Africanized honey bees are moving around more this year due to the drought
in the Southwest, according to the following article from the Associated
Press. What follows is only a partial quote of the article. It was published
in its entirety on April 25th  in the New York Times. It provides a fair
amount of new information that I haven't seen on bee-l, and, IMO, should be
introduced into the archives.
   Especially interesting to me is the assertion that July and October are
the worst times for AHB attacks. Can anybody verify that? Seasonal
aggressiveness of the kind referred to in the article would have more to do
with nectar flows than with bee biology, wouldn't it?
   What about the assertion that AHBs move around in October. Is this why
biologists think these bees might not survive in northern latitudes?

Killer Bees Flee the Dry Weather, for Cities
   "Confronted with unseasonably dry weather, the easily agitated Africanized
honeybees are moving from the parched desert regions to the bountiful
cities.
   "The wild plants that normally provide nectar and pollen have shriveled
up. So the so-called killer bees are heading into urban areas -- like
people's backyards -- in search of new honey sources.
   "'In periods of dry weather, these bees will pack up and move on. They're
going to where the water and flowers are,' said Dr. Dave Langston, an
Africanized honeybee expert and superintendent of the Maricopa Agriculture
Center at the University of Arizona.
   "'We have more bees looking for places to live. That increases bee-human
interaction.'
   "The dry weather does not make the bees more aggressive, but increases the
chances of swarming encounters. With fewer bees foraging for food, there are
more bees in the hive to defend their precious honey reserves and brood,
experts say.
   "'A colony of Africanized honeybees will employ more guard bees to fend
off would-be intruders,' said Tom Martin, owner and president of AAA
Africanized Bee Removal Specialists in Tucson and Phoenix.
  "Normally, most bee attacks occur in July, when honey stores dry up and in
October, when the bees are looking for new homes and honey sources.
   "The bees hit Arizona in 1993 and have been blamed for the deaths of four
people since then. The bees also have killed numerous animals that were
penned and unable to flee."