about life,” Biles said. “He was a really down to Earth person.”
Biles said his friends had nicknamed him “Crazy Dick,” due to his hatred of the government and the booby traps he would keep set on his property.
“He wasn’t married or anything,” Scott Moore, a close friend of Scott’s, said. “He was a loner, but he had lots of friends out here in Pleasant Farms that he would come visit.”
Moore said he had been in bad health recently. Scott had recently gotten an oxygen tank, he said.
ECSO Spokesman Gary Duesler said he did not know what kind of bees were in the RV, but Tim Cleverdon, owner of Bee Busters, Inc. in Midland, said the two kinds of bees found in this area are European bees and Africanized bees, a type of bee created by scientists back in the ‘70s when they crossbred European and African bees.
“They’re like fire ants with wings,” Cleverdon said. “And if they get agitated, they react en masse.”
Cleverdon said bees generally start swarming in March or April, depending on weather, then taper off and start swarming in July and August. But he said he has done some bee extinguishing jobs in January this year, the earliest they’ve done that kind of work in a long time, due to the milder temperatures this year.
For people who have bee problems, Cleverdon said the best solution is to call a professional to treat the situation for their own safety.
There had previously been a bee attack in November 2017, when a man was attacked by a swarm of bees at the Charter Waste Landfill, 12035 W. Murphy St., and was taken to Medical Center Hospital.
