Killer bees are abuzz at the Georgia border.
Spotted in Barbour County, Alabama, just over the Chattahoochee River from Georgia, Africanized bees — a hybrid between European and African honey bees — are known for their aggression and ability to sting people to death. The Alabama county is across the river from Georgia’s Quitman County, with a rural population of just over 2,200, and roughly 85 miles west of Albany.
“If established, Africanized Bees represent a direct threat to Georgia agriculture and their aggressive behavior make them a threat to public health,” Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper wrote in a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “While there is no need for Georgians to be concerned at this time, we are actively monitoring the situation in Alabama and encouraging Georgia beekeepers to report any overly aggressive colonies to GDA.”
He’s confident Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate will address the situation “with the urgency it requires,” he said.
Credit: Scott Bauer
Credit: Scott Bauer
State of Alabama Apiary Inspector Phillip Carter said he believes Barbour County’s Africanized bees are an isolated event. After DNA testing the swarm and determining Africanized hybrids, the state euthanized the bees, he said. Now, they are tracking and testing bees in the state and working with local beekeepers to ensure the Africanized genes did not spread in the population.
How the killer bees came to Alabama remains a mystery.
“There’s really just no telling how they got there,” Carter said. “It was in a wall of a house, so it wasn’t a beekeeper.”
Peter Helfrich, president of the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association, said he is not too concerned about the Africanized bees in Alabama.
“They have been here in the past, but it’s very very uncommon to find a fully Africanized colony this far north,” he said.
Julia Mahood, president of the Georgia Beekeepers Association, said Africanized bees aren’t uncommon. While they’re bad news, she said, they’re no longer the threat they once were.
“All beekeepers who are educated at all know that when you have aggressive bees, you need to get rid of them,” Mahood, who has been a beekeeper for 21 years, said.
In 2010, Africanized bees stung a Georgia man in Albany to death.
The Smithsonian estimates approximately 1,000 people have died from Africanized bees since their introduction in Brazil in the 1950s.
Dr. Lewis Bartlett, assistant professor in the Department of Entomology and program leadership for the University of Georgia Bee Program, said Africanized, or hybrid, bees are particularly dangerous because they possess traits of both African and European bees. While African bees are quick to take flight but slow to sting, European bees are slow to rile up but fast to sting.
“It’s the combination of those two behaviors in the hybrid bees that makes them dangerous,” Bartlett said. “Large numbers of them will take flight quickly because of their African lineage and normally that wouldn’t be a problem because they don’t sting very readily. But the European part of them means they pull the trigger very quickly.”
Africanized bees are nearly identical looking to European honey bees. Bartlett said the best way to stay safe is to move away from bees as quickly as possible.
“Just be respectful when you see a bee, and chances are you’ll be fine,” Mahood said.
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