> I have to wonder at what a "statistically significant" increase in
> stinging
> deaths would be?

Well any increase in the existing pattern of incidents that does not seem,
after proper measurement and statistical analysis, to be attributable to
chance.  (Statistics is, in part, the black art of seeing whether apparent
and obvious differences in a series of numbers, such as annual stinging
deaths or stinging incidents from honey bees, are actually due to "noise",
especially in small samples, or whether they are probably due to a change in
the trend and some new factor, and the likelihood that the conclusion is
accurate within a range of probability).

>Anways, all "the facts" are probably out there, somewhere. I did find this
>site which has some of the facts:
> http://bees.ucr.edu/ahb-facts.html
> At the bottom there is a table listing 6 separate deaths attributed to AHB
> over a period of a few years.

Thanks for that.  For our purposes here, though, it is unfortunate that they
do not list all deaths from honey bee stings and break out the AHB numbers,
along with the percentage of colonies in the US that are estimated to be
AHB, and provide that data for a series of recent years.  That would allow
us to see if there is a disproportional number attributable to AHB. We do
know that there have been stinging deaths for EHB recorded every year for as
long as bees have been kept in the USA and that these deaths have been, in
some cases, from massive, sudden and relentless stinging from rogue EHB
hives.  We've all come across those if we have been around long enough.

I realise that this is difficult to do, as is identifying AHB, but the
website cited here merely builds on a previous assumption, which -- last I
heard -- had not been proven in any conclusive manner, and tells one part of
the story, but not the other.  After all, the AHB have displaced some EHB,
so we would expect that the number of incidents attributable to EHB may have
declined in those areas.

As with many things, we simply don't know, at least from what I have seen.
AFAIK, an assumption was made that seemed true, was accepted, and other work
has gone from there without re-testing the underlying assumption
periodically.  These assumptions may even have been true in other countries
along the AHB migration route, but are they true in the USA?  The USA is
different in many ways from Mexico and Central and South America.  The
climate is different, and the bees may also have changed.  Time has passed

> All the fatalities were older people who presumably were unable to run
> away fast enough - an assertion I've read before about other sting
> fatalities.

As the years pass, this has more and more meaning for me.

Please understand that I am not saying what seems obvious to many may not be
true, at least in part, but rather I am saying that the assumptions have not
been proven in this report, nor does it provide any way of doing so, and
enquiring minds need to know.

allen

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