United States Department of Agriculture

Killer Bees: "Africanized Bee Alert" 1985 USDA; Threat to US Beekeepers & Honey Industry

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• published: 12 Oct 2016
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Agriculture: Farming, Ranching playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL897E774CDB19F283 more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/ "An update of the so called "killer" bees travel northward from South America. Presents the latest research on the bees and gives broad-based information on the dealing with the bees should they become residents of the United States." Reupload of a previously uploaded film with improved video & sound. Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee Africanized honey bees, known colloquially as "killer bees", are a hybrid variety of the Western honey bee species, (Apis mellifera), produced originally by cross-breeding of the African honey bee A. m. scutellata, with various European honey bees such as the Italian bee A. m. ligustica and the Iberian bee A. m. iberiensis. The hybrid bees are far more aggressive than any of the various European subspecies. Small swarms of Africanized bees are capable of taking over European honey bee hives by invading the hive and establishing their own queen after killing the European queen. History Western honey bees differentiated into geographic races as they spread from Africa into Eurasia. There are currently 28 recognized subspecies of Apis mellifera based largely on these geographic variations. All subspecies are cross fertile. Geographic isolation led to numerous local adaptations as this species spread after the last ice age... The Africanized honey bees in the Western Hemisphere are of mixed descent from 26 Tanzanian queen bees of A. m. scutellata, accidentally released by a replacement bee-keeper in 1957 near Rio Claro, São Paulo, in the southeast of Brazil, from hives operated by biologist Warwick E. Kerr, who had interbred honey bees from Europe and southern Africa. Hives containing these particular queens were noted to be especially defensive. Kerr was attempting to breed a strain of bees that would produce more honey and be better adapted to tropical conditions (i.e., more productive) than the European subspecies of honey bee used in South America and southern North America. The hives the bees were released from had special excluder grates to prevent the larger queen bees and drones from getting out and mating with local queens and drones of European descent. However, following the accidental release, the African queens and drones mated with domesticated local non-African queens and drones, and their descendants have since spread throughout the Americas. The African hybrid bees have become the preferred types of bee for beekeeping in Central America and in tropical areas of South America because of improved productivity. However, in most areas the African hybrids are initially feared because they tend to retain certain behavioral traits from ancestral Apis mellifera that make they less desirable for domestic beekeeping. Specifically, as compared with the European bee types, the hybrid race: - Tends to swarm more frequently and go farther than other types of honey bees. - Is more likely to migrate as part of a seasonal response to lowered food supply. - Is more likely to "abscond"—the entire colony leaves the hive and relocates—in response to stress. - Has greater defensiveness when in a resting swarm, compared to other honey bee types. - Lives more often in ground cavities than the European types. - Guards the hive aggressively, with a larger alarm zone around the hive. - Has a higher proportion of "guard" bees within the hive. - Deploys in greater numbers for defense and pursues perceived threats over much longer distances from the hive. - Cannot survive extended periods of forage deprivation, preventing introduction into areas with harsh winters or extremely dry late summers. As of 2002, the Africanized honeybees had spread from Brazil south to northern Argentina and north to Central America, Trinidad (West Indies), Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, and southern California... southern Louisiana.. In June 2005... the bees... had spread into southwest Arkansas. On September 11, 2007... in the New Orleans area... In February 2009, Africanized honeybees were found in southern Utah. In October 2010, a 73-year-old man was killed by a swarm of Africanized honey bees while clearing brush on his south Georgia property, as determined by Georgia's Department of Agriculture. It is the first time state officials have recorded that such bees exist in Georgia...