What Are Africanized Bees
Africanized Honey bees
October 19, 1990, a
honeybee swarm unlike never before took over a small south Texas town in the
United States. Africanized honeybees dramatically labeled as "killer
bees" are the result of honeybees brought from Africa to Brazil in the
1950s in hopes of breeding a bee better adapted to the South American tropical
climate.
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| Africanized Honeybees |
These honey bees reached the Brazilian wild in 1957 and then spread
south and north until they officially reached the United States on October 19,
1990.
Actually all
honeybees are imports to the New World and are not native. Those that
flourished here before the arrival of Africanized honeybees are considered
European honeybees, because European colonists introduced them in the 1600s and
1700s.
Africanized
honeybees are so called because it was assumed that the African honey bees
spreading out from Brazil would interbreed with existing feral European
honeybees and create a hybridized, or Africanized honeybee.
Africanized bees are
labeled as having an aggressive nature that make them less than desirable for
commercial beekeeping, nevertheless they are the main type of honeybee for
beekeeping outside of North America. Africanized bees are also considered superior
breeders and build hives very quickly much more quickly than other bees. Africanized
bees focus on gathering pollen, which can feed the young, rather than nectar,
which is more easily converted into honey. Africanized bees are also considered
superior honey producers and pollinators outside the U.S.
What Are Africanized Bees
Africanized bees do
not exist in nature or science. The African honeybee is a subspecies, native to
most of the central and southern parts of Africa that breed with the European
bee thus becoming “Africanized”.
All bees need two
different kinds of food. One is honey made from nectar, the sugary juice that
collects in the heart of the flowers. The other comes from the anthers of
flowers, which contain numerous small grains called pollen. Just as flowers,
have different colors, so do their pollen.
All bees need two
different kinds of food. One is honey made from nectar, the sugary juice that
collects in the heart of the flowers. The other comes from the anthers of
flowers, which contain numerous small grains called pollen. Just as flowers,
have different colors, so do their pollen.
Most bees gather only pollen or
nectar. As she sucks the nectar from the flower, it is stored in her special
honey stomach ready to be transferred to the honey-making bees in the hive. If hungry,
she opens a valve in the nectar “sac” and a portion of the payload passes
through to her own stomach to be converted to energy for her own needs.
When
her nectar “sacs” are full, the honeybee returns to the hive. Nectar is
delivered to one of the indoor bees and is then passed mouth-to-mouth from bee
to bee until its moisture content is reduced from about 70% to 20%. This
changes the nectar into honey.