killer bees (http://www.willcoxrangenews.com/articles/2010/10/27/news/news22.txt)
I just read this article online.
What's your take on this?
Big Bear
He said that the bees are meaner this year than ever. To me, this means more african traits are moving into the area, european genes are getting displaced.
Second thing he said was that all bee are killer bees. That is true if you give them enough time to get requeened with an AHB queen and you are highly allergic to bee stings.
sounds like he is using scare tactics on a naive public to drum up more business
So, the "killer bee guy" says that all bees in Arizona are africanized, warns people that keeping a nuisance hive in Arizona is illegal, then takes many of those same bees home to make more of that "Killer Bee Honey".
Sounds like Marketing-Through-Fear 101.
a snip from the article..
It's illegal in Arizona to have a known nuisance beehive on your property. You must have the bees removed, Reed Booth said.
and the customary question from tecumseh:
so mr booth is taking these hives home all of which are africanized and thereby knowingly breaking the Arizona law?
his statement that all (well perhaps not all in the purest sense of he word???) hives in Arizona are africanized likely does apply to the great majority of feral hives in southern Arizona. it is my understanding from various poster from a couple of forums that maintaining european honeybees is extremely difficult in those environments.
If all these bees in Arizona are AHB, just how much African are they? With bee keepers buying European queens all the time, should the AHB genes get watered down after a while. So the bees are still hot, but are they as hot as they were 10 years ago? Is that the difference between 100 stings and 1,000 stings?
Now see, those are questions beekeepers ask.
This is a local article, in a local paper, written by a local reporter, who (probably) doesn't know anything about bees. The only thing the "killer bee guy" cares about is that all the local people read the article are suitably frightened enough that they call him whenever they see bees.
I'm not real impressed with the reporting skills of Dana Cole, either, for just taking his word for it and writing it that way.
But he sell killer bee honey. That stuff is so unique, you just can't buy it anywhere, it is so special........
I tried that killer bee honey once...Peggy said I got mean as a snake.
Scott
So it is all in the honey. That makes sense. :-D
Quote from: hardwood on October 28, 2010, 03:41:26 PM
I tried that killer bee honey once...Peggy said I got mean as a snake.
Scott
OMG! AHB genetics can be passed on to humans? From AHB honey? OMG! I live in an AHB area! OMG! I'm moving to Alaska! OMG!