Abandoned Hives go Africanized

[Adkins]

We came across a lady in San Diego whose father used to keep bees, but had passed away.  The hives were unkept for years, and had become overrun with killer bees.  We moved them and extracted the honey.

Needless to say, the bees were not happy!

the video is up on YouTube if y'all want to check it out.

youtube.com/watch?v=QpOMa4djTK8


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[Bennettoid]

WOW, intense.

[Understudy]

Neat video. More smoke next time.
The thing for me is I see that as a perfect oppurtunity to divide and conquer. You put the frames into seperate nucs. You place them far apart and you look for the queen and replace her. You can either requeen each of the nucs or after that do a combine. 

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Apis629]

The long sleeved shirt was indeed a good idea!

I must say though....WOW...if I were ever faced with a hive that bad, chances are I'd panic.  One thing I'm wondering though, where's your smoker? 

Understudy, yes, it may be a good chance to make a split but, good luck sitting there long enough.  I don't know about you but, I certainly don't have the courage to just stand there and split them if they're covering, and undoubtedly, stinging the suit.

[bennettoidjr]

wicked cool

[Understudy]

Great we got the nine year old thinking the AHB' are wicked cool. I wonder if his dad knows how much trouble he has got on his hands.
;)

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Bennettoid]

He carries Bees around on his fingers for hours at a time the way other kids carry pet lizards or mice.

:roll:

[bluegrass]

A nine year old who is behind the times by about 10 years or more. Wicked was in when I was a kid :-D
Those bees are cool and if it where legal I would have some. Maybe they will make it this far north some day.

[jl]

I'd have to agree with the nine year old, wicked cool, but I am glad I live up north and don't have to worry about that (at least not yet.)  Anyone know the furthest north that AFB's have been found

Jeff

[bennettoidjr]

How do they become Afranized bee's

[Understudy]

How do they become Afranized bee's

They drink to much tequilla and get nasty attitudes.

Sometimes it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Understudy]

In the 1950's Bees from Africa were brought into Brazil. The bees are much more defensive of their hives. They escaped their bee hives and started taking over and pushing all the nice bees out. Since the 1950's they have moved up into the southern United States.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Kirk-o]

I had bees in Utah in the 70's I purchased 100 hives in Gunnison Utah in 1970.
They had been in her back yard for 35 years.They were so old the nails were sticking out of the suppers and the top boards were rotten some non-existent.They were very aggressive like in the video.This is well before Africanized bees in California or Arizona.Just because they are Africanized dosen't mean they are aggresive .Or just because they are aggressive they are Africanized.Your video could also of demonstrated better beekeeping techniques.Your post could of been
Agressive bee's made more aggressive by ommitting smoke and better technique.
You should read Michael Bush's web site  it could help
kirk-o

[Apis629]

In the 1950's Bees from Africa were brought into Brazil. The bees are much more defensive of their hives. They escaped their bee hives and started taking over and pushing all the nice bees out. Since the 1950's they have moved up into the southern United States.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

The more "in-depth" answer is that a Dr. Fredric Kerr brought 23 African queens of Apis Mellifera Scutellata to Brasil, in hopes of increasing the production of the beekeeping industry.  These were brought over in 1956, only to "escape" in 1957 when, reportedly, a beekeeper passing the test apiary noticed that the bees were losing pollen on the queen excluders at the entrances to the colonies, and removed them.  Since then, shipping has brought the bees into the US periodically but, it wasn't until October of 1990 that the "Africanized" honeybee made it's way into Hildalgo, Texas by natural migration.  That is actually how they've gotten to Florida, not natural migration, but being carried on cargo ships and freighters accidentally.

[JP]

If these bees were not tested and found to be africanized, how can one say they were truly aficanized? I agree with Kirk-o. Those bees would probably have calmed down quite a bit with some smoking, please use smoke next time. The video could scare a lot of people away from bee keeping.

[Brian D. Bray]

I've made reference before to a hive that stung me 379 times.  That was back in the early 1960's before we were even aware of the Africanized bees in South America.  The hive was huge and unatended for over 5 years.  Tempermental bees are more from successive inbredding than anything else.  They work Africanized bees in Brazil because that's all they have.  Other than using a little more smoke the bees behave pretty much the same as EHBs.  But left to inbred and look out.

[rdy-b]

Hot bees handled poorly not impressed africanized I dont think so  8-)

[Bennettoid]

I think because of where they are that its assumed hives that are unattended go African, and its probably true.

[ctsoth]

I had had a queenless hive just as scary looking as that.  Smoke is your friend along with proper beekeeping technique.  Otherwise, neat video.

[Adkins]

hello!  haven't stopped in in a while.  The video is a bite shaky because the camera was low on batteries.  My camera man had to look through the rubber eye hole instead of using the flip out screen, but the bees were piled on top of the rubber eye hole stinging the bejeusous out of it.

I grew up around bees most of my young life in San Diego California.  When i first heard of (killer) Africanized bees I didn't believe it.  I thought it was some media hype which is partially true.  For the last 8 years Ive owned and operated a bee company in San Diego and Orange County.  We keep bees not for profit, but mostly do bee removal and removing feral hives in structures of homes and businesses. 
If you could see some of the things I’ve seen. Imagine walking up to a hive about one week old and having them literally pour out on you like a massive vacuum, just like in cartoons but worse.  1 minute later you’re literally covered head to toe. Honestly I find it very cool and amazing.  At times Ive  had 40 to to 50 jobs a day on the routes. Ive been overly convinced that its not just a matter of bees being left alone that change their temper.  Last week i responded to a homeowner that had two lambs attacked by bees.  One of them died.  The bees of course just felt threatened and swarmed and stung the lambs out of defense for their hive.  www cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.php?startID=97696  www nctimes.com/articles/2007/07/25/news/inland/4_24_487_24_07.txt  I know many local professional beekeepers, i haven't found one yet in southern cal, that will collect bees at no charge.  It is quite common that once the africanized honeybee has moved into the area beekeepers stop collecting bees for fear of collecting the feral hives.   That along with diseases and with the difficulty of extracting a hive out of a structure and the liability that can go along with it.
Bees aren’t bad; killer bees aren’t bad of course either.  They just need to be respected more.  In the U.S. I we are not prepared to live with them as a society.  The bees in the video were not pure Africanized bees. Though they were a very aggress hybrid bee.  Before we removed them I spoke to the neighbors on each side to ask them to keep their dogs inside and to stay inside themselves for a bit.  They were all very aware of the bees, and extremely happy they were no longer going to get chased and stung in the future along with their pets.
Of the 5 hives we removed one was surprisingly very calm and well tempered.  Interestingly enough this hive had much more honey stored.  Its been my experience that aggressive bees, though they work harder and pollinate more crops, they consume more honey and keep much less honey in storage then the European honeybee.  I have heard different stories regarding theories of European and Africanized bees.  One was that Africa never had a beekeeping or apiarist line of work, but that when the honey was retrieved the hive was killed at that time by man or beast.  Kind of a smash and grab style.  The theory behind this is that only the most vicious strongest, most feral bees survived.  Another concept that is widely taught is that it is not a nature that developed over time but an actual genome.  That the European and African honeybees are two different genus, class, or group of bees separated by such.  Anyways that’s enough rattling, I don’t claim to be an expert.  I had no plans of keeping these bees, its to great a risk to put them on someones property, that’s why I didn’t bother with smoke.  But just a heads up, have your ever tried working with these type of bees as a beekeeper? Its much more than an issue of smoke lol.   ;)

John Adkins