Africanized Honey Bees

The Truth About Africanized Bees

Gone are the days that beekeepers can work their hives shirtless and glove-less; now they need to wear suits with gloves. Beekeepers had to re-adjust their practices and learn how to work with these more defensive honeybees that were spreading across the continent and outperforming the European honeybees.

When there is an AWESOME swarm during the day, often the first question people asked is, "Are they Africanized bees?" I feel it is necessary to help educate on the history and truth about "Africanized" bees that are frequently called "killer" bees.

First, "in 1956, some colonies of African Honeybees were imported into Brazil, with the idea of cross-breeding them with local populations of Honeybees to increase honey production." These were honeybees that beekeepers on the African continent kept. Often, such bees were utilized on family farms for pollination and to deter elephants from trampling the family's crops. In other words, beekeepers kept them, worked with them, and harvested from them.

Then, these "experimental" bees escaped and bred with the more docile European bees. A hybridized bee was born. "These African bee escapees have since formed hybrid populations with European Honeybees, both feral and from commercial hives" and have spread over most of the Southern United States.

The truth is, "The typical Africanized bee in California has a genome made up of 70 to 80 percent African genes and only 20 to 30 percent European genes, he added.... right now, most of California's Africanized bees are feral."

However, that also means that they have up to 90% of European genes. The dilution of genetics has contributed to bees with Africanized genetics to become docile over time. They CAN and SHOULD be given a chance if a beekeeper specializing in feral bees decides they are manageable.

The Real Problem?

"Most beekeepers prefer European honeybees because Africanized bees are so much more difficult to manage."
"Africanized Honeybees (=Killer Bees) are dangerous because they attack intruders in numbers much greater than European Honeybees."

In addition, feral bees may be likely to abscond and leave the hive more than their European bred counterparts. This means that feral bee removers are not guaranteed years of honey production from the bees they gather. This is also why commercial beekeepers still prefer to use the European bred bees which need chemical treatments to resist disease. (This is still being researched.)

Feral hives must be shown more respect and need removal to be managed by beekeepers as large colonies in walls can get disrupted by vibrations such as lawnmowers and intruders such as rats which will make them grouchy. We now need to show bee’s greater respect.

Thankfully, they usually only chase the intruder if there is brood present (swarms do not have brood). Foraging and swarming bees are still docile, and they usually leave you alone if you are near the hive but are not intruding. African bee sting cases can become profoundly serious, but they remain relatively rare.

Defensive behavior is based on the percentage of how many African genes the colony has. Feral colonies could only be 10% Africanized and 90% European and still be the sweetest bees. Then there are colonies that even beekeepers cannot manage, and the worst must happen. This is the same with stray animals of any sort.

Well, many beekeepers are willing to manage these bees and "considers it a possibility that tropical honeybees are a blessing to beekeepers and honey producers. Currently, colony collapse disorder is decimating many temperate European honeybee colonies. Tropical honeybees, however, are flourishing.”

Why? "Africanized bees ... appear to be more resistant to certain diseases and parasites compared to European bees. In fact, there are many studies that back up this claim. One study, published in 2010 in the journal Experimental and Applied Acarology, found that Africanized bees may be more resistant to the parasitic mite Varroa destructor (an insidious foe inside bee colonies) because of the bees' grooming behaviors and the lowered fertility of the mites inside the brood, or honeycomb of the Africanized hive."

Since they are more resistant and flourish without treatments, chemicals are unnecessary to keep them healthy. This is overall better for their long-term survival, better for the environment, cheaper for the beekeeper, and better for bellies since they tend to produce more honey as well. They may be the very bees to save the species from becoming endangered as other bee species have.

Yet, the following is the public policy of the CA State Beekeepers Association: "In the interest of public safety, CSBA policy is to eradicate feral swarms in known Africanized Honeybee areas." That would mean that ALL feral colonies in California would need to be eradicated!

Instead, treatment free beekeepers monitor the behavior of feral colonies removed with the "Live Bee Removal and Relocation Best Practices" adopted by many beekeepers in California.

So, rather than be afraid, call a treatment free beekeeper that handles heritage feral bees, for removal. It is in our best interest as a species to save them and allow them to be monitored for behavior and placed in locations accordingly.

So, if you ask a beekeeper if those wild bees are Africanized, you may get a lengthy answer, but the short answer is they have a 70% chance of having at least 10% of Africanized genes. That also means that they have over a 90% chance of being manageable.

But could it end up helping us?

The "killer bee" is one of the most feared animals on the planet.

Apparently he succeeded – these bees, in the right climate, do outperform non-hybrid bees in honey production – but one of Kerr’s assistants made history by accidentally releasing these hybridized bees into the wilderness.

The bees, which would later become known as Africanized bees, proved wildly invasive and aggressive, crossbreeding themselves with any bee colony they came across as they spread throughout the Americas. They first made their way into the United States in 1985, in Texas, and have now been reported as far afield as Tennessee, Utah, and northern California.

It is not easy to tell Africanized bees from non-Africanized bees at first glance; theoretically, their wings might be a bit shorter, but the only foolproof way to tell is to perform a DNA test to look for African honeybee DNA. That means there is a spectrum of Africanization; bees can have an exceedingly small or an exceptionally large percentage of African honeybee DNA depending on their heritage.

Bees, including the Africanized hybrid bees, are not known for attacking without provocation; these bees do not fly around trying to find people to sting.

