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The Sting: Sometimes

Sometimes the bees fell upon people on their own account instead of taking part in human warfare, and Menzel tells us that whole cities were attacked by bees and the inhabitants driven forth and armies put to rout as is often related by the ancients, and that Bochart has gathered together these incidents in his Hierozoikon, to which the curious reader is referred. Only it must not be overlooked, that the Cretan bees, living on Mt. Ida, and no doubt descendants of the sacred bees of Zeus, according to Antenor, long retained their fierce disposition and fell upon and stung every one who came that way. "The bees which are called Chalcoides, which are of the color of brass, and somewhat long, which are said to live in the Island of Crete, are implacable, great fighters and quarrellers, excelling all others in their stings, and more cruel than any others, so that with their stings they have chased the Inhabitants out of their cities."

According to Kohl there is a rock on the Black Sea whose clefts are so well defended by their armed inhabitants that no one is able to approach, and Menzel quotes Herodotus as saying that the bees would allow no one to cross the Danube at a certain point.

There are also tales of a district in California where exceeding fierce bees have taken possession of certain caverns and allow no one to approach within a considerable distance.