Info/Thoughts/Questions About The Spread Of AHB

[NeilV]

I am currently reading Africanized Honeybees in the Americas by Dewey Caron. It is a very good book abou spread and effects of AHB.

According to this book (published around 2002), AHB have totally taken over from Brazil south to part of Argentina and North to Mexico. In that area, the EHB popluation was totally replaced in a year or two after the AHB arrived. Going south from Brazil, in Argentina, an area developed where there was a mix of AHB and EHB and some hybrids. That also occurred further north at higher elevations. Going further south (which is a more European/less tropical climate), the AHB taper out completely.

Also, it appears that climate affects AHB behavior. Some pure AHBs are less aggressive when kept at higher elevations/colder climates. Apparently, this can be the case with the exact same bees when they are moved from a lowland area to a higher elevation.

Also, I did not realize this, but EHB really were not adapted to S. America. In fact, prior to the spread of AHB, honeybees in tropical South and Central America did not swarm much at all, and they did not live in a feral (escaped) state. As I see it, the AHB spread like wildfire simply because they were much more fit for the habitat/weather in south and central america than the EHB that they replaced. In S. America, EHB were sort of like tulips -- they would live only if planted and cared for by a human. The AHB were like dandelions and could live and spread on their own.

The big debate is where the AHB-EHB line will be in the U.S. (assuming they don't spread all the way to Canada). The Dewey Caron book is several years old, so it does not have current info. This debate is important to me, simply because I live right on the border of where AHB have spread. They have been confirmed just south of Tulsa, OK. Also, based on what happened in S. America, I suspect that the Oklahoma-Kansas area may present the line where the AHB/EHB mix occurs. (Some people predicted that would occur in north Texas, but that did not happen.)

I have been asked to give a talk to our bee club about liability issues relating to bees, and it seems appropriate to work the AHB arrival into this discussion. For my own info and for purposes of that discussion, I'd appreciate some help from people who have first-hand experience of what happened when AHB arrived in an area.

My questions for folks who are having to deal with AHB are:

1. Where do you live in terms that I can understand without a map (e.g. S. Texas/ C. Texas)?

2. When AHB arrived, did they totally take over the area or are they just portion of the "wild" bees?

3. Do you see bees that you think may be an AHB-EHB hybrid?

4. Are all of the AHB in your area aggressive, or are there some that are not much different than EHB?

5. Do you have any practical suggestions for dealing with AHB when they arrive?

6. Once AHB arrive, can a hobbyist safely raise queens (in the absence of a big operation where you can flood the area with drones)?

Thanks,

ndvan

[Ross]

I live east of Dallas. We have had AHB in the county south of us (at least one case) since about 1995 or so. Of course that was before DNA was available, so who really knows. The AHB have not made significant progress in this area. I see very few hot feral hives, but I do see an occasional one. I raise my own queens and haven't had a problem at all. You can't really tell the difference between hot EHB and AHB, just re-queen when you hit a hot one.

[Gene Weitzel]

ndvan,

Here is a post I made in a related thread you may find of interest:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=324143#post324143

[NeilV]

Thanks for the feedback, I'd appreciate hearing from more of you folks across the Red River.

Also, my current beekeeper's outfit consists of goatskin gloves, a heavy cotton shirt and a veil.

Given that there is a now an increasing chance that I hit an AHB hive, should I get a suit? In other words, have you Texas beekeepers started putting on more protective clothing?

ndvan

[Gene Weitzel]

Thanks for the feedback, I'd appreciate hearing from more of you folks across the Red River.

Also, my current beekeeper's outfit consists of goatskin gloves, a heavy cotton shirt and a veil.

Given that there is a now an increasing chance that I hit an AHB hive, should I get a suit? In other words, have you Texas beekeepers started putting on more protective clothing?

ndvan

My current beekeeping outfit consists of my bare hands, (occasionally canvas or rubber gloves), shorts, a tee shirt and a veil.

