ARCHIVE: 2007 AHB NEWS REPORTED IN THE MEDIA
(This list is not comprehensive; news headlines are capitalized; introductions are italicized)

HE STAVES OFF 'KILLER BEE' MENACE

Aggressive bees are spreading

ST. PETERSBURG, FL ---- In an average work day as a state apiary inspector, Todd Jameson drives 200 miles across four counties in a Department of Agriculture pickup truck.

He gets stung 20 times - on the wrist, under the fingernails, bees sometimes crawling up his jeans all the way to the thigh.

He sticks his hands into beehives without gloves and kills killer bees with soapy water.

"It's not a job that people are jumping to get," Jameson said. "Nobody wants to be stung by bees every day."

Jameson is one of 13 Florida apiary inspectors, a group whose main responsibility used to be making sure beekeepers' hives were disease- and parasite-free.

But when Africanized honeybees, better known as "killer bees," arrived in Florida in 2002, apiary inspectors became the first line of defense against the vicious insects that state officials now say make up the majority of Florida's wild bee population.

"We're here to protect the bee industry in the state," Jameson said. "That's why we do what we do. We cannot have Africanized bees taking over."

Though their stings are no more venomous than ordinary, or European, honeybees', Africanized bees attack in greater numbers. If a colony of European bees is disturbed, about 200 bees will attack. If they're Africanized, as many as 50,000 go after the intruder.

The bees sting inside victims' noses and mouths. Jump in the water to escape, and the swarm will hover above it, waiting, for up to half an hour.

In September, a Texas man died after bees stung him more than 1,000 times.

The best chance of getting away? Run, Jameson said. The bees can fly up to 12 mph for a quarter-mile.

No bee-related deaths have occurred in Florida so far.

"You treat all bees with respect, because you can't tell what they are by looking at them," Jameson said.

Africanized bees are slightly smaller than European bees, but the difference is visible only with a microscope in a lab.

Jameson monitors the wild bee population with 104 bait hives spread across Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough and Manatee counties.

Every three weeks, as long as it takes for a queen bee's eggs to hatch, Jameson checks the bait hives. If he finds bees, he calms them with smoke before killing them with soapy water.

He only needs a few hundred dead bees for the lab techs in Gainesville, but the hive might be Africanized, so he kills them all: 15,000 to 20,000 bees.

"A lot of what we're trapping is coming back as Africanized, and that's scary," Jameson said. "We knew it was going to come to this."

Most days are spent on the road. When the Department of Agriculture got him a new Ford pickup in April, it had 26 miles on the odometer. Now it has more than 22,000.

Next to his cup of coffee is a pint jar of about 300 dead bees, packed in alcohol and waiting to be sent to Gainesville for testing.

A former beekeeper, Jameson does the job because he loves bees. When he was a farmer, he was intrigued by the way a beekeeper worked with the bees pollinating his crops, he said.

"I guess things happen in your life once in awhile, and it gets in your blood," he said.

He and his father started with three colonies - just a hobby. Three became six, six became 12, until they had 1,000 colonies and a business, Grange Hall Bee Corp.

Now he is concerned about beekeeping as an industry. Most of the 130 beekeepers he inspects are hobbyists with fewer than 10 colonies. More bee diseases and parasites exist than did 20 years ago. As the number of beekeepers declines, so does the number of bees.

"It's a vanishing industry," Jameson said. "There are so many problems we've got now that we didn't used to have."

In some ways, the Africanized bees are not the worst of the problem. As long as beekeepers are vigilant, and the inspectors keep up their work, the problem can be contained, he said.

"It's like the fire ants," he said. "We've learned to live with them. We'll have to learn to live with Africanized honeybees." (Libby Nelson, Sr. Petersburg Times, 10/24/07.)

BEE KEEPERS FIGHT OFF BAD BUZZ

BRAZORIA COUNTY, TX -- With the sting of invading Africanized honeybees wearing off, commercial and hobbyist beekeepers in Brazoria County now are hoping younger generations will take up the trade.

