The 10:23 a.m. emergency call to the 23000 block of Buckland Lane was dispatched as a reported bee sting.
When their truck pulled up to the home in Lake Forest, Calif., they saw a cleaning lady being attacked by a swarm of some 80,000 bees.
The woman — “approximately 50 years old,” and identified only by her first name, Maria — was in the Orange County home with three other cleaners and had stepped out to her car to grab a mop.
In doing so, she'd come to be viewed as a threat to the swarm of Africanized bees, who neighbors said had taken up residence in a nearby drainage pipe.