At 06:20 PM 10/23/97 -0400, \\Dr. Pedro P. Rodriguez wrote:
>Honey bees do not sting birds of any kind.  Is it because bird feathers
>are "hinged" or "hooked" together, or is it because of the preening oil
>that the birds put on themselfves?
>Thoughts anyone?
 
In hyping the Killer Bee's the first find in California years ago was
blamed for killing birds. A Raven or a big black bird was said to be the
target at the time.
 
Also a few years ago one of the so called "news" networks made a trip to
Mexico to film the so called "killer" bees in action and aired a few bites
of bees swarming out of a  hive an mass attacking a chicken. As luck would
have it I taped that show to play for a group of beekeepers.
 
The rest of the story was that again by luck when showing this tape someone
wanted to re-run the part with the chicken and I stopped frame. Believe it
or not the chicken was tethered by a string in front of the bee hive and it
became clear this film was one of many set-ups made to hype the so called
killer bees. Later on I had a chance to talk with some of the "workers" who
were part of these rip offs and was told as how they would go out to the
bee yard that was going to visited that day and make sure that the bees
would be ready when the film crews and visitors arrived. They did
everything you could think of to put the bees on the tooth like ripping off
the tops and supers and slamming them back down so by the time the visitors
arrived the bees were ready to attack the first person who moved or made
any attempt to open a hive no matter how much care and smoke was used. I
won't mention any names of the so called BS (bee scientists) involved since
they are still alive someplace.
 
IMHO, ttul, the OLd Drone