I do own a full suit which I keep handy just in case. I have had a couple of opportunities to run and grab it, but for the most part, I have not needed it much (its just too hot to wear it here at 95 degress w/97% RH).

[Joseph Clemens]

Initially when I began my present ten year plus term of continuous beekeeping here in the area of Tucson/Marana, Arizona, I started with a cut-out from beneath a neighbor's mobile home. The combs of this colony were half inside the floor and half extending out into daylight below the insulation on the belly of the mobile home.

For about eight years all my colonies were walk-away splits from this initial cut-out and splits of those splits, etc. During this period I made many attempts to hive swarms that issued from my own hives and some that just appeared in the vicinity of my apiary. I used nearly every swarm hiving trick, except using a queen includer to keep the swarm queen in the chosen hive. None were successful. Sometimes even large splits with brood in all stages, with or without queens, would abscond.

All of these hives had, what I consider, behavior problems:
- with even a little smoke, most of the bees would often start running and usually finish by clustering on the outside edges of the top super
- while I was handling frames dozens would crawl off onto my hands and spread out, then position themselves as if they were guarding/patrolling my hands
- if I tried to shake bees from their frames into a super, Nuc, or onto the tops of frames, a cardboard box, or anywhere I wanted them to be, they would take flight immediately so that almost none of them reached the location they were being shaken to
- the queens would run and hide within clusters of bees in the inside corners of the hive
- smoke would not usually cause a gorging and calming affect, but it would enhance their already nervous behaviors

Most usually there was no obvious, excessively defensive behavior - without understandable stimulus, but if I became careless, causing needless bee deaths, they could respond by increased stinging and attempts to sting, which could escalate to clouds of bees in defense mode - though, even in an apiary with as many as ten very strong hives of similar nature, I never witnessed the "Killer Bee" defensiveness reported in the press. Despite their otherwise undesirable behaviors I was even able to inspect them in shorts and T-shirt, without gloves or veil. But whenever I chose to do this I needed to be extremely cautious of my breathing (only exhaling through my nose), and when manipulating bees, never to squish a single insect. If I overlooked these precautions a stinging incident would often quickly ensue.
- - - - - -
Since then I have taken to importing Cordovan Italian queens from Koehnen's, then breeding my own queens from them. Every few years I find I need to import new stock to breed with, so my stock remains calm and manageable. Open mating seems to bring in undesirable genetics within a few generations.

[Ross]

I don't like getting stung, so I use an Ultra Breeze mesh beesuit and I use gloves. Even a mild hive can have a bad day.

[tecumseh]

ndvan writes:
My questions for folks who are having to deal with AHB are:

1. Where do you live in terms that I can understand without a map (e.g. S. Texas/ C. Texas)?
tecumseh> central texas... 100 miles nw of houston.
2. When AHB arrived, did they totally take over the area or are they just portion of the "wild" bees?
tecumseh> I don't see them as taking orver but they are incorporated into the wild population.
3. Do you see bees that you think may be an AHB-EHB hybrid?
tecumeh> I have had some tested as such. the morphological test is not absolutely definitive. in swarms and cut out the ahb/ehb seem to somewhat locally clustered.
4. Are all of the AHB in your area aggressive, or are there some that are not much different than EHB?
tecumseh>this can vary. see joseph clemens comments.
5. Do you have any practical suggestions for dealing with AHB when they arrive?
tecemseh> have a good escape place (tight ac cab of my truck works fine), get a good suit with a zip on viel, always light the smoker and smoke just ahead of doing anything.
6. Once AHB arrive, can a hobbyist safely raise queens (in the absence of a big operation where you can flood the area with drones)?
tecumseh>I think may vary by season. early on yes, later maybe no.

ndvan sezs:
Given that there is a now an increasing chance that I hit an AHB hive, should I get a suit? In other words, have you Texas beekeepers started putting on more protective clothing?
tecumseh>put the suit on the top of your to buy list. I was suiting up here in Texas long before the ahb/ehb arrived. a good deal of the year I suit up just as you describe.

excellent comment joseph clemens. looks much the same here. I would suggest that if you do find small nest of feral bees set up close to the ground (or in the ground) that you should assume until tested that they are africanized.

