African Bees 2013, a review

I left California in 1991, before the African bees really took hold. My friend Tom Glenn gave up a lucrative business raising open mated queens in Southern California, when he realized he could not prevent the Africanization of his colonies. Fortunately, he was able to convert his operation to Instrumental Insemination (II) and build back up to a prospering business. 

The Tuscon Bee Lab has to use African bees for much of their work because it is impossible to keep European bees in that area, without continual requeening with European stock. Any studies involving breeding must necessarily be done with II queens. 

I have followed with great interest the Africanization of the southern US. The genetic turnover has been fully documented in countless instances. Many former beekeepers now make a good living just removing swarms, as African bee swarm much more frequently than European bees, and they are far less choosy about where they will nest.

In the beginning, there was a lot of talk of how we would prevent Africanization from taking place, but in the end, it was “can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”. As in Brazil, Central American and Mexico, beekeepers either learn to use the bees, or quit. 

Living in the north, as I do, I have not had to deal with them. We are accustomed to having bees close to our houses, and would hate to have to give that up. One way that the northern states could be infected by African stock is by migratory beekeepers bringing them in from Florida, Louisiana , or Texas. 

Another is through packages and queens. At this point, AHBs are illegal in NY State, but bees that are heavily hybridized are difficult to identify. I have always suggested that vicious bees should not be tolerated, regardless of their pedigree. The risk to pastoral beekeeping is too great to take a chance by harboring vicious bees. They are on par with vicious dogs; more trouble than they are worth.

In the course of researching the topic, I found the following article which I excerpt for the purposes of educational and historical purposes only.

QUOTED MATERIAL FOLLOWS

> INTENSIFIED beekeeping must be undertaken now, if dominant spheres of European honey bees are to be established where needed at geographical strong points to combat the Africanized Honey Bee (AHB). To do this, certain objectives in queen rearing and fieldwork must be met in a balanced mix, for one would be quite naive to believe that expertise in just one area of beekeeping will be enough to keep hives non-Africanized.

> We as beekeepers in Southern Arizona cannot just one day say the AHB are here, for then they will not go away and yet, the technical and field knowledge is here today to stop the advancing problem, if one just rationally stops and thinks!

> The major number of hive subcasts are probably being mated African. While just a few European drones manage to get through. Good, firm, sound, quantitative research is now urgently needed for understanding drone congregation areas ,and substrains (sub-families) within our hives through basic bee biology. Perhaps through their identification and knowing where drone congregation areas are in a given area, beekeepers can learn to use the knowledge against the AHB.   

> If one acknowledges that AHB are smaller and faster than most (but not all) domestic races and strains of bees today, then perhaps instead of breeding bigger and slower, bee breeders of tomorrow should strive to breed smaller and faster, but yet highly prolific bees to gather our honey crops.  

> All it takes is logic and reason, coupled with out of season breeding to avoid as much as possible AHB drones, while striving to breed smaller and faster, gentler domestic stock. We need to use "aggressive intensified field management" programs saying how we can, instead of why we can't prepare our apiaries against the AHB. We can hold our apiaries against the AHB I believe if we all work together, helping each other in grafting situations. We cannot let this country become Africanized and I don't think in the end we will!

Meeting the Challenge of the Africanized Honey Bee 
One Beekeeping Family's Approach
by DEE A. LUSBY (1987) American Bee Journal

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