Killer bees make their way to Bay Area

Africanized honey bees, informally known as “killer bees”, have finally made their way up to the San Francisco Bay Area, according to various reports.

Joshua Kohn, Prof.at UC San Diego biology, said that single Africanized honey bee remains very quiet and docile like European honeybees.

And the researchers, who have tracked the expansion of the bees and published their findings September 11 in PLOS One, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, speculate that there are other feral populations around the region.

LaForge said maps found online chart the geographic spread of Africanized bees.

It’s unclear how the bees arrived in the first place – “There are so many ways the bees could be moved here” said Steve Schutz, an entomologist for the Contra Costa Mosquito & Vector Control District. The bees had previously only been observed as far north as Mariposa County.

The Africanized honeybees were introduced to Brazil in 1956 in an effort to breed honeybees better suited to that climate, but they escaped containment and bred with European honeybees, creating the more aggressive hybrid.

But while they do pose a threat, particularly when their hive is disturbed, they may prove beneficial to the environment as their enhanced resistance to diseases relating to colony collapse disorder might allow them to replace the rapidly dying European variants. “The Central Valley is even more conducive to this possibility than the coast and though there is a possibility of buying bees with Africanized characteristic, it doesn’t mean those bees will survive in the area”. The sheer number in which they swarm is what makes these bees unsafe, with victims often being stung hundreds of times.

The bees have been known to build their hives in trees, under rocks, within caves and under edges of man-made objects such as sheds or chimneys.

People aren’t likely to notice a difference in the appearance of the more aggressive Africanized bees. But if they do stay, he said, there could be a few benefits.

“There’s probably a colony within a couple miles”, Kohn said. In December 2008, another swarm of killer bees was found in a sugar shipment. Kohn believes they’ve migrated north due to the warm weather and drought conditions.