Texas stops quarantining counties with `killer’ bees
LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — When Africanized “killer bees” first buzzed into South Texas, alarmists warned the rest of the state to brace for deadly swarms.
Although there have been 11 deaths in Texas in the 15 years since, that falls far short of the doom projected by some. In fact, the bees have become so common they now can be found in most Texas counties, prompting agricultural officials to announce this week that restrictions have been lifted on the movement of commercial bees.
More than 60 percent of the state’s counties now have populations of killer bee. One expert said the bee’s “killer” reputation was overstated. “I feel like it was exaggerated, and partly due to media wanting to make a big splash,” said Bill Baxter, a bee inspector with the Texas Apiary Inspection Service. “People didn’t know and we did not know what was going to happen.”
Africanized honey bees are similar to common honey bees but more aggressive when they feel threatened. The bees have been detected in New Mexico, California, Nevada and Arizona since they were first found in Texas in 1990.
For years, commercial bee-keepers had been prevented from moving their hives to a new county without first certifying that the new destination was not contaminated with the Africanized bee. The tests cost as much as $600, Baxter said.
The quarantines proved that beekeepers weren’t the reason for the spread of killer bees, said Paul Jackson, the state’s inspector for the service. “The quarantine proved that the spread of Africanized honey bee in Texas is the result of natural migration of the insect,” Jackson said.
No other state opted to quarantine their counties upon detection of the bees. The Africanized bee or a crossbred variety has killed 11 people in Texas since 1990, according to the Texas Honey Bee Identification Lab in College Station. Hundreds more have been stung, and nearly 100 animals have been killed.
“In some situations, they can be deadly,” said Anita Collins, a research geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. who has studied the bee since the early 1970s in South America. “But usually it’s been people who’ve had other health problems.”
Apian’s Note: Well of course we can be deadly, but for the most part we just keep busy. We never sting unless provoked, and even then we are not deadly. Yeah, sure there have been eleven deaths in 15 years, but compared to the mortality rate of prisoners during Bush’s reign as governor, with Gonzales as the hanging judge, our murder rate doesn’t even make the chart!
There is no quarantine can contain us – the idea is laughable. But then again most of what humans do is laughable to a bee. We have varieties in almost every temperate country in the world. We’re just kind of hard for people to keep track of. For instance, we have a small but thriving colony off the west coast of Ireland, in the Aran Islands. Those islands are dedicated to the Bee Goddess, (Gobnait, in Irish.)
We bees don’t mind much, really, and almost everything amuses us. We love life, and beauty and music (Greek bouzouki music) and dancing. We always dance as soon as we get home. We dance the dance of our escapades and adventures and dance out a map for our fellow bees to tell them where the flowers are blooming and the pollen is rich.
When it comes to gathering honey, the human beings smoke us until we’re dopey, then come to rip us off. The thing is, we always produce a surplus – and that’s why we don’t sting the bee keepers. Actually we enjoy them because they appreciate us. However, there’s only so much ripping off we will put up with – too much of a mild annoyance can become a cause for an out and out swarm attack. Or, we just pack up and move hive.
Now the Texas branch of our family is very militant. They fly the flag of “Don’t Tread On Me” and they mean it!! They are aiming to make a stand in Crawford, Texas soon. So if any government officials, or British intel ops or foreign office officials, any Condi Rice or Blair or Tenet or Dearlove or Goldsmith, or Straw or Gonzales, or Ashcroft or Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz or any of that lot plans a picnic in Crawford to seal the deal for the next war in Iran, maybe they had better bring a bee venom kit of super strength. The Texas Killer Bees are stinging mad and they’re LETHAL !
Illustration: Pieter Brueghel, The Beekeepers, 1567, San Francisco Museum of Art.
