Africanized Bees

There are no records of ancient beekeeping practices in Africa; the historical practice of beekeeping in Africa is relatively new compared to Europe. Formerly, “bee robbing” (the process of extracting honey from a beehive) in Africa was fundamentally a smash-and-grab approach by the locals, as well as the Ratel aka “honey badger”, among other predators, destroying the hive to get the honey. This, along with extreme conditions, caused the more feral aggressive beehives to survive; the fiercer the honeybees in their ability to protect their home and to relocate to livable areas, the more likely the chance they would survive. This caused the African honey bee to develop differently over time than their sister European honey bees.

So why did people cross breed African honey bees and European honey bees? Until recently, European honeybees (the Italian honeybee) were the preferred bee for beekeeping and had been bred in many corners of the world. However, unlike African honey bees, European bees cannot adapt very well in the tropical regions of the world. Because of this, beekeeping organizations and the government of Brazil began projects in hopes to create a more productive honeybee species for the tropical environment of South America. In 1956, a scientist from Brazil brought what was known as a select stock of domesticated "African" bees (Apis mellifera scutellata) from Central South Africa for cross breeding with the European honeybee. The scientist leading the project was Dr. Warwick Estevam Kerr, once defamed by the government in Brazil, Dr Kerr is today an admired social activist.

Where did the Africanized honey bees originate from? The Africanized honeybee is said to have originated from Sao Paulo, Brazil where Dr Kerr began working to make a more productive honeybee. During this project in 1957, it is said that 26 of Dr. Kerr's first generation of hybrid bees from Pretoria Africa were accidentally released by a visiting beekeeper who removed the queen excluders that were on the front of each of the beehives at the Rio Claro Apiary in Sao Paulo. These bees spread and mated with the local European honey bees of Brazil. It's calculated that 26 years later in 1982 they spread up through Panama, then within 4 years spread through most of Mexico despite government programs set in place to stop the spread of this Africanized or crossbreed honeybee.

At the time of the initial release of Dr. Kerr’s hybrid honeybee in 1957, Brazil ranked 27th in honey production. Three decades later, after the introduction of the Africanized bee by Dr Kerr, Brazil sky rocketed to 4th worldwide in honey production which also increased in pollination and food source. Though causing initial hardships, the Africanized honeybee (also known as the Brazilian bee or the "brave bee" in Brazil), is now the preferred bee for beekeeping in South America, Central America, and some areas of Mexico. Below is a map of the original estimated spread of the Africanized honeybee from Sao Paulo Brazil in 1957 by the Harvard University Press, animated by Adkins Bee Removal in 2009.

Africanized honeybees first arrived in the US in 1990, where the first Africanized bee hive was reported in Rio Grande, Texas. Below is a map of Africanized honeybees in the US and their spread from Texas to much of the US. To see the enlarged map, visit Adkins Bee Removal’s honeybee removal information page.

Honeybee Removal AHB

Africanized honeybees are slowing their pace as they move northward through the United States because existing European honeybee populations are often further mixed with the Africanized honeybee migration, which is believed to be aiding in the sharing of behaviors and traits from both sides. This means that the more docile European honeybees become slightly more aggressive, and the hyper aggressive Africanized honeybees become more docile. One benefit of the mingling of genes and traits is that the weaker populations of European honeybees are becoming healthier, thanks to their African cousins’ stronger immune systems. Another factor is that Africanized bees have trouble surviving cold weather. This is because they are traditionally used to warm weather and they keep their hives relatively small, not needing the core warmth to survive the warmer winters that they are used to. Smaller bee hives do not fair so well during the winter season in the more northern continental US, as the cold air gets to the core of the beehive much sooner than a larger hive with a greater mass, thus causing Africanized bees to have difficulty surviving in cold weather. One bad cold snap can kill a small Africanized hive.

As the above map of the spread of AHB in the US shows, Africanized bees have slowed their pace, but are slowly adjusting to colder climates; however, Africanized bees today in the US are not like the 1st Gen Africanized bees of Kerr’s day in 1957. This Africanized honeybee of our time in the US is no longer genetically identical to its origins of 53 years ago and much less hostile.