But the future is not their only concern. Beekeepers are contending with more current problems, such as varroa mites and a mysterious problem called "colony collapse syndrome."

"We don't have enough bees as it is," Brazoria County Horticulture Extension Agent Paula Craig said. "Without (them), we wouldn't have a lot of food that we have."

Most of the beekeepers in the area are older, and they hope the decreasing fear of Africanized bees might interest more people in taking up the trade, Harris County Beekeeper Association President Herb Barrier said.

"We need more young beekeepers," Barrier said. "Pollination by honeybees is responsible for 80 percent of our 90 major crops here in the state of Texas."

Brazoria County beekeepers also are dealing with another problem in the swarm of another organism - people. Urban sprawl is slowly limiting the amount of land available to beekeepers to keep their hives.

"Pasture for my honeybees is getting smaller and smaller," said Jerry Stroope, a commercial beekeeper who maintains 1,500 hives throughout Pearland and Alvin.

Though no statistics are kept on the number of beekeepers, hobbyists or commercial, in Brazoria County many current beekeepers say there is a growing need for backyard beekeepers.

There was a decrease in the number of bee enthusiasts after the introduction of Africanized bees in Texas in the 1990s, said Don Bush, an Alvin beekeeper of more than 40 years.

"It totally destroyed the backyard beekeeper," he said.

With favorable conditions in Brazoria County and a need for them agriculturally, beekeepers hope the "relaxing" hobby will bring more enthusiasts, Bush said.

Perfect conditions

Driving through any rural area in Brazoria County, the familiar white cabinets can be spotted near the edge of many pastures.

They house honeybees, and according to officials and beekeepers, Brazoria County has all the right conditions for the honey-producing insects.

The area has a warm climate, mild winters, several thousand acres of agriculture and one surprising element - lots of tallow trees, said Paul Jackson, chief apiary inspector for the Texas A&M University Apiary Inspection Service. Tallow trees are an excellent source of nectar, which the bees use to make their honey, he said.

"That is a good place to have beehives," Jackson said. "Then you have agriculture coming into place."

A beehive can dig out 200 pounds of nectar per year from one tree, he said.

Most areas along the coast are good for keeping bees because of the wide variety of flowers that grow year-round, Stroope said.

"The Gulf Coast region is very consistent," he said.

Many beekeepers in noncoastal regions will take their bees to other areas throughout the year and collect pollen.

Beekeepers usually sell their honey wholesale. They also use their bees to pollinate crops in other areas for a fee. Stroope plans to take his bees to almond crops in California to help farmers pollinate their fields.

Stroope also produces his own line of "Texas honey" made entirely in Texas.

"The demand has just gone crazy," he said.

Stroope's honey can be found at H-E-B Central Markets and Whole Foods in Houston and at Pearland Lumber.

Killer effect

When the Africanized bee, dubbed the "killer bee" for its aggressive nature, started entering the United States in the 1990s, the media frenzy surrounding it discouraged a lot of beekeepers from taking in more hives, Bush said.

Some cities even considered banning beekeepers within their limits as part of their nuisance laws. Stroope worked with Houston City Council in the 1990s on an ordinance that would have prevented beekeepers from setting up hives on a patch of land less than 50 acres.

The ordinance never was put into effect, Stroope said.

The only known instance of Africanized bees being found in Brazoria County was in Angleton in 2001, Craig said.

Much of the problem with Africanized bees was not the number of people who had been stung, but the fear many people had about them, Bush said.

"Anybody finds a hive, they automatically assume they're killer bees," Craig said.

Though pure Africanized bees are rare, they have more or less dwindled out because they have bred with European bees found in the United States, Stroope said.

"It took the meanness right out of them," he said.

Thanks to the genetic washing, the bees found with some Africanized genetics tend to be more productive and more resistant to diseases, Barrier said.

"Most of the hives they find have been hybridized," Craig said.

