County Prepares for Invasion of Killer Bees

Health and agriculture officials from San Diego and Imperial counties--the California front line in the war against killer bees that are approaching through Mexico--heard Friday how the insects attacked one person in Texas and quarantined 10 border counties in that state.

The officials then approved a tentative defense plan, which will be revised and sent to the county Board of Supervisors in early August amid hopes that state funding to implement the plan arrives before the bees do.

Kathleen Thuner, San Diego County’s agricultural commissioner, said public hearings on the plan will be held this fall, and educational and preventive measures should begin shortly afterward.

“The bees could be here before we can get (state) legislation passed to control them,” she said.

The swarms of killer bees that have migrated up the western coast of Mexico and now are reported to have reached Puerto Vallarta, about 1,000 miles southeast of the U.S.-Mexican border, could reach California by 1993, Thuner said.

The bees, an aggressive strain imported to South America from Africa in 1956, attack in hordes when disturbed and have caused 330 deaths in South and Central America.

Known as Africanized honeybees, the insects entered the southern part of Texas from Mexico last September and continue to plague the Rio Grande Valley, a rich agricultural area, while expanding their domain toward San Antonio.

In May, the first casualty from killer bees was recorded in the United States when a man mowing a field near Brownsville, Tex., was attacked and stung 28 times.

He survived, but U.S. Department of Agriculture officials are still smarting from the incident because red tape delayed for more than three weeks the announcement of the nation’s first killer bee attack, causing the media to charge that a cover-up had occurred.

Elba Quintero, the USDA official conducting the agency’s fight against the bees in Texas, concedes that she does not think the invasion can be slowed by man. She estimated that, by next year, one-fourth to one-third of the Lone Star State will be under quarantine.

In California, state officials have been reluctant to play a role in defense preparations, pleading that state budget cuts are leaving them without manpower or funds to arm for the fight.

Quintero told local health and agricultural officials, who are designated to design a defense against the bees, that the way to fight the insect is largely through public awareness and education.

However, state money is considered vital to help track the bees’ migration and exterminate them where found.

Quintero outlined educational courses and announcements that would warn San Diegans and other border residents of the dangers of the bees without causing panic. She also urged county officials to pass necessary legislation to regulate beekeepers and to monitor honeybee swarms to prevent the Africanization of local honeybee colonies, which are needed to pollinate crops in San Diego and Imperial counties.