If you’re a beekeeper and you live in the states of Nor Cal, Oregon, Northern Florida, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Georgia, or the beautiful states of South and North Carolina, you’ll likely here talk about Africanized bees. As for me and my experience, they are becoming much less hostile then even 10 years ago. To give you an example, 95% of all bee removals I performed personally in 2009 near the border of Mexico were simply wearing a ball cap and gloves (and a smoker of course). Dealing with thousands of these bee colonies per year, we just don't come across the feral Africanized bees as much as we used to. After ten years of specializing removing bees, we are only finding perhaps 1 out of 400 wild bee colonies to be aggressive. In some cases, these bee colonies have been provoked a good deal before our arrival. Honeybees, like animals, can become conditioned to respond to perceived threats, whether being attacked with rocks, wasp killer, or by other means.

It's important to understand the "killer bee" propaganda that was brought to the US many years ago by what many have called hyped journalism designed to sell newspapers. The stories appear to have stemmed from three factors in South and Central America.

1) The new hybrid Africanized honeybees were much more aggressive then the European bees causing initial challenges to the general public with more bee stinging incidents, and also a few deaths.

2) Beekeepers had to re-adjust their practices, and learn how to work with these Africanized honeybees that were spreading across the continent and outperforming the European honeybees.

3) 3) The third source of propaganda brewed from a scuffle with the Brazilian government. At the time, Dr. Kerr had been protesting against cruel actions of the corrupt government in Brazil. Because of this, the Brazilian government began spreading harmful rumors about Dr. Kerr's work to discredit him, calling him a mad scientist that released the "killer bees" to wreak havoc and cause harm to the people of Brazil and South America.

These three factors caused some amount of panic in South and Central America in relation to Dr. Kerr's killer bees and appear to be the main issues that caused alarm. The Mexican government devised a plan of action to stop the northern spread of these Africanized honeybees, but it failed. State and regulatory organizations in the US watched as this hybrid honeybee continued its movement through Mexico toward US borders.

By the time these Africanized bees arrived in the US, they had spent 40 years re-adjusting to the new landscape and lifestyle, in many cases being domesticated and mixing in with the local European bees of the Americas. They began to be less aggressive at this stage than in 1957. Today, nearly 55 years later, they are still more intermingled and have settled with an even lesser degree of hostility. However, there are still some very aggressive Africanized bee colonies.

Since the arrival of the hybrid Africanized honeybees, many biologists throughout the Americas have devoted much time to studying their traits and genes in comparison to the European honeybee. In 2001, biologist Octavio Jaramillo, had begun working with these hybrid Africanized bees, trying to further lessen the aggressiveness of the bees while retaining their strong work ethic, honey productivity traits, and resistance to disease. Below is a small excerpt:

"In 2001, our team of researchers has developed a selection technique to improve bees, which are actually utilized by beekeepers in the Eastern Mexico. After selection of three generations of bees, we concluded that determined AHBs family lines could inherit their high levels of tameness, even when they reproduced in the condition of free fecundation. (Natural mating)" africanized bee studies.

Africanized honey bees are about 10% smaller than European honey bees, may appear darker in color, and abscond or swarm more often than European honey bees. Like European honey bees, Africanized honey bees die after stinging. AHB’s are slightly faster and exhibit more agility. Africanized honeybees cannot likely be told apart by comparing them side by side to a European honeybee. Pictures of the difference between African bees compared to European honey bees, or Africanized honeybee vs. native European honeybees must be viewed under microscope for accurate identification. A common method of identification has been termed the FABIS method, Fast Africanized Bee Identification System (FABIS) in which many parts of the bee’s body and wings are measured for proper identification. FABIS is currently much less expensive than DNA testing.

An Africanized honeybee sting is identical in severity to European honeybees, and like the European bee, it loses its stinger and dies shortly after it stings. Stingers are about an eighth of an inch long and a sixteenth of an inch across at the dislodged end. If stung by a honeybee the barbed stinger will typically get stuck in the skin as the bee pulls away, dislodging it from the bee's abdomen. The small muscle on the end of the dislodged stinger will continue to pump venom from the venom sac through the hollow hypodermic needle-like stinger for up to a minute. The sooner the stinger is removed, the less swelling will occur. In relation to removing the stinger; many claim to scrape and not pull the stinger out, studies have shown one method of removing the stinger is generally as effective as the next. Whether you pull out the stinger out, or scrape it out appears to be irrelevant. The more important factor is how long the stinger is in the host, as well as how deep and how sensitive the affected area of the body is, and perhaps, in addition to how alarmed or panicked the individual is.

