Hi All
 
Cesar, you asked about a good reference for beekeepers in the tropics
working african/ized (same thing) bees.
 
Well there is an excellent, but somewhat old book called, Beekeeping
in the Tropics, Oxford , 196?. Nice book, written with that colonial
service attitude that has slowly died out on this continent to the
detriment of much.
 
Another book that is quite interesting to read is Beekeeping in
South Africa, I don't know the exact reference. It is I think
produced by our dept agriculture. Much of what is in there should
apply to south america as well as the bees are the same pretty much.
(I remember seeing in a few genetic papers that the bees from central
america pretty much matched those from pretoria).
 
As regards why one does not hear too much about african bees in the
press - people learn fast - especially with bees. A change of mindset
allows a change of mortality rates to bees. People learn rapidly that
with african bees you cannot have your horse tied up next to a
beehive - it will die. Another thing with african bees that I have
never read, but would geuss is that if 15 000 colonies of feral bees
are removed from a city like Mexico city (every year), then there
must be at least 40 000 feral colonies that have not been removed. If
each of these colonies results in a conservative 50 people being
stung every year (including people who step on bees, drink bees by
mistake in cooldrink etc), then we have 2 000 000 stings a year. In
my country many people get stung once or twice a year by accident in
this manner. Hence ones population will be far more frequently
exposed to bee stings and more likely to develop a tolerance to
stings. Given how kids are, most will be stung 50 times by the time
they are adults. (As a kid I was stung about this many times) Hence,
now that the africanized front has been around for a while, most kids
will have been desensized naturally and are probably able to tolerate
a massive stining event.
 
I did however recentyl read a paper in the American Journal of
Pediatry which decribed a few kids that picked up 2000+ stings each
and died. They are developing a bee antivenom for extreme cases in
Brazil as a result.
 
(BTW - check out www.asm.org - all their journals are online until
december - some nice stuff about bees in Journal of Applied Micro.
and Biochem. Anybody interested in TM resistance can run a search on
TM resistance and environemental bacteria!!)
 
Keep well
 
Garth
 
Garth Cambray           Camdini Apiaries
15 Park Road
Grahamstown             Apis mellifera capensis
6139
South Africa
 
Time = Honey
 
If you are not living on the edge you are taking up too much space!!