What is an African bee? Unfortunately, it is not easy to tell. According to a report from the California Health Dept., "AHBs and EHBs are grossly indistinguishable and individual bees can be differentiated only by morphometry or mitochondrial DNA." Early on, the method used was making fine measurements of the wing veins.  (American Bee Journal July 1987). Then as DNA analysis techniques improved, people began using this method to identify not only suspected AHBs but all the different honey bee "races" so that we could have a better picture of the geneology of the honey bee species overall.

It was found that ALL African races share certain gene markers, and that some of these markers also appear in the bees native to Spain. It is not correct, however, to call the Spanish bees Africanized, since their genes are quite different and have much more in common with European bees than the bees of North Africa, and have little in common with tropical African bees.

In fact, Ruttner says of A. m. iberica: "It survives the cold and long winters without difficulty. The definite proof of its "temperate" character became evident when transferred to the tropics of the New World: while A. m. mellifera and ligustica colonized temperate North America with feral populations immediately, iberica remained in need of shelter provided by men for centuries in tropical South America.  No feral colonies of this race were found (see: O. R. Taylor, 1985).

So how do you tell an African bee in the US? I mentioned morphometry (wing veins) and genetics (mitochondrial DNA). The third route is behavior. There are certain features of African bees which can be easily tested. First, laying worker latency. The African types develop laying workers much faster tan European. In the European this normally take about a month, whereas in African types workers begin to lay eggs in less than a week. The Tellian bee from Morocco (A. m. intermissa) has the shortest interval, about 5 days.

Their comb building is different in several ways. The Africanized bees (scutellata) are smaller and build smaller cells. This was proposed by Rinderer as method if ID for Africanized bees in the US. Unfortunately, cell size varies and it takes time to get comb built. Another characteristic is that queenless European bees build drone cells. The Cape bee builds all worker cells. I don't have info on the other types.

Finally, there is the matter of temper. If African bees weren't generally vicious, we wouldn't really care if we had them, I suppose. Everyone has had colonies that are vicious, so this is not a sure thing -- but I suggest that any hive that is more hostile than others in the same apiary should be requeened or killed. I suggest that feral colonies not be used as a source of bees unless one is certain where they came from. If one has a definite plan for maintaining stock from reliable sources, one has little to worry about. If one raises one's own queens in an area where there are a lot of feral colonies, one would be very vulnerable to Africanization.

References available on request

Peter Borst, Ithaca NY