Though the threat of Africanized bees has died down, Brazoria County still is under quarantine, Craig said.

"You have to get your bees certified" before they can travel to another location outside of the county, she said. "I think a lot of the fear has sort of been squelched."

The bees must be inspected by the state's Apiary Inspection Service in order to be certified not to be Africanized bees.

New problems

While beekeepers have been battling the stigma of Africanized bees, a new problem is having a huge impact on the hives.

Varroa mites, which get on the body of a worker bee and suck fluid from the host, have been damaging beehives throughout Texas, Jackson said.

The mite also eats the larvae in the hive. Larvae that survive a varroa mite likely will end up being deformed, he said.

Another problem which started occurring in the past five years is what officials call "colony collapse syndrome," in which more than half of bees from a hive are missing, Barrier said.

"They say our bees are disappearing," he said.

The syndrome has no known cause, though it does tend to happen in the winter months, Jackson said. A beekeeper can check his hives on a particular day, and two days later, more than half the hive can be gone, he said.

"We don't really know what that is yet," Jackson said of the syndrome. "Some people believe it's some type of virus. Some believe it's a type of chemical."

The problem is being researched, though no clues have been revealed, he said. (John Tompkins, The Brazosport Facts, 10/22/07.)

SWARM OF BEES INVADES HOUSE
3 people, dog stung after 75,000 roused

GLENDALE, AZ -- The frantic pawing that Malissa Ramirez and her family heard Tuesday afternoon at the back door of their Glendale home was the first indication something was amiss.

When they opened the door, they found Linda, their chow-German shepherd mix, covered in bees.

As many as 75,000 bees from a hive hanging in the yard of the home behind the Ramirez home had been roused, and Ramirez said the angry swarm entered her home in the 5200 block of West Royal Palm Road at about 2:30 p.m.

"Everyone was running around crazy," Ramirez, 22, said. "It was really overwhelming. Thank God, the kids were inside in their rooms. All I could hear was everyone screaming."

Three people were stung and treated for non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.

Ramirez's mother, Maria, 38, was stung at least five times and spent the night at Thunderbird Samaritan Medical Center in Glendale. She was released Wednesday morning.

Family friend Melanie Frazier, 13, also was stung but was discharged from the hospital that day.

Visitor Adam Hernandez, 17, was stung more than 10 times when he picked up the dog. He was treated at the scene.

All were stung on their scalps and hands, but "everyone's doing just fine," Ramirez said Wednesday. Linda, the dog, has also recovered.

Hernandez and Frazier at one point tried to get the bees off themselves by diving into a backyard pool. "But it didn't work, and they were still getting stung," Ramirez said.

Ramirez's younger brother, Mark Rodriguez, 14, escaped by dashing down the street.

"They kept running around because we didn't know what to do," Ramirez said.

When the Glendale Fire Department arrived, firefighters evacuated the family to the fire truck and sprayed foam on the bees, spokesman Daniel Valenzuela said.

Authorities learned the neighbor whose home is located behind the Ramirez home had called a beekeeper earlier to remove the hive. When the beekeeper tried to corral it, "it was enough to provoke these bees," Valenzuela said.

Sharon Luebkin, who lives across the street, said she recently called a beekeeper three times to spray bees in her water-meter box. Luebkin has been especially vigilant about finding hives because her husband is allergic to bee stings.

"We've been very careful," she said. "I carry an EpiPen with me. But so far, we've gotten rid of the bees."

Dead bees are a frequent sight for Rachel Pringle, Ramirez's next-door neighbor, too.

Last week, Luebkin and Pringle said, two people were stung by a swarm a half-mile away in a shed at 51st and Northern avenues.

The Ramirezes have yet to talk to their neighbors about the incident, but they have noticed an unusually high number of bees nearby.

The Beekeeper, a Valley bee-removal company, responded to three calls Wednesday morning in the vicinity, said co-owner Jerry Keele. They were reported at a residence at 57th Avenue and Palm Lane and at 51st and Glendale avenues and 53rd and Glendale avenues. The latter two were reported by the city.

