Video Script
Title: Africanized Bees in Florida: Coping With the Challenge
Length: 23:30
Agriculture is vital to Florida. From the rolling hills of the Panhandle to the winter vegetables fields of South Florida, farmers in the Sunshine State produce 280 commodities on a commercial scale, generating an overall economic impact of eighty-seven billion dollars annually. Yet, all this would not be possible without an insect the size of a dime.
Jamie Ellis
Honeybees are, no doubt, the most important insect that man has a relationship with. Honeybees are responsible for approximately one-third of the world’s food production, largely through their pollination efforts. When people think of honeybees, they think of honey. But it’s the pollination that’s the biggest benefit to us … so through their pollination efforts, honeybees truly do feed mankind.
In this state alone, most of the citrus, watermelon, squash, strawberries, and blueberries cannot produce fruit without bees. They also pollinate alfalfa and clover, which the cattle industry relies on to feed livestock. In Florida, each year, honey bees generate honey valued at twenty million dollars. Because of the state’s wide variety of nectar sources it is considered some of the highest quality honey in the world.
Beekeeping is one of the oldest forms of food production. For thousands of years honey bee colonies have been managed to produce honey, collect beeswax and pollinate crops. Today, managed bee colonies are still vital to healthy crop production. Modern beekeepers move them from farm to farm across the country during the growing seasons.
Dave Mendes
For any of the vine crops you want to get decent morning sun …
Rich Chastain
We work hand-in-hand with the beekeepers … and without the honey bee, we would be out of business.
Dave Mendes
See that end one? Every bee that’s coming in has got pollen in it. That’s what you want to see.
Rich Chastain
Bees are playing more and more of a bigger role because of the types and varieties of hybrid produce that we’re growing. They take more pollination than it did years ago, and it’s something that’s vital to our industry.
And, you know, that’s our livelihood. And there’s a whole trickle affect to the livelihoods that come with our farming operation, from the transportation end … to the chain stores and everybody in that chain would be affected without these bees.
Managed honey bees have become such an integral part of Florida’s ecosystem it is hard to imagine that they are not native to North America. Originally brought over in hives by Spanish explorers in the 1500s, the domesticated European bee became a silent partner in the native pollination process. Today, much of the wildlife across the state depends upon fruits, nuts and berries whose flowers are pollinated by these gentle domesticated honey bees.
But another strain of honey bee has invaded North America. Easily agitated, these feral – or unmanaged -- swarms are threatening not only the existence of the domesticated honey bee, they are putting in jeopardy our very food supply. The Africanized honey bee is here – and it is not going away.
In 1956, Brazilian scientists were trying to breed a honey bee better adapted to South American’s tropical climate. They imported a resilient strain from South Africa. Not long after the experiments began, the Africanized bees took over local honey bee colonies in Southern Brazil. Over the next few decades they spread throughout South and Central America. In October 1990, they found their way to Texas; the Africanize bee had entered the United States.
Bees are highly social insects. Models of efficiency, the colony is made up of a single queen bee, male drones and female worker bees, each with a specific job to do.
Jerry Hayes
… they live in a community, they have leaders, they have cleaners, they have nurses, they have foragers, they have defensive people, and this is really unique in the insect world. Honeybees do this and it’s fascinating to think how they can do this with a brain the size of a period.
A queen bee can lay up to 2000 eggs in one day. In managed hives the bees build a large series of combs to raise their young. These combs also hold vast stores of honey to feed the colony during the winter months when food is scarce.
Africanized bees, however, evolved in a climate without harsh winters, where food was available to them year around. Without the need to produce large stores of honey they did not require large hives, and Africanized bees focused less on storing food and more on producing offspring.
When the population of a hive reaches its maximum size, the colony splits in a process called swarming. In feral Africanized bee colonies, the original queen bee leaves with half the colony to create a new hive, leaving behind a new queen to control the remaining bees. Developing smaller hives at a higher rate of reproduction allows Africanized bees to swarm five times more often than managed honey bees.
Africanized bees also increase their population by taking over established colonies. When Africanized bees infiltrate a colony in the wild, the takeover occurs with no resistance. Africanized swarms will enter an existing colony, kill the old queen and install their own. Africanized drones from the hive, mate with the new queens, and more colonies becomes Africanized.
In a managed colony, steps are taken to avert takeovers. Beekeepers work diligently to prevent Africanized bees from passing on their undesirable traits to the docile European bees.
Bill Kern
Africanized Honey bees, of course, are the same species as the European Honey bees that we’ve all grown up with. The difference is they are much more defensive which means that if you disturb a colony they will defend that colony very aggressively.
This will show you how a European honey bee colony reacts. I’m taking a bee and making it sting, and now we’re gonna see how they react to the alarm pheromone on this sting. We don’t have excessive amounts of defensive behavior … compare this with an African hive. We’re looking at the defensive response of an Africanized colony …
They come out in larger numbers. They’re easier to provoke and they will chase you farther.
Look at the number of stingers in this piece of suede and they’re still attacking.
Narrator
These insects move with such efficiency, that they have become the most successful invasive insect species ever in the Americas.
