KYLE,TEXAS- A pensioner is recovering in hospital more than two weeks after he was attacked by a swarm of bees.

Lamar LaCaze was stung 1,200 times while mowing a field in Kyle, Texas.

The 65-year-old managed to climb off his tractor and use his mobile to call his son Trey for help.

'I had to spit all of them out so I could breathe. They got up my nose and down in my ears,' said Mr LaCaze as he recovered in hospital.

He said he feared he would die, and added: 'I got so weak from all them stings. My body was already trying to shut down on me I think.'

Trey told how he found his father was slumped over a fence.

He said: 'He was not moving. When I went to pull him out he looked up. His head was black, solid bees. It looked like a bee hive on his head.'

Trey threw buckets of water on his father and a neighbor, Rudy Cisneros, came with a fire extinguisher.

Lamar's granddaughter called 911 and when Kyle firefighters arrived, Trey noted they 'suited up' before spraying the attackers and his father with foam.

Medics who treated him at Seton Medical Center pulled 1,200 of the insects' stings from his ears, nose and mouth in a bid to keep him alive.

Relatives of the retired barber said they believed he disturbed a nest of more than 70,000 bees that they had made in an old water heater.