But their behavior is certainly different: They maintain the traits of quickness to attack, the legitimately scary tendency to chase potential threats, and a much greater willingness to sting. Even though the venom in an Africanized honeybee is no greater or more dangerous than in any other bee, an Africanized bee swarm is much more likely to attack in great numbers, meaning that deaths from Africanized bee swarms are much more common. That said! Bees, including the Africanized hybrid bees, are not known for attacking without provocation; these bees do not fly around trying to find people to sting. They simply react much more aggressively to threats than other bees.

The spread of the Africanized bee is showing no signs of abating, though it’s unclear that these bees, with their love of hot climates, can tolerate the winters of the Northeast, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest.

Some experts are even considering that Africanized bees, which may be more resistant to colony collapse disorder than other bees, could actually prove to be a boon to efforts to save bees. The research is young and limited, but if it ends up saving our bees, we may owe more to Kerr’s clumsy assistant than we ever thought possible.

The "killer bee" is one of the most feared animals on the planet.

The Bay Area town of Concord, a swarm of bees went, without seeming provocation, ballistic, stinging the beekeeper who was attempting to move them as well as anything in sight – including two neighborhood dogs, who died. The attack stayed in the San Francisco-area papers for weeks. Mitochondrial DNA testing later proved that the bees were not, in fact, Africanized, but the event pushed the concept of these bees, sometimes known as “killer bees,” into the news. Africanized bees as a threat have not really been news-makers since the 1990s, but here they are, reminding us that, well, they are not going anywhere.

Here is some background: The honeybee is not native to the Americas; it was introduced in the early 1600s. There are a whole bunch of different species of honeybee, but the most common worldwide is the Western honeybee, which has a few subspecies, differing based on where they are from: There are slightly different subspecies in different parts of Europe, Asia, and North Africa, which have variations in behavior and breeding and life cycle.

The African honeybee is one of these subspecies, native to most of the central and southern parts of Africa. Its sting is no more dangerous than other bees, but its behavior is unusual: It is much more aggressive than other bees, with a tendency to pursue and send many attackers after any perceived threat. It’s also much less desirable as a commercial honeybee, producing less honey and with a weird apathy about leaving the hive behind; during a threat, swarms will just fly away and abandon their hives in pursuit of any perceived aggression.

But African honeybees also breed and build hives extremely quickly, much more quickly than other bees, and they place a greater emphasis on producing young. Because of that, they also tend to focus on gathering pollen, which can feed the young, rather than nectar, which is more easily converted into honey and thus can feed adult bees. Honey is produced in larger quantities by the European varieties of the Western honeybee because it, unlike the African varieties, has to store food for winter.

Seeking to combine the African honeybee’s prolific breeding and warm-weather adaptations with the European honeybee’s production of honey, Brazilian scientist Warwick Kerr cross-bred the African bee with an Italian variety of the European honeybee in the 1950s.

An experienced view by P. Michael Henderson

The entire southwest of the US has had Africanized bees for maybe 25 years. The bees are evolving to become less defensive and I'll give my opinion why that is.

The first question we need to ask is why are the bees in Africa so defensive and tend to swarm early. My opinion is predation. The hives are preyed upon by man and animals. The hives that were the most aggressive tended to survive compared to the hives that were more docile.

Swarming is similar. Because so many hives were destroyed, it was better to cast off a swarm before you were destroyed. In fact, if there was not so much predation the swarms would overpopulate the area and many would starve.

But when the bees were brought to the Americas, they encountered a different environment and they began evolving in response to that environment.

I’ll talk about my area because I’m most familiar with it. We have lots of wild bees inhabiting every kind of cavity. Some wind up in the walls of houses, some in block fence walls, some in cable TV boxes in the ground, large birdhouses, etc. If those bees are extremely defensive, and sting people who come close to them, they are usually exterminated. The bees that are docile and leave people alone are not noticed and survive.

The bees I keep are what I consider docile. I can walk in the area of the hives and the bees ignore me. When I open a hive, after smoking the hive, the bees do not “attack” me. They are flying around but don’t seem to come at me in any mass. And after I close the hive they do not follow me when I leave the hive area.

I can cut grass around the hives with a gasoline lawn mower and the bees ignore me. So all-in-all, they are docile enough for me and do not pose a threat to me, my animals, or anyone else.

You can get a hive that is defensive. Genetics being what they are, the defensive genes can appear in a mating and you can get a defensive hive. I consider a hive excessively defensive if the bees follow me after I’ve worked a hive and departed the hive area. I give them two chances, just in case they were upset one day. But if it happens twice, I exterminate the hive. [Added note: actually, there are other signs that a hive is defensive. When you open a defensive hive you can tell if you have experience with enough hives.]

The bees are productive. I don't keep records of how many pounds of honey each hive produces - I just do this for a hobby - but I get what I consider a lot of honey out of each hive.

I do not notice excessive swarming with the bees, and perhaps that has evolved also. Around here the problem for a swarm is finding a suitable cavity to set up housekeeping in. If the bees swarm excessively most swarms will fail.

The upper geographical limit for Africanized bees is not too far north of me. Seeley has noted that as you approach the northern limit the genetics change to a greater hybrid with the European bees. Maybe I'm in that zone.

I think we’re blessed with the local bees. Except for the risk of excessive defensiveness keeping bees here is very, very easy.

Mike

Africanized Honey Bees

The Truth About Africanized Bees

But could it end up helping us?

The "killer bee" is one of the most feared animals on the planet.

The "killer bee" is one of the most feared animals on the planet.

The "killer bee" is one of the most feared animals on the planet.

The "killer bee" is one of the most feared animals on the planet.

The "killer bee" is one of the most feared animals on the planet.

An experienced view by P. Michael Henderson

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