[jccourtney]

I just signed on to this web site a few days ago. I have only been a beekeeper for 3 years. Here in west Texas where I live, we have a huge problem with AHBs. I suspect some have over taken one my 3 hives. Honestly I have not seen any change in the behavior. I have not removed any supers for extraction, but will soon do so.
Like the person above when working with the bees, I wear a t-shirt, gloves, and a veil.
My location is Gardendale, Tx. close to the New Mexico border. Approx. halfway between El Paso and Dallas.

[NeilV]

Thanks again for the replies. I almost hate to say that as I don't want to encourage anybody to conclude this thread is over -- please add info about your own experiences if you have them.

JC, welcome aboard. This might just be the most helpful bunch of people on the internet -- at least if you're a beekeeper -- so you've found a good place.

JC, when you say you have "huge problem," what are the problems.? Do not mean to argue, but it sounds like they are not that difficult from your post. Is it just that they are hard to work? Or are some of them too aggressive?

Also, I do have a story of my own to add. I purchased some bees from some guys 2 hours south. I got 20 frames of brood/bees to make nucs out of one of their hives. These guys fully disclosed that they have AHB issues and would not sell me a queen for that reason. They have been requeening hot hives with purchased queens. They have had some really hot hives that fit the AHB stereotype.

On 10 frames that were pulled out of one of their hives I turned it into two hives (made two 5 frame nucs with queens I purchased). I had a difficult time with queen acceptance, although the queens were Russian which could explan that. What is really different is that, when I inspect the frames in those to hive, a good portion of the bees run all over the place, even off of the frame. They act a little like roaches. I have only been actually stung once, through my glove. However, they headbut more than I like. One time I was looking at one of these hives and one stung my glove (did not go through) about five bees immediately stung my glove (none got through). They mostly settle down when I close the hive up, but a few bees may follow me about 50 yards.

To you experienced folks, does that sound like a partially AHB hive?

(I have now successfully requeened both of these but I had to combine one with a swarm to get that done on one. On the other the queen was caged for about 10 days and I had to do a manual release, but she was laying last time I looked. I'm ready for some new, calmer bees to hatch out.)

ndvan

[Joseph Clemens]

When I first started requeening my ornery colonies (which were all of them initially), queens were about $10 each, and I had zero success with the first fifteen I tried. Then I built my first Nuc boxes, and stocked them with frames of emerging brood, honey and pollen, then introduced the queens with push-in cages over emerging brood - success at last. Now I have about 80% success, or better, introducing my Nuc accepted queens into full hives by combining Nuc, queen, and all, after moving the undesirable queens to temporary holding in two or three frame mating condos.

Nucs are also good for producing frames of brood to boost weak hives, hatching and mating queens, and holding queens until they are needed.

[Tomas]

I have the real deal down here. Here’s some of my thoughts about them.

How much they will change as they get further north into the States, I don’t know. I have read and heard that first and second generation crosses with EHB produces a gentler and more manageable AHB bee (but still somewhat ornery). I don’t have access to these. I deal with pure Africanized bees. So this is what I have to deal with when working my hives in Honduras.

I have to put on at least an extra long sleeved heavy shirt beneath my suit. This is to avoid having to tolerate all those “half” stings that sort of get through my suit otherwise.

I try to smoke the next hive before I get to it, in order that the smoke will hopefully settle them down some (doesn’t always work).

I use top-bar hives, so they are not so opened-up like when you start to take boxes off a Lang hive (but these still do not let you completely control them.)

Doing the slam-bam, don’t-waste-time, get-in-and-out-of-the-yard-as-fast-as-you-can management that is done with the commercial people in the States would not work well here. You have to try to be a bit more gentle (or a lot more gentle) with the AHB hives so you don’t get them too riled up. Being really hot from having to wear and extra shirt under the suit doesn’t help either if you want to get a lot done. I would have to think real hard about how I would manage and work with several hundred AHB hives and get everything done that should be done.

