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Honey with a bite

We can't get rid of Africanized bees and can't send them to anger management school. So we'd best understand them.

By LETITIA STEIN
Published August 12, 2005

You've heard the warnings. Killer bees are invading the continent. South and Central America have fallen. Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and half of California are lost.

Tampa Bay is next.

Vicious bees are swarming off ships from Latin America, forging homes here. So-called killer bees, originally from Africa, are breeding with our gentle honeybees. The offspring form an aggressive hybrid, the Africanized honeybee.

The naked eye can't see a difference, but the bees buzzing about our parks, back yards and farms are becoming more dangerous.

In other states, Africanized honeybees have attacked people and animals. This spring, they stung to death a horse near Lake Okeechobee. "It's kind of like Charles Manson. You have a guy that has a beard, and most guys that have beards are okay," said Jerry Hayes, chief of apiary inspection with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. "But one guy wasn't okay."

Unable to thwart the threat, state authorities are urging precations for everyone from soccer moms to farm workers.

We must learn to live with Africanized honeybees, which may help pollinate the plants that grow produce in Florida. Without honeybees, one-third of our food would disappear, agricultural experts say.

But now is not the time to panic.

Africanized honeybees likely compose only 1 percent of the current bee population in Florida. Colonies that beekeepers cultivate may retain their European flair. Yet in nature, the fittest thrives.

Visitors to regional parks and tourist attractions rarely notice slate-gray cardboard cones secured innocuously to the bases of trees and fences.

Randall Dean, apiary inspector for the region, knows where to find 130 of these bee traps in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Manatee counties.

On a recent afternoon, Dean halts his white pickup near the entrance to Picnic Island Beach at the Port of Tampa. Yellow-and-black bees swarm around a trap. He lifts it, gauging the size of a hive that had formed in a week.

"Probably 10,000 bees," he says. More than enough for a sample.

As the bees circle in alarm, Dean removes the hive. He drops it into a plastic garbage bag, sprays insecticide and closes the top.

After the bees die, Dean scoops the carcasses into a pint-sized glass jar and preserves them with alcohol. Scientists in Gainesville will know in three to four weeks if the bees had Africanized DNA.

"I used to hate killing these things, because all of them were not African, but they're suspect now," he says. "We can't take any chances."

In the past year, Dean says he has trapped about 75 swarms. More than two-thirds have tested positive for Africanized DNA.

Tampa Bay is ground zero in Florida's battle.

A decade ago, the state went into high alert. Using pheromone-laced traps, Florida established the first Africanized honeybee detection program in the nation.

In 2002, a trap at the Port of Tampa captured the first Africanized honeybees. Since then, inspectors have found Africanized bees in almost one out of every 10 swarms from nearly 500 traps installed statewide. Tampa Bay is the hottest region for sightings.

"There are a lot of ports of entry for Africanized bees," says Dean, pointing at the cargo containers coming off ships at Port of Tampa.

Blame Brazil for this headache. In the 1950s, Brazil desired a heartier bee for its tropical climate than the European bees common to this hemisphere. So a scientist visited Africa and brought back honeybees for crossbreeding.

Then 26 African queens escaped from a laboratory. They began breeding in the wild, and natural selection took over.

European honeybees proved no match for their African cousins. African honeybees mature more quickly. Their sperm is stronger. They create new hives faster and attack European hives, killing the queen and installing their own.

"Avoid them," advises Charles Beckecrt, a Brazilian beekeeper now living in Manatee County. "Destroy whatever you have when you first find them."

As Africanized bees took over Brazil, he cultivated his hives in rural areas. But one day, his chickens wandered too close to a bee trap behind his home in south Brazil.

Incensed by the noise, the hives attacked.

A cloud of bees darkened the air for 200 feet, Beckecrt's father later reported. Beckecrt wasn't home at the time. The commotion set off alarms at another hive, and a second attack.

"My father ended up throwing two mattresses on top of the hive and burned them and torched them," Beckecrt says.

The bees still killed 17 chickens.

Some people fear the arrival of Africanized honeybees. Steve Grande is not among them.

Grande manages 450 hives for honey production at Grande Apiaries in Brandon. From what he has seen, honeybees from Europe could use a gene pool boost.

"They've bred the bees so far down for gentleness, the mites are kicking them around. The Africanized bees don't get kicked around so much," he says. "That's nature's way to make the bee stronger."

There are few alternatives. No products target only Africanized honeybees. And bees play a critical role in the state's agricultural industry.

They pollinate plants that grow oranges, grapefruit, watermelon, blueberries, squash and other produce. Plus, Florida exports honeybees to pollinate crops in other states.

Recently, a state task force on beekeeping decided that nothing could stop the invasion of Africanized honeybees. Instead, Floridians should take precautions.

In the fields, farm workers are advised to stay 1,000 feet from managed bee colonies because of the defensive nature of Africanized honeybees.

Suburbanites and city dwellers face similar threats. Africanized honeybees can set up hives in meter boxes, grills, trees and mailboxes. So avoid bee hives when mowing lawns. Take care kicking an empty container in the yard.

If attacked, run in zigzags. Africanized honeybees may pursue for a quarter of a mile. Don't pull out the stingers, but scrape them away with a credit card.

"We have learned to live with fire ants, haven't we?" said Dean, the regional inspector. "We've learned to live with yellow jackets, wasps. We'll learn to live with these."

- Letitia Stein can be reached at 661-2443 or lstein@sptimes.com

- Run in a zigzag pattern. Usually bees disperse in a quarter of a mile.

- Cover your head with your shirt or a cloth.

- Seek shelter inside a building or car. Don't jump into water - bees will wait for you at the surface.

- Remove stingers by scraping. Use a flicking motion with a fingernail or credit card. If you squeeze, the stingers may stay in and get infected.

- Contact a pest control agent or your county extension agent.

[Last modified August 11, 2005, 08:56:11]