To manage the growth of Africanized bee populations in Florida, a number of areas around the state are being monitored closely; these areas include seaports, such as Jacksonville, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Tampa.
Bob Musser
We are the largest port in the State of Florida. Much of the commerce … for central, central west of Florida and south central Florida comes through the Port of Tampa. So we are essentially the front lines for monitoring of bee activity … to stop any introduction of bees into the Port and into the agricultural areas surrounding west central Florida.
Apiary inspectors from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services monitor over 500 bee traps around the state. Placed anywhere feral bees could take up residence, the cardboard cones are treated with a special pheromone, or chemical attractant, that draws bees to the trap. Effective at the seaports, they also lure bees away from high-traffic areas like many tourist destinations golf courses, schools, and airports.
Each trap is a survey tool to collect and identify bees. As such, the traps allow inspectors to pinpoint the presence of the bees. Once trapped, they are eradicated by the inspector and samples are collected.
Todd Jameson
I maintain around 100 traps in the Tampa Bay area. I monitor these traps on a 21-day cycle. And if I happen to find honeybees in any one of the traps …I take a sample of them, and I send it to our lab in Gainesville to have them check for possible Africanized DNA.
Jerry Hayes
Because visually they look just like the managed bees of Florida beekeepers, Africanized bees, have to be identified in a laboratory setting. We look at certain body lengths and widths and angles, and we take those measurements and enter the data into a computer program to come up with what this particular insect may be. This is very helpful so then we can survey in Florida knowing where this insect is and of course alert the appropriate officials in that area that they may need to be on their guard to protect their citizenry.
Feral bees choose nesting sites that will provide their colony with protection. In natural settings, hollow trees and branches can provide a secure location. In urban areas, though, bees often find places where people may accidentally disturb them. Eliminating these potential nesting sites can greatly reduce the chance of stinging incidents.
Jonathan Simkins
This nest has only been here for a couple of weeks …
Residents can look for clues showing feral Africanized bee infestation, like observing the flight paths of bees to and from a specific area, or hearing the steady hum of an established colony. If they come across a colony, residents should never attempt to exterminate it on their own. They should stay away and call a certified and licensed pest control operator.
Jonathan Simkins
A lot of people think they can take care of stinging insects themselves. The problem with taking care of it yourself is that there are several hundred guards waiting to come out. So if you go and you spray the exterior of a colony, you’re going to kill a few bees, maybe 50 bees. But once those bees die, you’re going to have several hundred come out of the colony and attack you.
In the southwestern US, where people have been living with Africanized bees since the 1990s, 50 percent of all Africanized bee attacks involve people who knew the nest was there the whole time. This suggests that half of all Africanized bee attacks are preventable.
Jamie Ellis
Most people, when they see a snake, they avoid the snake, they run away, and they leave the snake alone. We’re teaching the same respect for African bee colonies. If you see a colony, leave it alone.
Like most animals, Africanized bees react defensively only when their home is threatened. If pursued, the best thing to do is run away as quickly as possible, covering your head and neck. Africanized honey bees will fiercely protect an area around their nest and will chase a perceived threat as far as 300 yards – the length of three football fields.
They can sense vibrations from machines and equipment like lawn mowers, weed eaters, sirens, and ATVs and will respond quickly to these disturbances. Initially they visually hone in on the victim then target its exhalation of carbon dioxide, attacking the mouth, nose, eye and ears of the victim. Though pulling your shirt over your head may make your torso vulnerable to stings, it protects your head and neck, which are more sensitive. Take shelter in an enclosed area such as a car, truck or building as quickly as possible and stay inside. A common mistake people make is that when they realize that a few bees have followed them inside, they panic and run back outside where as many as 50 to 60,000 bees are waiting for them.
Do not try to hide in water –Africanized bees will wait for you longer than you can hold your breath. If an attack has occurred, call for help immediately. Properly trained First responders, like firefighters, law enforcement officers and EMTs, will deal with the situation.
Mike Jachles
If you’re prepared and you train for any type of situation, you can approach it that much more expeditiously and perform a rescue of a patient in a relatively short amount of time.
Bill Kern
This is what you’d expect in a small Africanized swarm…
Mike Jachles
We’ve actually trained with Africanized honeybees over at the University of Florida. So our rescuers, our first responders have trained in these real life environments. So they are ready to respond, should they encounter this.
Bill Kern
Training both first responders and pest control operators on how to protect themselves when they go into a situation where they’re dealing with a defensive colony is very important. Second, we give them tactics and methods for controlling an aggressively defensive colony.
Bill Kern Actuality
You’re going to create an umbrella of spray when you go in and you’re going to basically knock the bees out of the air. And continue to spray as you remove the victim to the ambulance or your staging area.
Bill Kern
So we teach them how to use the appropriate materials, how to use the appropriate tactics to either perform a rescue or to eliminate a dangerous colony.
When a bee stings, its barbed stinger lodges in the victim's skin. As the bee tries to leave, the stinger tears loose from its abdomen. Although the bee dies, the detached stinger remains active, continually releasing venom for up to a minute.