Bees generally are attracted to flowers, sheds and water - things the neighborhood has a lot of, Keele said. And homes in the older part of Glendale tend to have lawns instead of desert landscaping, which is less likely to attract bees.

"Bees can flourish without people noticing," Keele said. "The more it rains, the more stuff blooms and the more bees are produced. In the older part of Glendale, there's a lot of trees and flowers."

On average, a beehive houses 5,000 to 10,000 bees, so the one found in Glendale on Tuesday "was a big one that had to have been there a long time," he said. (Lily Leung, The Arizona Republic, 10/18/07.)

GLENDALE RESIDENTS ATTACKED BY 100,000 BEES

100,000 Bees Attack 6 Residents
4 Children, Babysitter, Beekeeper Stung

GLENDALE, AZ -- An angry swarm of 100,000 bees buzzed their way into several Valley yards Tuesday, stinging four children, their babysitter and a beekeeper, according to Elio Pompa of the Glendale Fire Department.

"They were extremely stubborn," Pompa said.

"These things were burrowed down deep inside of a metal shed," he said.

A beekeeper was first to be stung when the swarm became irritated around 2:30 p.m. Then the swarm moved on to the house next door and stung four children and the babysitter, Pompa said.

"We actually had one of the kids running down the street trying to escape the bees," he said.

Glendale firefighters came to the house and smothered the bees with a massive amount of water and foam.

"We destroyed probably 99 percent of that beehive," Pompa said.

Two of the people stung were rushed to the hospital - the babysitter and a 13-year-old child.

Hospital officials Tuesday night said both were going to be fine.

It's not known what type of bees they were. (KPHO-TV 5 News, 10/16/07.)

ARMY OF ANGRY BEES ATTACK 13 ELEMENTARY STUDENTS

POMPANO BEACH, FL -- Thirteen students from a Pompano Beach elementary school are recovering from stings of an army of angry bees.

A fire-rescue spokeswoman said none of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening, but one boy did get stung nine times. Seven of the children had been picked up by their parents by the time ambulances showed up. Three of them were taken to Broward General Medical Center.

Authorities aren't sure what kind of bees they were or what caused Wednesday morning's attack. The hive was sprayed with a special foam, killing them.

The hive was found underneath a plastic covering that houses the school's sprinkler controls.

The school was not evacuated. (AP, 10/3/07.)

SWARMING BEES STING 13 AT POMPANO SCHOOL

POMPANO BEACH, FL -- At least 13 children were stung by a swarm of bees roused from their hive at Norcrest Elementary School Wednesday morning.

Authorities aren't sure what angered the bees, but the swarm was kicked up about 10:45 a.m. and proceeded to sting the young students about the head, said Sandra King, spokeswoman for Pompano Beach Fire-Rescue.

By the time ambulances arrived at the school at 3951 NE 16th Ave., seven of the children had been picked up by parents. Three of the six remaining children were taken to Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale. One of the children, a boy, received at least nine stings.

King said none of the injuries appeared to be life threatening.

Fire officials found the hive underneath a plastic covering that houses sprinkler controls on school grounds. They sprayed the hive with a special foam, killing the bees, King said. The school was not evacuated.

Fire officials are not sure what kind of bees were involved, if they were Africanized bees or another group. (Brian Haas, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10/3/07.)

KILLER BEES NOW RULE FLORIDA'S HIVES
As the "mean" bees spread, apiaries face a mysterious blight.

ST PETERSBURG , FL --- Africanized bees, called killer bees because of the dramatic death they can inflict, have become the dominant wild bee in Florida, say state officials.

Known to relentlessly pursue their victims in swarms, the bees have been linked to at least a dozen deaths nationwide in the past decade and nearly two dozen animal fatalities statewide during the past two years.

