AHB Northern limits extend

Rich Tosches of the Denver Post can write:

Santa Fe - Joel Simko danced wildly across the roof of the house, spinning and hopping past the chimney and frantically waving his long arms over his head. Soon, the lanky man's dance was accompanied by a great chorus of loud screaming and cursing as a swarm of bees dove onto his head and face.

His ladder was leaned up against the gutter, and he hit the top rung on a dead run. The ladder slid, and the pest-control worker found himself plunging 15 feet toward the ground, bolts of pain shooting through his face and neck as the roar of the swarm grew louder around his head.

In a scientific discovery of some note, Simko unwittingly found what entomologists believe is one of the northernmost hives of Africanized bees in the western United States, a huge swarm that had settled into a gated community just north of this art mecca.

On a slightly less-scientific note, Simko floundered on the ground, shrieking and thrashing as the attack raged on.