I work every day in South Africa with so called "Killer Bees". During swarming they are very mild tempered, as they have nothing to protect ie, honey or brood. In Africa it is very dry and bees have to bee prepared to move to greener pastures as the need arises. In Africa they have to be prepared to defend their honey and brood from some serious preditores. Some of our preditores have some mean tactics. Forget using electric fences etc. these guys are not bothered by that sort of thing, I have had site with 50 hives totaly destroyed by the honey badger in 1 night, so yes our bee has to be aggresive. I train fire depts in SA on handling incidents with "killer bees", and during these sesions I question the fire fighters on any incidents they have had so far. Belive it or not all incidents were caused by some uneducated (bee wise that is) member of public doing some thing to the bees. You would be amased at what some people do, even worse for the bee industry is the media does not mention what actualy caused the bees to react in the way that they did. In one incident an adult male tryed to destroy a track swarm hanging from a tree in his garden, at midday with a tin of house hold insecterside. Due to the amount of bees the tin of Doom stood no chance and only put the bees into a defence mode. The only form of defence for them was to attac. Unfortunatly two elderly women were walking past at the time, and were attacted by the bees. The fire dept. were called, due to lack of training and equipment (not any more) they strugled to resue the two women. One of the two women later died in hospital. Who got the bad rap ? The bees, but it should have been the idiot who used the tin of Doom on the bees. Asked why he did it ? The local bee farmers usualy charge a nominal fee about $25 ). I do not know how your bees react to such incidents, but I think it would be intresting to see what actualy caused those bee related deaths. We must all remember the bee is a wild insect we only supply housing, we have not been able to tame or domesticate a bee yet. Dont get me wrong most insect and animals, from Africa are more aggresive but if given the right respect will not be a problem. The Africanised honey bee is not going to be eradicated from the US so the public at large need to be educated about it, other wise the poor bee farmer is going to get all the flak. Who is responsible for the education of the public ? Yes, the govement and state departments, but more importantly it is the responciblity of each and every bee farmer, big and small. Regards Mark Hale From not so dark Africa Hosts Apimondia 2001