"These are mean bees," said Jerry Hayes, chief apiary inspector for the state Department of Agriculture. "And it's not going to get better. It's going to get worse." Two years ago the department recommended that all wild bees be exterminated.

But now beekeepers are divided - with some ignoring the call to exterminate -- saying they're in the midst of the biggest crisis their profession has ever seen. Nearly 50 percent of the nation's captive bees have disappeared in the past year to a mysterious syndrome.

"It's a double-edged sword," said Dade City beekeeper David Hackenberg. "I understand why you would be concerned about public safety. Unfortunately, we need these bees."

Jeff McChesney, a Gulfport pest exterminator and bee enthusiast, has helped place a dozen wild bee hives with beekeepers struggling to rebuild their devastated colonies. "I have people from as far as the state of Oregon who are willing to drive here once a month to get our bees because they are collapsing elsewhere," he said.

But last month the state warned him about the risks. "I'm kind of at a standstill now," he said. "I don't know if we should kill them or save the bees."

Accidental release
Africanized bees, a crossbreed of honey bees from Europe and southern Africa, were introduced to the Western Hemisphere in 1957 when they were accidentally released during an attempt to create a super-productive breed.

Over time, shipping traffic brought the bees to the United States via various ports. In Tampa Bay, the bees were first reported in 2002. Since then, they have kept multiplying at a continuous rate, Hayes said.

In a 2005 statewide sample study of wild bees, 60 percent were Africanized bees. This year, that number was 87 percent.

The bees are so dominant in part because they can recruit more gentle bees. They also attack European beehives, killing the queen and installing their own. And their queens produce offspring more quickly.

Africanized bees, which appear similar to European bees, attack in far greater numbers and will chase their victims. In the most recent bee-related death, a Texas man was killed in September after more than 1,000 bees attacked him.

No Africanized bee-related fatalities have been reported in Florida, but several people have been hospitalized after attacks. And one of the more brutal animal deaths involved a 900-pound horse in Hendry County that died in 2005 when more than a thousand Africanized bees attacked it. Four pounds of bees were found in the horse's stomach.

"This is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at 2 a.m.," Hayes said. "They will sting hundreds or thousands of times. They will go up your nose and in your mouth. We are talking about a real dramatic death and we just don't need that in Florida."

Collapse of colonies
The growth of the killer bees comes at a time when captive bees nationwide are disappearing in an unexplained phenomenon named Colony Collapse Disorder. Experts who might have once advocated bringing in wild bees to supplement the loss of the managed colonies say doing so now would be too risky.

"As long as we have beekeepers, we will have good bees; the problem is the bees in the wild, you can't tell what kind of bees they are," said Elmore Herman, a Marianna beekeeper and president of the Florida State Beekeepers Association. "So why take the chance of taking them home and getting someone stung?"

But some beekeepers say state officials should at least try to distinguish between European or Africanized wild bees instead of writing them all off.

"This is how we get fruit and other crops," said Hackenberg, the Dade City beekeeper who first sounded the alarm about Colony Collapse Disorder last fall when thousands of his bees disappeared. "We need everything we've got to pollinate whatever there is out there."

Later this month, beekeepers are set to discuss Africanized bees at their annual state conference in Winter Haven. The state has about 1,000 beekeepers.

However, some rogue bee advocates, convinced agriculture officials are overreacting to reports of bee attacks in other areas, already have begun domesticating Africanized bees, introducing them into colonies run by European bee queens.

It's unclear if the effort will work. Africanized bees spend more time foraging for pollen, which could make them better pollinators than their European brethren, but they also produce less honey for the same reason.

In Brazil, farmers have used Africanized bees to pollinate crops, but it is still experimental in the United States and state officials do not recommend it.

Some bee advocates say if wild bees do not exhibit aggression they should not be exterminated.

Jimmy McKinnon, an amateur beekeeper in St. Petersburg, has wild bees, although he doesn't believe any are Africanized.

"Just to go across the board and kill all the bees, it is the stupidest thing I have ever heard," McKinnon said.