Dr. Jeffery Bernstein
The venom, really, is not that much different between our honeybees and the Africanized honeybees. The difference is that Africanized honeybees tend to sting in much larger numbers. So people present with a hundred stings instead of five stings. And that’s why it turns out to be much more toxic.
If stung, don’t try to pull out the stinger. Rather, scrape the stinger from the skin as soon as possible with a flat object, like a credit card. Wash the area with soap and water like any other wound to prevent infection. Apply ice to relieve pain and swelling.
Dr. Jeffery Bernstein
The Florida Poison Information Center is just an 800 number away. We are here 24/7, 365 days a year. There is a poison information specialist at the other end of the phone who gets this type of call roughly 2,000 times a year. So we’re very experienced in bee stings and they can help assess the situation and determine whether or not you need to seek medical care or whether you can ride it out at home.
For most people, a couple of stings are usually inconsequential. If you feel like you’re having an allergic reaction, in other words, your throat is closing off, you are wheezing, you are having difficulty breathing, you’re having chest pain, you’re having lightheadedness, then you should call 911 right away.
The imminent danger of Africanized bees to the public should not overshadow the important role that managed honey bees play in Florida agriculture. To ensure that managed bees are protected, the honey bee industry has adopted a number of Best Management Practices. Among these guidelines is the annual replacement of the queen in a managed colony.
Queen bees are marked before being placed in the colony to keep track of the origin, genetic background and age of the queen.
David Mendes
The characteristics that we look for are good honey production, good survivability, good disease resistance. Temperament is a big factor in all that. If you had a dog that was biting you every day, you wouldn’t enjoy that so much, so it’s the same with a hive that’s stinging you. Take beekeepers out of the picture and nature is going to select for more aggressive bees. It’s only with human intervention that gentler bees can be managed.
Student
Are Africanized bees meaner than honey bees?
Todd Jamerson
Yes they are. The Africanized honey bees are a lot more dangerous than European honey bees. Yes, they do produce honey like European honey bees, but they are very, very defensive of their colony. Who knows what that means?
Education plays an important role in protecting the public from Africanized bees.
Todd Jamerson
Exactly. They will sting in greater numbers than European honey bees …
The Florida Department of Agriculture, right now, does numerous outreach opportunities as far as educating the public on the dangers of Africanized honeybees. We go to schools and teach school kids about the dangers of bees and, also, about the benefits of European honeybees. So there has to be a certain amount of outreach, because people, as a general rule, don’t know the dangers. And that’s what we’re here for, to tell them –- to teach the benefits of the good bees while warning them of the dangers of the bad bees.
So the message I want you guys to take away from here today is “Treat all honey bees with respect.”
People need to recognize the difference between the beneficial managed colonies and their extremely defensive Africanized cousins. Destruction or vandalism of the gentle, managed colonies because of perceived fear will not solve the problem.
Frankie Hall
Even though that bee colony is not Africanized, they think, well, there might be Africanized bees close. So there’s a lot of fear factors out there. And that fear factor hurts the apiary industry in Florida, because it’s hard for beekeepers to find places to put their colonies.
David Mendes
There’s been counties that have banned beekeeping. They felt that that was going to create a safer environment for their citizens. And what’s happened is that’s actually backfired, because the managed hives that we run, we’re controlling that stock and we’re working with it on a regular basis. The Africanized bees are more an issue in the wild, in the feral swarms. And when you create a vacuum in an area where there’s no managed hives allowed, then you would actually stimulate the amount of feral hives, and that’s where your problem is. So those kinds of regulations backfire pretty quickly and a healthy beekeeping industry is your best way to deal with Africanized bees.
Jerry Hayes
We have a continuing dwindling supply of a little over a thousand registered beekeepers in the state of Florida. The state of Florida is growing rapidly but we still are a very, very significant agricultural state. What we need to do is protect the beekeeping industry, not only for agriculture, but for wildlife in Florida …the honeybees contribute an awful lot to wildlife food production, pollinating flowers that produce fruits, nuts and berries that our wildlife eat -- deer, and squirrels -- so they’re very important to Florida.
A growing Africanized bee population is a threat to Florida’s citizens. Inevitably there will be an increase in stinging incidents. While the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services does monitor regularly, and certified pest control operators and first responders are trained in dealing with feral bee attacks, there are simple steps the people can take to protect themselves.
Bill Kern
The important thing to realize is that you need to be aware of your environment. So when you go out into your yard, keep your eyes open, keep your ears open, and look for large numbers of bees hanging around certain objects or a certain part of your home. And if you find a feral colony, contact a pest control professional who has training in dealing with Africanized bees and have them eradicate those colonies.
Floridians face a dilemma. While feral bees pose a real threat to public health; wrongly addressing the problem by eliminating all honey bees would gravely threaten our food supply, wildlife, and natural environment.
The solution is to co-exist. South and Central America have lived with Africanized bees for decades by educating the public to be aware.
And in a state where agriculture and the economy are so closely linked to the honey bee, this awareness must also be achieved in Florida.
