This last week, Wednesday, February 3, 2010, I was watching one of my usual shows, this one was
MonsterQuest, the episode’s title was "Giant Killer Bees, and as you can guess it was on
Killer Bees, the title is a reference to giant swarms. If any of you have watched MonsterQuest before you know how they do the show first they describe what the "Monster" is, and show a digital version of the creature, sometimes compared to something else, such as a Bigfoot compared in size to a human, tease interactions the "Monster" has had with people, and introduce the experts. Well with this episode they really didn’t need to search for the "Monster," within the first ten to fifteen minuets of the show the experts went to an abandoned house, that was in the desert if I am remembering it correctly, where they found a hive living in the house’s walls, and as soon as they started disturbing the hive the bees poured out of their hive and swarmed over the experts. Here is a six minute clip of the show that someone posted on YouTube of the experts and the part on of the house,
Link. You will notice in the clip one of the experts picks up a
Barn Owl that the bees killed. I know that in that clip they agitated the bees, but what you can’t see without seeing the full show are other attacks by the
Africanized Bee (the Killer Bee’s proper name) in the US, where their full threat is shown. I could explain the whole show but I feel that you should watch it yourselves to better understand it, unfortunately this episode won’t be rerun for at lest two weeks, as of February 9, 2010, if not more. The point is that the Africanized Bee has an extremely aggressive behavior when it comes to defending their hive, part of this defense is when one bee is killed or has stung an intruder this releases a pheromone that triggers the other bees of the hive to attack the intruder(s), and as you can imagine this has a cumulative effect. There were other issues about them that was discussed on the show but I don't think it is relevant to this discussion.
I also have the video of a BBC wildlife report from Texas about the Killer bee invasion,
Link. And I have the link to a National Geographic clip on the effects of the Africanized Bee on the rainforest,
Link.
Part of the problem with the Africanized Bee is how aggressive it is, several things can trigger them, a lawnmower, vibrations that disturb the hive, a bee killed by accident close to the nest (it doesn’t need to have stung), and they can be attracted to other things as well that if disturbed when attracted could trigger an attack.
So why I am I talking about this? One reason, I have always had an issue with dangerous animals that can’t be lived with or avoided, and Killer Bees are on the top of my list, the fact that they will attack with such ferocity combined with their expansive nature, makes this a big problem. Let me paint you a picture of a worse case scenario set in Las Vegas, someone accidentally disturbs an Africanized Bee nest, in response the bees start attacking anything that moves, other nests near by start attacking as well, this forms a huge area where until the bees calm down or all of the bees are dead no one will be safe. A proverbial Bee-mageddon for the city.
And while I am on this subject I might as well bring in the film, The Swarm (1977-1978), while the idea of a massive moving cloud of Killer Bees is over the top, at the same time they actually had something to work with, if a hive is disturbed they will attack anything that moves, it doesn’t have to be alive for them to attack it, and if that hive is close enough to other hives could trigger a greater attack. This is just a theory but if one hive is threatened others might react in response because they may view that the predator/intruder may try to disturb their nest. Also here is a link to the trailer for The Swarm on YouTube,
Link. Just in case your curious.
Unfortunately there is no easy solution to this problem, with the Africanized Bee well spread in South and Central America, even if you were to get rid of all of the ones in the US territory, more would just move in from the south. Only a constant monitoring will keep the general public safe, and government shouldn't be the only ones trying to remove this threat.
Solomon.
