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I wonder if they had a nest in the ground where he was mowing. Decades ago I was looking out the back door of my parents' home as my brother mowed the "back 40" and he suddenly abandoned the tractor and lit out toward the barn.

About 100 feet from the barn was an above ground swimming pool and he scrambled up the side and over the fence and tumbled into the water. I went out to see what was going on and all he would say was "Bees, Bees" as he came up for a breath and went back down. It took a couple of minutes to convince him they they had abandoned the chase, and then we took him to the doctor because he was reacting to the stings.

When my grandpappy and I went out to check the area, after first covering ourselves from head to toe, and face, with layers of cloth, we found a large hole in the ground right under the mower deck and it was absolutely "swarming" with bumblebees. I learned later that bumblebees will nest in the ground and that such colonies are actually "aggregations" or multiple nests close together, and that bumblebees are not particularly aggressive so they probably gavce up the chase long before my brother got to the pool.

My grandpappy got a jug of kerosene from the barn and we poured it into the hole(s) and forked the ground up for a couple of feet around and poured some more, and then we set the ground on fire.