As a young boy I grew up around beehives. When I would get stung as a child, the calm confidence from my mom told me that it would be ok. Some ointment of any kind, along with some TLC, seemed the best remedy for the pain. According to past studies, researchers have found that more people think they are allergic to bees than actually are. In the US, about two million out of three hundred and five million people are allergic, that's about 0.55% of people that are allergic to some type of bee and wasp stings. If you get stung by a bee or wasp and you feel you're allergic, seek medical attention.

When people say they’re allergic to bees, they tend to categorize “bees” to meaning any insect that flies including all types of wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, bumble bees and other solitary bees, often not even knowing the difference between a bite and a sting. All these insects mentioned above are stinging insects with their abdomen, some loose there stinger but most don’t. The reality is that the composition of the toxin varies between these species, and if you’re allergic to one, it doesn’t guarantee you’re allergic to another. For example, when I get stung by a honeybee nothing of any great substance happens, perhaps a slight bit of unnoticeable redness and minimal if any swelling. Yet when I get stung by a hornet or yellow jacket I have a large amount of redness, a fair amount of swelling followed by a day of uncomfortable itching! This is because the components or make up of the toxins of a yellow jacket sting are different than that of a honeybee, to which my body has built up a tolerance. A good example of tolerance is bee venom therapy (BVT) or apitherapy, in which a patient is purposefully stung to assist in healing an ailment. Eventually the patient is able to be stung by larger amounts of bees at one time because the body naturally builds up a tolerance to the toxin of the sting.

I speak to many people that say they’re allergic to honeybees, when I ask them how they know, they say things like, “a bee got in my soda can” and when he went to drink it he got stung on the lip, tongue, or throat. I usually don’t comment further, but it’s more likely that this was a yellow jacket (a type of wasp), which is commonly found in parks disrupting picnics or foraging in trash cans. Because he swelled up significantly in this case doesn’t guarantee this person is allergic to honeybees, and might not have the same reaction if a honeybee stings him, say, on the arm.

The elderly seem to have less tolerance for bee stings. Some time ago I was speaking with the owner of an Apiary and world renowned candle shop. His father owned the Apiary before him, and he purchased it from his father. He had grown up around bees his entire life and worked with bees all through adulthood. But recently while doing some beekeeping he got stung; (getting stung is a regular occurrence for beekeepers). He swelled up something good and rushed to the hospital were a doctor told him he must be allergic. This has been my experience when speaking to elderly people or reading reports; their immune systems seem to not handle it. Similar, perhaps, to when they were younger and it would take fewer stings to cause the same or a greater amount of swelling. Of course, even within elderly people, it is still a very small minority in comparison, and generally takes many stings to create a strong reaction.

Not all Africanized honeybees today are killers or demonstrate aggressive behavior. In addition, if you were to come across a large amount of Africanized honeybees foraging on flowers, you will find they are no more dangerous than any other honeybees in this state. Bees are, however, very protective of their homes. It is estimated that feral Africanized bees hives can protect their home with up to 4 or 5 times the amount of bees and produce more alarm pheromone to excite the bees in the hive than European bees do. Africanized bees can become agitated more easily, and stay alert longer than European bees. Africanized honeybees have very similar characteristics to European honeybees; they can become agitated by any of the following near the beehive: loud or vibrating noises like lawn mowers or shrub trimmers, rapid or startling movements, dark colors, the smell of bananas, and exhaling or carbon dioxide. The following is more detailed on what makes bees mad, provokes bees, or make bees angry.

Lawn mowers: The smell of exhaust and cut grass, and the vibration and noise of lawn mowers cause bees to get mad and feel that their home is being threatened. Interestingly enough, it seems we are becoming more of a biophilic society, It’s also important to note that the amount of shrubbery around your home does not attract any more or less beehives to move onto your property than if you had an all rock yard. Ironically, what bothers the bees in this case (lawnmowers), should perhaps bother us as well.

Bananas: Why the smell of bananas? This smell is very similar to the alarm pheromone given off by a distressed bee. The purpose of it is to alert the other bees in the hive of perceived danger. If you plan on working with bees don't bring bananas for a snack!