No data on harvest
Farming officials say they don't know what the ultimate impact of the captive bee die-out will be or even what could happen if Africanized bees keep spreading across the state. So far, neither situation has meant less honey or a loss in food crops.

But no data has been collected to compare the number of bees with the pounds of food collected each harvest season, said Charles Moss, a food and resource economics professor at the University of Florida. He was recently tapped by the state to research the impact of Africanized bees.

"We won't know what the impact will be unless it reaches a catastrophic level, and then it is too late." (Christina Silva, St Petersburg Times. 10/3/07.)

HOME ALONE: MENTALLY HANDICAPPED MAN STRUGGLING AFTER BEES KILLED HIS BROTHER

MISSION, TX - The man found his deceased brother's false teeth, battered, and dirtied, lying on the lawn in front of their childhood home.

He washed them with soap and water and set them on the same table where the brothers had shared meals almost three weeks ago.

Lester Compton, 51, now lives alone in the same two-bedroom ranch in North Mission.

Stunted by a severe mental handicap, Lester has never found steady work or married. For the past four years, he lived with his older brother, Paul.

Paul reminded Lester to shower, change clothes and clean up. He kept him company and watched professional wrestling with him. They talked all the time, discussing everything from Hulk Hogan to the likelihood of a hurricane.

Now, Lester closes his eyes and prays when he wants to talk. On Sept. 13, a swarm of Africanized bees killed Paul, spilling the 57-year-old's false teeth onto the lawn.

"Like mom died," Lester says now, speaking in gruff fragments as he often does. "Felt it here."

Standing under an old pecan tree by the house, tears fill his eyes and he pats his heart.

The Compton homestead

The Comptons' history in the Rio Grande Valley dates back to 1942, when the brothers' grandparents first moved to the property in Mission.

The Dust Bowl had destroyed the family's Oklahoma crops and it started over as citrus farmers in the Valley. For years, the Compton family tended 20 acres of grapefruit, pecan and orange trees. Lester and Paul grew up playing among the orchards.

For a time in the 1960s, the extended family gathered Saturdays at the house. The adults visited and talked while the children cranked homemade ice cream.

The family spoke little of Lester's disability, says Helen Hawkins, Lester's cousin.

"Lester always talked like a baby," she said. "I never knew why and I never questioned it."

She was especially close to Lester because they were the same age, and they often played tag and childhood games. They both remember finding a snake in a nearby canal and running all the way home.

Lester smiles at the memories, and tells about the time he let the horses out of the barn, and the family had to scramble to corral them.

"Ran all over," he says now, laughing.

Occasionally, other children teased him about his speech impediment and his juvenile mentality. That's when Paul would step in.

In recent years their mother and father succumbed to old age, and development shrunk the orchards to one acre, dotted with a few trees planted in the 1940s. Paul supported his brother with his $659 monthly disability payment, earned after a stroke paralyzed Paul's left side a few years ago. The money fed and housed the brothers and allowed for cable TV. Paul's meager earnings gave Lester everything he needed.

Paul watched out for his baby brother until the day he died.

An unexpected and deadly act of nature

The day before Paul's death, he and Lester had an appointment.

Lester drove them to an office in Edinburg, where they met with a caseworker from the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services.

The brothers went there once a year. They were on a waiting list for state-funded assisted living, and they had to update income and residence information. Paul also qualified for the program because he shared a mild case of Lester's disability.

Despite his problems, Paul worked for nearly two decades as a dishwasher at Luby's Cafeteria in Pharr. He was also married for many years, but his wife died of diabetes in 1998.

On Sept. 12, the brothers drove home to Mission at about 3 p.m. As usual, Lester stopped closer to the house to drop off Paul, who struggled to walk after his stroke.

Paul headed for the house, and Lester pulled the car into the garage. When he got out, he saw a black cloud of bees heading toward them. The bees attacked the brothers before they could unlock the door.

