Beekeeper Isn’t Worried
As a beekeeper myself, I can’t for the life of me figure out why there’s such a panic over the discovery of a colony or two of African bees in the Bakersfield area. I wonder if it’s our close proximity to Hollywood that’s caused this over-dramatization. Are we suffering from Alfred Hitchcock Syndrome?
Some commercial beekeepers I know of feel that an “invasion” of African bees would be of little permanent consequence.
They point to the fact that beekeepers on the continent of Europe have never had a problem with their bees becoming “Africanized.” As close as they are to Africa, they certainly would have experienced accidental importation of these bees innumerable times over the past centuries. Yet today, European bees remain the same docile domestic ones that we have here in the United States. In fact, most of our honeybees are of European origin.
If there were a few colonies of African bees brought here into California, they would either soon perish because of our different weather conditions or would become peacefully integrated into our native bee populations. Without the tropical conditions under which they live in Africa, they probably wouldn’t exhibit the same aggressive behavior they show there.
Even the description “killer” bees is melodramatic. I personally know of Africans who raise bees in Ghana and take no more precautions against stings than we do here. Besides, we do not panic over other tropical insects “taking over.” Surely, many of the exotic insects found in the tropics must be inadvertently carried into our country from time to time. Yet they don’t establish themselves as ineradicable pests as they are in their native countries.
Although there is little to fear from African bees, our U.S. bee and honey industry does have a right to panic over an import of another kind. It’s the flood of cheap honey from China, Mexico and Argentina that’s threatening our domestic producers. The real sting for the U.S. beekeeping industry is economic, not genetic.
NEVA GLENN
Atascadero