Their behavior does change depending on the time of the year. This is what I have been seeing. During the dearth they are down right nasty. I pour the sugar syrup through a screen and into the feeder so I don’t have to open their box up. They still come at me—attacking my gloves, bouncing off my veil and following me for a pretty good distance when I leave the yard. Their behavior continues like this during the first part of the honey flow. I wanted to make some nucs at the beginning of the flow but it was too hard because of their defensive behavior.

Once it gets nice and warm and a strong flow is on, they seem to be better (but you still need all the equipment). Then I can actually do some sort of management.

They get real robby during the last harvest. They may not come at me as much, but they are all over trying to get at honey.

The number of hives and the strength of hives seem to make their behavior worse. I saw this as I got more hives into the apiaries and they got stronger. The bees weren’t too bad when I first started the yard and they were a bit smaller. Now that they have between 30 and 45 hives in each, most of them strong, their behavior is worse.

I don’t usually requeen my hives (no queens which I can use to requeen them and especially no EHB queens). To requeen I would agree with Joseph that it might be better to combine them with a nuc or small hive that has a good laying EHB queen. I made some new nuc boxes with that in mind. They had a removable floor so I could requeen a bad hive by using the newspaper method. I was thinking it just might work better than just inserting a queen cage (They never got combined though. They were left and eventually moved into a big box to make a new hive.).

I can’t have any big hives near people. They have to bee a good distance away, at least 100 yards. Even at this distance, my route out of the yard better not go past the house. There are always several bees that just do not want to leave me in peace. I think at least the majority I leave behind me with in the first 50 yards, but there are always a dozen or so that takes a much longer walk to get rid of (200 to 250 yards sometimes.) They will zap you if they can.

Many times I can’t really do “management” like I want to. It’s more of a bee-having thing. You do as much as you can, let them work on their own and harvest whatever they want to make for you.

But in the end of things, once the honey starts coming in, all of this is acceptable to me here in Honduras. Sometimes they have their hives plugged full of honey (and sometimes they don’t give me anything). In the Honduran economy, honey fetches a good price. It is definitely a luxury item but people will buy it. It fetches me a nice extra income. You end up just getting use to them. I still really enjoy beekeeping even though I have do deal with them.

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Tom

[BULLSEYE BILL]

We don't have them here in Kansas yet, at least not officially. Last year, or the year before, we were told at the Kansas Honey Producers Assn. meeting by the Department of Agriculture that they expected them here any time and to be watchful of the I-35 and I-135 corridor for first contact.

Last week there was a news report that AHB has been confirmed 60 miles south of the Ks. border, they did not say exactly where although I thought I heard Blackwell.

Of note at the KHPA meeting, one of the speakers said that they believed that the AHB made the spaces between the combs wider for better ventilation and that was the reason that they thought AHB would not deal with colder climes as well.

They expect that Kansas will be a state of transition, the spread will go to the NE border on warm winters and freeze back to the OK border during hard winters.

All this is the speculation of what the Department of Ag has put out.

[Oldbee]

From post # 1. "The "..EHB.." were like dandelions and could live and spread on there own."--ndvan.

Just to clarify.. about a serious subject: You meant,..AHB..right?

[NeilV]

Oldbee, Thanks for the correction. I meant AHB. I'll edit.

Ndvan

[jccourtney]

ndvan,
Sorry I did not explain the AHB problem we have here! Last week a swarm was reported in Midland and a dog was stung to death. Also heard of a horse being stung to death.
During spring atleast once a week the news is reporting swarms of bees here and there. When the captors send them off for testing they say they are AHBs 100% of the time.
My "aggressive" hive acts just as you posted above. They constantly headbut, and sting my gloves several times. They follow me for a ways, not many bees though.
Really, They are no more of a problem than any other hive. Honey is money no matter what type of bee your dealing with!