Lester fled to a neighbor's home, and they called 9-1-1. When firefighters arrived, they found Paul lying on the ground near the front door, his entire body covered with bees.

Bees stung the rescuers' hands and faces as they pulled Paul away; they stung paramedics in the ambulance on the way to Mission Regional Medical Center.

In fact, they stung Paul more than 1,000 times. The next morning he died because of the attack.

Alone for the first time

On a recent sunny afternoon, Hawkins comforts her cousin in the front yard. She tells him it's not his fault, he did the right thing, and he too would have died had he not run from the onslaught of bees.

Hawkins embraces Lester, and they cry on each other's shoulders.

"You try to find all kinds of ways to justify what happened, a cause, some sense of why it happened," Hawkins says, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. "When you think of ways to die, you don't think of this. This is the stuff of nightmares."

With Paul gone, garbage has piled up in nearly every corner of the Compton home. Every so often, extended family comes to straighten up. They scrub the squalid floors and bag the empty soda cans and wrappers.

They remind Lester that his mother kept a clean house and he should, too. Then the months pass and they must clean again. On a daily basis, the family calls Lester with reminders. Take a shower, change your clothes and turn off the lights when you're not using them, they tell him.

The family has also started to pay his expenses. Paul was uninsured when the bees attacked, so that leaves Lester with no income for utility bills or groceries. For now, Hawkins plans to support him.

She teaches seventh-grade English at South Middle School in Edinburg, and her husband works there as a teacher's aide. Her 80-year-old father, Ezra Compton, also lives with her; she says her budget is already strained.

Lester says he is looking for a job in landscaping, but the family knows he can't hold one. Lester also says he wants to stay in the house he has lived in for the past five decades, where his dog and cat roam the yard.

Desperate to make that possible, Hawkins has set up a memorial fund in Paul's name. All the proceeds go to support Lester.

"Turned off the TV and fan in Paul's room," Lester says. "Save money."

Of course, he does his part.

He's on his own now. He doesn't have a choice.

To donate to the Paul Compton Memorial Fund, contact First National Bank in Edinburg at (956) 380-8500. (Zack Quaintance, The Monitor, 10/2/07.)

30,000 BEES FOUND IN FORECLOSED HOME

CAPE CORAL, FL --- Some unwanted guests are taking over the neighborhood in Northeast Cape Coral. A bee expert says there are about 30,000 bees calling one hive their home.

Once Cape Coral resident Abby Berry realized 30,000 bees are living nearby, she said she doesn't feel safe living across the street from the new neighbors.

"We have two small children and I'm definitely not going to let them play out in the front yard until it's gone," said Berry.

Berry's husband Ryan feels exactly the same way.

"When I saw the size of the hive, I knew it was a danger - not only to my family but our neighbors who also have small children," said Ryan Berry.

About a month ago, the bees took over a foreclosed home. When neighbors contacted the city of Cape Coral about the squatters, they found out their hands are tied.

City officials say there is no program to use taxpayer money to remove the hive. So, it is left up to the bank that now owns the home to take care of it.

We asked bee expert Keith Councell to take a look at the hive. He says he has seen a lot of similar hives on abandoned homes.

"I have three more to do yet this evening on the outside of a building just like this," said Councell.

Councell says while the bees can be aggressive, they're just looking for a place to live.

"Bees really have nowhere to go to. Parasites have chased them out of their original homes or we've chased them out of their homes," said Councell.

And that's exactly what the Berry family wants Councell to do.

"We'll remove all the cones, capture the queen, put her in a cage, then put the bees in a box," said Councell.

Once Councell is contracted by the bank to take care of the bees, the insects will be on the move again. Their new home will be on a bee yard in Lee County.(Kate Eckman, NBC-TV News 2, 10/2/07.)

STINGING VICTIM THANKFUL

PHOENIX, AZ --- A man in Phoenix, Arizona says he has firefighters and doctors to thank for saving his life after being attacked by killer bees.

