> I can't believe this whole discussion grew out of a single message that someone's one
> hive of bees had a 13% chance of being Africanized.

More was made of less than that!  The original assertion that started this whole discussion was Lloyd's assertion, "and now
(here in the northeast) Africanized bees."  By his own admission, "anecdotal information."  I learned long ago not to try to sway Lloyd in his convictions, and when he states "I, for one, believe they were Africanized bees" I am positive Lloyd believes he was beset upon by Africanized bees in upstate New York.

At the same time, I can observe that to the best of my knowledge there have been no confirmed cases of AHB in this area (Lloyd and I keep bees in the same vicinity geographically speaking).  I have heard stories from beekeepers in this area of some really hot hives.  I have one myself, from about a decade ago.  Bees attacked en masse whenever I worked the hive, they chased me out of the yard and followed my for over 1/4 mile.  I finally split the hive 3 ways to lessen populations until I could find and dispatch the offending queen and requeen all 3 splits.  Hot hive problem solved.  If I had it all to do over again I would (as Bob Harrison suggested) simply kill the offending hive and restock it; less time, fewer stings, calmer hive sooner than it took the three nasty splits to calm down, an overall better solution.

But I digress.  Lloyd's declaration of Africanized bees in upstate New York was speculation that has almost immediately become bigger than life.  There is no substantiation, although substantiation usually occurs long after the fact (witness how long it took Florida to admit established AHB populations).  There may indeed be AHB in upstate NY.  They may have arrived in the 70's!  I had a hive back then, queen came from a breeder in Texas (perhaps the same breeder Tim referred to) where all the counties around the breeder are confirmed Africanized.  I was a newbie back then and my solution was to simply avoid that hive.  I tried to kill them off over winter by leaving the top off the hive.  Surprisingly the hive over wintered!  Were they AHB?  Who can say?  Some might speculate that true AHB would not have survived an exposed winter.  Perhaps so.  Speculate away.  I never purchased queens or bees from that part of Texas again.  Today I'd simply kill the hive, sooner than later, and restock it.

In all these discussions, the point I keep hearing is there is no reason to tolerate nasty bees.  The sooner a nasty hive can be addressed the better.  The longer nasty bees are tolerated the more likely it is that the nasty bees will beget more nasty bees!  Whether bees are "officially" identified as AHB, be it morph metrically of by DNA analysis, is really moot.  It's is highly probably that AHB are being and have been distributed throughout the US far longer than anyone realizes.  It is inevitable that package bees, migratory beekeeping, and open mated queens coming from areas where AHB have become established will spread AHB genes.  INEVITABLE!

The best approach to address the problem is first and foremost, do not tolerate nasty bees.  Don't look the other way or ignore the problem, doing so only allows the problem to get worse.  Buying bees and queens from non-Africanized suppliers is a good option although island states and countries will never be able to meet the demand.  Instrumentally inseminated queens offer known results, although the cost of such queens is prohibitive.  Learning II techniques may be a sound investment for entrepineurial beekeepers.

Take home message?  Constant vigilance!

Aaron Morris - thinking Mad Eye Mooney!

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