Bill Mares requested (on 18 September):

>Dear Dr. Wenner,   Can you provide a link to your op ed piece about
>AHB which you referred to in your Bee-L post today?   Thank you.

    That piece appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press.  I believe
their web site address is:  www.sbnewspress.com

    However, I post here the text of my commentary (they printed
essentially all of it):

********

Let's not lose perspective about bees

    Now that the Africanized Honey Bee (AHB) has arrived in Santa
Barbara County, we might pause and place this new situation in
perspective.
Our familiar honey bee (European or EHB) has always had a revered
status, due to its "industrious" behavior and benefit to human
society in general.

    In California, especially, we have extolled the virtue of honey
bees for pollination of almonds, avocados and stone fruits.  Anyone
who has backyard fruit trees usually unwittingly depends on honey
bees to pollinate those flowers and insure a crop later in the
season.  We also relish the honey that bees produce and use their
beeswax to good advantage.

    Beekeepers, both large and small, continue to provide a great and
generally unrecognized service nationwide.  Yet, they have
encountered one obstacle after another, including pesticide poisoning
and parasitic mites that kill their colonies.  Experienced beekeepers
know that a properly managed European bee colony poses no problem
unless attacked.  Despite the benefit, communities (including Santa
Barbara) often have ordinances against beekeeping.  The arrival of
AHB just represents one more serious problem for beekeepers in our
area.

    Anti-bee ordinances become voted in due to a rather natural "fear
factor" about stings.  However, death from honeybee stings is rather
rare.  On page 1230 of the 1992 book, The Hive and the Honey Bee, one
finds that deaths due to motor vehicle accidents, murder, radon gas,
and poisoning cause roughly,2500, 1000, 700, and 200 times,
respectively, as many deaths in the U.S. as stings by honey bees.

    Yet, we do not ban vehicles.  In the U.S. in 1997, dogs caused 11
deaths (nine of them children), 4.5 million injuries, and 334,000
hospital visits, but we do not indiscriminately eliminate dogs.

    Africanized honey bees are in this area from now on, but we can
deal with the situation positively.

    Quite likely, few of the "wild" colonies in our area are
Africanized; hence, bee colonies should not be routinely exterminated
at this time.  Such colonies should be considered "innocent until
proven guilty."  We need those bees for pollination of our fruit
trees.

    On the other hand, any bee colony in an inappropriate cavity
(e.g., in meter boxes, in trash cans, or along a pathway) should be
eliminated, but only by professionals.  We can also suspect that
swarms occurring late in the season and occupying odd cavities might
well be AHB.

    How great a problem do we face?  AHB have now been in the Los
Angeles Basin for several years (first record: West Covina in January
of 1999), with remarkably few incidents since then, considering the
large human population in that area.  We have likely had AHB in our
area for a couple of years but have had no stinging incidents.  It's
almost as if AHB have "mellowed out" once reaching Southern
California.

    From reports, Africanized honey bee colonies pose little more
danger to us than what we routinely experience with yellow jacket
wasp colonies in this area.  European bee colonies defend only the
immediate area of their hive and do not normally pursue intruders a
great distance.

    Both AHB and yellow jackets defend a much greater perimeter and
pursue intruders quite some distance, as is well known by those who
have stumbled onto a wasp nest.  Individual wasps or bees of either
type that visit flowers on your property or elsewhere normally pose
no problem.

    Even in Tucson AZ, which has had AHB since 1993, bee attack
severity and frequency have been much less of a problem than expected
originally.  For instance, a survey published in 2001, of attacks
upon family pets in that city during 1998, revealed that dogs caused
114 deaths of pets, while bees were responsible for the deaths of
only six pets.

    Perhaps a major reason for the low incidence of problems in Tucson
has been the use of "swarm traps," specially designed containers
fitted with lures and placed in convenient places to capture
relocating swarms.  Tucson now has a score of companies that install
and check such traps weekly, thereby intercepting swarms that would
otherwise have occupied an unsuitable cavity.

    I have maintained such swarm hives, with lures, in our backyard
for several years and routinely catch one or two swarms per year.
That process has kept bee colonies from entering the walls of our
neighbor's houses or other cavities where they could pose a problem.
Bees in swarm mode are remarkably docile, but I know of only one
company in this area that is equipped to install and monitor such
swarm hives.

    Santa Barbara County residents should now inform themselves about
what we can now expect to experience and how to react to this new
situation.  The California Department of Food and Agriculture has a
web site that one can access for some information about AHB:
http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/pdep/ahb_profile.htm

    Locally, one can phone the Agricultural Commissioner's AHB
Information Line at (805) 681-5601 or (877) 856-2337 toll-free, or
(in unincorporated areas of the county) call the Santa Barbara
Coastal Vector Control District at (805) 969-5050.

    A very up-to-date web site for the Commissioner's office has
complete information about AHB for our area:
http://www.countyofsb.org/agcomm/default.asp.

    None of the above is meant to downplay the fact that, for a few
people (especially those allergic to bee stings), the situation can
become serious.  Call 911 in an emergency situation (where
individuals get stung multiple times or develop life-threatening
systemic allergic reactions).

    Above all, do not allow children to disturb bee or wasp colonies.

    In non-emergency situations and outside of incorporated areas, the
Santa Barbara Coastal Vector Control District will provide service or
referrals to residents in those areas of the county.  Residents of
the incorporated areas should contact their appropriate city offices
or hire a private pest control operator for bee removal on their
property (addresses and phone numbers available for those companies
on the SB County Commissioner's web site).

    Most of all, we should support our local beekeepers, who serve as
a solution rather than as constituting a problem.  The presence of
their colonies provides substantial competition against the
establishment of Africanized bee colonies.  That is, a conscientious
beekeeper would know quite soon whether an Africanized swarm had
invaded a bee yard and could eliminate obnoxious bees before they
cause problems.  By contrast, killing all "wild" colonies when found
creates a vacuum into which AHB swarms can readily move.

***********
    Since that commentary appeared, I have received only positive
comments from both beekeepers and other citizens.  The above text may
help others when AHB move into their area.

                                                                Adrian
--
Adrian M. Wenner                (805) 963-8508 (home office phone)
967 Garcia Road                 [log in to unmask]
Santa Barbara, CA  93103        www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm

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*    "T'is the majority [...that] prevails.  Assent, and you are sane
*       Demur, you're straightway dangerous, and handled with a chain."
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*                                    Emily Dickinson, 1862
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