I work every day in South Africa with so called "Killer Bees". During
swarming they are very mild tempered, as they have nothing to protect ie,
honey or brood. In Africa it is very dry and bees have to bee prepared to
move to greener pastures as the need arises. In Africa they have to be
prepared to defend their honey and brood from some serious preditores. Some
of our preditores have some mean tactics. Forget using electric fences etc.
these guys are not bothered by that sort of thing, I have had site with 50
hives totaly destroyed by the honey badger in 1 night, so yes our bee has to
be aggresive.
I train fire depts in SA on handling incidents with "killer bees", and
during these sesions I question the fire fighters on any incidents they have
had so far. Belive it or not all incidents were caused by some uneducated
(bee wise that is) member of public doing some thing to the bees. You would
be amased at what some people do, even worse for the bee industry is the
media does not mention what actualy caused the bees to react in the way that
they did. In one incident an adult male tryed to destroy a track swarm
hanging from a tree in his garden, at midday with a tin of house hold
insecterside. Due to the amount of bees the tin of Doom stood no chance and
only put the bees into a defence mode. The only form of defence for them was
to attac. Unfortunatly two elderly women were walking past at the time, and
were attacted by the bees. The fire dept. were called, due to lack of
training and equipment (not any more) they strugled to resue the two women.
One of the two women later died in hospital. Who got the bad rap ? The bees,
but it should have been the idiot who used the tin of Doom on the bees.
Asked why he did it ? The local bee farmers usualy charge a nominal fee
 about $25 ).
I do not know how your bees react to such incidents, but I think it would be
intresting to see what actualy caused those bee related deaths. We must all
remember the bee is a wild insect we only supply housing, we have not been
able to tame or domesticate a bee yet. Dont get me wrong most insect and
animals, from Africa are more aggresive but if given the right respect will
not be a problem. The Africanised honey bee is not going to be eradicated
from the US so the public at large need to be educated about it, other wise
the poor bee farmer is going to get all the flak. Who is responsible for the
education of the public ? Yes, the govement and state departments, but more
importantly it is the responciblity of each and every bee farmer, big and
small.

Regards
Mark Hale
From not so dark Africa
Hosts Apimondia 2001