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!!