Bee Swarm Kills Dog: 5-year-old Pitbull Dead in Southern California, likely due to Africanized Bees (VIDEO)

A pitbull was killed this Saturday after a swarm of bees attacked and killed the North Hollywood, Calif., dog when a neighbor cut down a tree that housed a hive.

According to KTLA, the man fled down the street, but Babe, the 5-year-old pitbull, could not get away in time. Neighbors said that small children were playing in nearby yards at the time, but no one was hurt.

"We've all got kids and dogs," one neighbor told the station. "Luckily they didn't hurt any kids, but it's terrible they hurt a dog."

Though Los Angeles firefighters responded by spraying foam on the bees to kill them, according to the Huffington Post, the threat will remain until the tree is removed. And, it is still unclear whether the insects were honey bees more some other more aggressive form of an Africanized variety.

According to reports, there have been several bee attacks on dogs in Southern California in recent years, many of them due to so-called "killer," or Africanized bees.

A killer bee attack last year killed three of four dogs owned by an Altadena, Calif. family. In that case, the bees had made a hive inside the family's house in a wall cavity near the water heater.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which tracks the spread of Africanized honey bees, the aggressive variety of bee swarms much more frequently than European honey bees.

Want to know more about what happened? Check out this video, courtesy of the Huffington Post.