Moving targets, dark colors, and exhaling carbon dioxide are all triggers engrained in the honeybees’ alert systems. Bees have been conditioned to protect against these threats because of recurring attacks from other predators that often destroy the beehive and raid the honey. Most animals that do this are dark in color and often hairy as well as exhale carbon dioxide (mammalian breath). This is perhaps the greatest trigger for what causes the bees to attack when protecting their hive. If you are within maybe 10 feet or less of the beehive, light colors, a ball cap and a long sleeve shirt as well as calm movements and the absence of heavy breathing (if very close to the hive) all help to not trigger the bees impulses to feel threatened, or defensive.

When bees attack they typically will target your head. Bees can also target your hands as they are often in motion. The danger proximity for an Africanized honeybee hive may be anything less than 20 to 40 feet. Once the hive is disturbed, their defensive area can grow to cover the area of a few city blocks. If the beehive is being removed, an even greater distance away is a good place to be.

Have my bees become Africanized? How can you tell if your bees are Africanized? These are questions many beginner beekeepers ask. Generally, it's believed that a good rule of thumb is how consistently defensive they are. If you have neighbors that also keep bees, consider asking them how there bees are behaving. However, if its wintertime, you may have nothing to worry about. If you have a beehive on your property, often the bees will be more aggressive or protective during the winter as opposed to summer. This is because the flowers are gone, and the bees are much more protective of keeping the honey safe from anyone that might raid the honey that the bees need to survive throughout the winter. More bee robbing by animals take place in the winter.

How many people die each year from Africanized bees? Since the arrival of the Africanized honey bee in 1990, Africanized honey bees have caused some 14 deaths. However, in most cases, it wasn't caused by the bees being Africanized but that the victims were allergic to honeybees. In addition, of the people that died most have been the elderly who are unable to escape as quickly and have more vulnerable immune systems. The below chart of Africanized bee stats is a comparison of Africanized honeybee death tolls per year vs. other causes of deaths in America.

All bee removal is difficult, especially bee removal from a wall, roof, or other structure. There are generally 5,000 to 25,000 honeybees in a hive. Removing Africanized honeybees is extremely challenging and can be very dangerous to persons or animals on neighboring properties in all directions regardless of where the bees are. If you are not experienced in bee removal, or removal of Africanized honey bees, you should not consider self removal as an option on any level. The same is generally recommended for European honey bees when found in walls, attics, and such structural voids.

If you are trying to get rid of angry bees, a lot of your success will depend on the location of where the bees are that you are trying to get rid of. Visit how to get rid of bees, to learn more about getting rid of bee hives on your property and for help in understanding or solving your bee problem.

Africanized honeybees, initially branded "killer bees" have a bad rap for being more aggressive and protective when defending their homes. In tropical areas of South America and Africa, africanized honeybees directly influence nearly 30% of plant life. Africanized honeybee pollination.

Productivity: Africanized honey bees are highly effective pollinators; Africanized Honey Bees get up earlier in the morning and stay up later working longer than non Africanized bees. Unlike European honeybees, Africanized honey bees work during overcast cold conditions and in light rain. Africanized honeybees are better suited to survive desert like climates and droughts. Africanized honey bees carry more pollen than European honeybees. They can also produce more honey than European honey bees. Africanized honey bees have a stronger immune system and are less susceptible to being wiped out by mites and other diseases. Since Africanized bees have become the standard for beekeeping in South America and most of Central America, they have become a leading producer of honey, producing a much greater amount than when European honey bees were used in addition to more effective pollination. Among the factors in the US of domesticating and beekeeping with these Africanized honey bees, it appears that the most deciding factor in the U.S. that makes Africanized honey bees undesirable is their exceedingly protective nature around the beehive causing an inconvenience of traditional beekeeping practices and a greater hazard to the general public in comparison to European honeybees.

For many years scientists have been concerned that Africanized honeybees will be a major threat to other tropical pollinating insects and stingless bees by outperforming them. Recent Smithsonian studies suggest a much smaller impact on native and local tropical bees, as these other tropical pollinating and stingless bees seem to be able to hold their own in foraging for food.

Africanized honeybees have not been reported to be affected by the major phenomenon of Colony collapse disorder, (CCD) an effect where honey bees mysteriously abandon the beehive.

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