To all on BEE-l
Barry Sergeant talks about AHBs as many before him here in
the USA have talked about them that have actual experience
with them in the field. Much has been said on the subject
matter. Also it has been said when the myth becomes reality
then learn to live the myth! But is this fair to our
beekeeping industry? Most of this myth is orchastrated
politics, but then that is another story.
What prompted me to write is Barry Sergeant made me think,
so I pulled out an Article written called " Are 'Killer
Bees' Wimping Out?" that appeared on page 8, the Speedy Bee
in Oct/Nov1997. From it I now quote:
*But since crossing the U.S.border near Hidalgo, Texas, in
1990, they've moved very little from the strongholds
they've established in the Southwest.
Researchers now say these tropical bees may have reached
what will be roughly their northern limit in the United
Staes, an area that includes only the southern-most United
States.
They also say the bees have lost much of their legendary
aggressiveness from continiuous interbreeding with milder
European honeybees in their journey to the United States.
"A lot of the extreme ideas about these bees have been
thrown out," said William L. Rubink, a research
entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Honeybee Research Labortary in Weslaco, Texas.
"Basically, what we've seen is that the movement north
seems to start degressing about the 30 degree (latitude)
mark. That's pretty much where we saw it decreasing in
south America also" as they spread south into more
temperate climates of that continent, he said.
Native to Afirce, these "bees with an attitude" were
imported to Brazil in 1956 as part of a genetics
experiment.
.......
Even as they existed in Brazil the AHBs were a far cry from
the vicious mauders taht became their myth. However, they
could be dangerously aggressive when provoked, and mnay
researchers had predicted the Africanized bees would not
lose this trait as they continued to spread north through
Central Amerlica, since they seemed to have lost so little
of it in their early spread north of Brazil. In fact , that
conclusion became the conventional wisdom about the bees.
But Dr Rubink and others who have visited areas of South
and Central AMerica where the bees are established say they
are more aggressive farther south than the US strains have
proven to be.
"They're nowhere near what they are down there. We're
seeing (an aggressiveness) that is less than what was
predicted," he said, attributing the change to the
continuous interbreeding with milder European honeybees.
Hachiro Shimanuki, head of USDA Honeybee Research in
Beltsville, Md., agreed that the bees have grown more
mellow.
"however, we don't really have any ghood way of making the
comparison per se. We do think they've been hybridized a
lot more though. There are a number of people who think
that in a few years we will not be talking about
AFricanized honeybees as a seperate species at all," he
said.
Now again, when the myth becomes reality, does one live the
myth or live reality and get rid of the myth?
Barry Sergeant is breeding bees like others before him
have.We ourselves have done the same, my husband Ed and I.
Yet, myths are hard to live down.
Locally, a beekeeper has a hive that stings more than 2-3
times they think they have 'killer' bees and requeen to go
gentler, yet up north in the USA a beekeeeper has a hive
that stings 20-30 times working it and this is normal
European stock. About 4 deaths have occured in the southern
states due to AHBs and mostly due to people trying to get
rid of them foolishly, due to orchastrated publid hype. ONe
old man killed, tried to burn the swarm out with a torch
when local beekeepers wouldn't help him (Texas). Even up
north I think the scenario would have been the same.
So to end and basically say what does this mean? Well, bees
are bees, and politics is politics and it's a shame that
people with good bees to sell cannot sell them, the way
they have always been sold to make a living. Barry has a
right to sell his bees from S. Africa to the USA and Europe
without all the stigma attached by political myth. After
all, bees from there were originally used to set up stocks
here in the USA and Europe. We'd sell clean nucs and bees
also, but sometimes politics of myths is hard.
While I don't agree with all Barry Sergeant says mainly as
concerns breeding (I'm into natural sizing and not
enlarging bees) I do VERY MUCH agree with him on being
allowed to sell a product, his bees, and saying there is
nothing wrong with the genetics of them. But then the big
question is: What exactly is AHB other then political myth?
REgards,
Dee A. Lusby
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