by Barry Sergeant

As illustrated by photos taken by an independent party in last week's
BEE-L, it is possible to produce docile African bees (scutellata). By
that, I mean large colonies that can be worked without protection.
Smoke is used only to move the bees away from areas where they
may get crushed. In short, the bees are simply not aggressive.
Scutellata are, of course, the rootstock of the Africanized honeybee
(AHB) in parts of South, Central and North America.

The general reputation of the AHB in the West is that it is a killer bee.
Period. Increasingly, parts of the global media machine are
entrenching this myth. The killer bee appears in movies and even in
pop music. Even well-meaning information published on the AHB,
compiled by intelligent people, allows no leeway for this bee.

But the real intrigue for somebody who lives in native scutellata
territory - such as myself - is the seeming determination of Americans
to sweep AHBs under the carpet. It is always difficult - and often
dangerous - to generalise, but allow me some latitude on this one.
Countless pages of documentation are available on the story of how
scutellata were taken to Brazil in the 1950s.

Some escaped, forming the rootstock of the AHB. In the following
decades, this bee colonised millions of square miles, and is now
firmly in occupation of significant parts of the US. The only significant
limiting factor in the AHB's spread, as in Africa, would appear to be
cold temperatures.

In the US, there appears to be a blind attitude that if you ignore the
AHB, it will go away. It will not; it is the most successful bee in Africa, in
terms of square miles occupied. In practice, the attitude in the US
towards the AHB is that the only good AHB is a dead one. Each year,
millions of dollars are spent on locating and destroying AHBs in the
US; probably more money than is spent on US bee research.
Successful spending of these AHB dollars manifest in juicy
newspaper headlines, and the myth of the killer bee deepens.

It appears bizarre that a nation as organised as the US, and with so
many clever people (the Enron debacle aside), and with such a
freedom-drenched constitution, cannot see the merits of working
WITH the AHB, rather than against it. Having generalised, it is
becoming increasingly clear that some beekeepers in the US are
working with the AHB. Evidently, it is illegal to work with these bees in
the US. So far as I know, a combination of federal and other laws
requires all AHBs to be destroyed - on sight, so to speak, and with
prejudice.

US beekeepers who do work with the AHB in the US have been forced
underground. But when people want something, they will get hold of it;
to wit, the reaction to the US's prohibition laws of long ago. I do not
have overwhelming evidence, but it appears that US beekeepers who
work with the AHB believe it to be a good bee, even a superior bee. If it
is indeed a superior bee, in its feral state, imagine how good docile,
pedigreed scutellata can be.

Below, you can read information from a US bee man whose name
and location are not disclosed. He appeals for beekeepers to work
together on the AHB issue. For, as he points out, the day may arrive
when beekeeping itself is legislated out of existence. The only people
who have a vested interest in demystifying the killer bee myth are
beekeepers themselves.

But there is no discernible, concerted attempt to do any such thing. It
only remains to say that African bees live in harmony with people over
vast areas of Africa, and have done so from time immemorial.

Barry Sergeant
Kyalami
South Africa

An anonymous American writes:

I understand that the so-called "killer bee" has been
over-sensationalized by the media, however, the hybridized Africanized
honey bees (AHB) we have in the Americas have made trouble and
are more dangerous then our traditional European honey bee (EHB).
The AHB is a tropical bee that prefers to nest in areas that have lots of
food resources and water.

This is in our cities, houses, and backyards. Only a small percentage,
25-30%, of the AHB have the highly defensive trait that gets publicized
in the news. The rest of the population is tolerable. The problem is
that the AHB swarms 10 to 12 times in wild situations. As you know,
each time they swarm a new queen is introduced and new genes are
brought into the colony.

This frequent swarming may happen every four to eight weeks. That
means the defensive genes may be introduced unnoticed and then
you could have an attack. This is why we do bee control in the SA. If
you think I dislike the AHB you would be mistaken. I think these are
SUPER BEES - mite resistant, with low disease rates, and very hard
working. I was a commercial beekeeper for seven years and liked to
use the AHB. Unfortunately, it is hard to make a living as a beekeeper
in the USA, so bee removal is the next best thing.

It is a needed service with so many AHBs in the cities. Even though we
kill the swarms and hives as fast as we can the number of feral hives
grows each year. We now have more feral colonies in AHB areas then
we ever had EHB.

Public safely should be on the minds of all beekeepers around the
world; each time someone gets stung by bees from a beekeeper's
hive or a feral colony it becomes harder and harder for beekeepers to
keep their bees in their backyards or even in farmers' fields. We all
need to work together to keep the public safe so they do not run us out
of town by passing laws that prohibit beekeeping.