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Miami Man Dies Fighting Bee Invasion

MIAMI (CBS4) - A 49 year old man is dead after his daughter found him covered in bees in an upstairs bedroom Saturday afternoon. Miami Fire Rescue officials said the man was renovating a home in Little Havana that he had recently purchased. He was trying to fog the bees out of bedroom when they believe he died.

Fire crews said the man's daughter had just returned from a trip out of town and went to look find him.

"The daughter goes upstairs and thinks that maybe her father is taking a nap and when she opened the door she was encountered by several hundred bees that were inside the room," said Lt. Ignatius Carroll, of Miami Fire Rescue.

Carroll said the daughter ran back downstairs to tell the others in the home and when she returned to the room that's when she realized her father was on the bedroom floor.

"You can imagine how traumatic that this little girl was feeling to see her father down there, but unable to get to him because of the bees," said Carroll

But even fire rescue crews were concerned about going in the room. They called in Willie Sklaroff, a bee removal specialist.

"There was a small hole in the wall with bees coming out going towards the light," said Sklaroff.

He gave crews the green light to go in. But it was too late. By the time they checked his vital signs, the man was dead.

Sklaroff estimates there were as many as 60,000 bees in that room. They are still there isolated in one bedroom. He said he sealed off the room and plans to return in a couple days to remove the bees.

An unbelievable story for neighbors learning the news. Nancy Nadal, remembered the man.

"A nice person, a real nice person," she said. "Something that I didn't expect to happen around here. Especially him… a kind person like him I didn't expect this to happen to him."

The medical examiner will now determine whether it was the bees or perhaps something else like a fall that might have killed this man.

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