[jccourtney]

duplicate!!
Sorry still learning

[tecumseh]

ndvan ask:
To you experienced folks, does that sound like a partially AHB hive?

tecumseh>yes. runny.

[BULLSEYE BILL]

Are the swarms runny, or just the established colonies? And are the swarms hard to keep in the nuc box?

[jccourtney]

Mine started with 2 swarms landing in the exact tree, exact branch, about a week apart.
Pheromones? Both swarms didn't stay long. A few weeks later, another smaller swarm 3 pounds landed one tree over about one week from the last. I decide to start another hive and captured them. ( no swarms from my other hives)
Put them in a hive body with feeder and left them overnight, and stuffed the entrance.
The next day with temps of 105+ pulled the grass out. That evening, all the bees were on the bottom of my established hive 2, and going in one by one, fanning the entrance like crazy. Really a weird deal! Since then that hive has been the pesky one. So yes it is a partial africanized hive.
Have never had any success capturing a swarm! I work in the oilfield, and run into swarms very regularly. Just started beekeeping for the kids allergies, and its grown from there. In the petroplex where I live,(population 250,000,000) I have not found another keeper, so honey sells good.

[Ross]

I have had some runny hives too. I wouldn't equate that to AHB exclusively.

[BULLSEYE BILL]

In the petroplex where I live,(population 250,000,000) I have not found another keeper, so honey sells good.

I know things are bigger in Texas, but 250 million is a lot of people in the gardendale area. ;)

[BULLSEYE BILL]

I have had some runny hives too. I wouldn't equate that to AHB exclusively.

I wouldn't either, I was asking if the AHB swarms were runny. I know that EHB swarms are rarely runny. I find that EHB swarms are a little flighty if caught as soon as they hit the branch. If you let them set for a while they seem to clump and march. Perhaps it is due to spreading of the queens pheromone between the bees as they hang in a swarm.

[Tomas]

I wouldn’t consider AHB swarms runny. They seem to act just about the same as EHB swarms. I’ve never encountered one that is defensive. I’ve jumped out of the hammock wearing just a pair of shorts and flip-flops to watch a swarm move into the trap hives I hang in the backyard. I can get right in the middle of them as they move into the box without a problem.

I’ll put a veil on, however, when hiving one, but that is just to avoid the occasional sting from the bees that may fall on me and get pinched somehow when shaking them from a branch. Otherwise, when I get the queen into the box, they start fanning and the rest march in nice as can be. AHB swarms are very easy to deal with (as opposed to the established hives)

And even when they are first stating to grow, their behavior isn’t that bad—not any worse than what I’ve seen with some EHB nucs. It’s when they get beyond six combs of brood or so that their defensiveness really starts to kick in. That’s also when they start to get “runny” when inspecting them. They like to go out of the box and cover the sides and fly all over.

So in the beginning it’s almost impossible to tell if the swarm would be AHB or EHB if just looking at their behavior.

In order to make an AHB swarm stay in your box (if you’re shaking them in there that is) you need to put a comb or two of brood with them. Using just empty combs works somewhat ok. They will just about always take off if you just dump them into an empty box. I use just top-bar hives in Honduras so I don’t really know how the AHB swarm would react to a box that just has foundation. I know that if the top bars in the box just have starter strips, the swarm won’t stay. You need to put brood with them.

On the other hand, if the box is a swarm trap, with just starter strips on the bars, the swarm could very well go in and stay. Then it’s like it’s their own decision to move into the box. They are not being forced to move into it on the part of the beekeeper who shakes them out of the tree. My swarm traps are always empty of comb (wax moths would get to it too fast) and the bars just have a starter strip or just a small ridge of comb (no more than ½ inch) left after harvesting the honey or eliminating an old/defective brood comb. I have lots of luck with swarm traps/bait boxes. It’s the principle way I increase the number of hives I have.

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Tom