The attack happened last week, but Jim Anderson is just now able to talk about it.Anderson says he was walking back to his apartment from the laundry area when he walked under a tree. It was at that moment a huge swarm of bees attacked him.

Anderson suffers from fibromyalgia and was unable to run away.

Firefighters arrived and sprayed foam on the man. One firefighter even threw his jacket on Anderson to shield him from the bees.

A week later, Anderson is out of the hospital and back at home. He is covered with red marks and welts where the bees stung him.

At first it was thought Anderson was stung about 100-times, but after doctors were able to check him out thoroughly, they upped that number to 16-hundred.

Anderson says he has a lot of "thank yous" to give out, to firefighters and other medical personnel who saved him. (WIFR-TV 23 News, 9/28/07.)

BEES ATTACK COLT

SWARM ALSO SURROUNDED NEIGHBOR'S VAN

LOS FRESNOS, TX - Bees attacked a colt in Los Fresnos. And a neighbor saw it all happen.

John Patterson says, "Our neighbor called and said that there were bees attacking his horses. And I drove over there to look at them. And the entire eight-inch post was covered in bees."

He tells us he wanted to help, but the swarm of bees was too dangerous to approach.

"When I saw the ferocity of which they attacked my van, I can understand and I would assume that they could hurt a horse severely," he says.

Patterson called police. Los Fresnos fire crews sprayed the area.

NEWSCHANNEL 5 spoke to the horse's owner. He didn't want to appear on camera, but he told us the colt apparently got too close the post covered in bees.

Even after the spraying, the bees are back on the post.

"I don't know what to think about that," says Patterson. "I hope they stay where they're at and don't come here."

Police told the owner to pay an exterminator and get rid of the bee problem. That could cost as much as $350.

As for the colt, she has a lot of bee stings. But we're told she'll be okay. (KRGV-TV News 5, 9/26/07.)

PORT LAVACA MAN 'PRETTY GOOD' AFTER BEE ATTACK

PORT LAVACA, TX -- A 68-year-old Port Lavaca man using a tractor to mow tall weeds near his mobile home has survived an attack by a swarm of bees.

"I couldn't see under the house and I didn't touch the house but the noise and vibrations set them off. They came out in a tight, very fast swarm. They were all over me," John Tackett said in a report for Tuesday's Victoria Advocate.

A medic responding to the family's call for help on Sunday removed 60 stingers from Tackett's head, ears, throat and neck. Nurses removed an additional 50 stingers.

After the bees began to attack him, Tackett used his cap to protect his eyes and ran toward his home. He was then struck by the realization that the bees would follow him into his home, where his wife waited.

"It was a mind-boggling thing. Especially when I got to the door and realized I couldn't go in. But my wife was standing at the door. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. She opened the door and dragged me in."

Bonnie Tackett used a movable showerhead and cold water to wash the bees off while they waited for help.

"I feel pretty good right now, but I think people ought to be warned to be real careful and if they see a bee, get away," John Tackett said on Monday. He said he plans to have someone eradicate the bees.

"These guys, they came out in a calculated storm. They got on me and they just stayed. They were organized. I've never seen bees organized before." (AP, 9/24/07.)

BEES STING PARTY-GOERS

SAN ANTONIO, TX -- A group of children were attacked by a swarm of bees after they broke open a pinata at a party Sunday evening.

The bees stung nine children and four adults at the home in the 6400 block of Jetty.

Paramedics said those most seriously injured were stung four times.

Paramedics said the bees were not as aggressive as some other bees.

Everyone was fortunate that they didn't have to go to a hospital, paramedics said. (KSAT-TV 12 News, 9/23/07.)

MAN STUNG HUNDREDS OF TIMES IN BEE ATTACK

PHOENIX, AZ --- A man was rushed to the hospital after a bee attack in which he was stung "hundreds" of times at a northwest Phoenix apartment complex, firefighters said.

It remained unclear what triggered the attack, but it took place about 4 p.m. at a complex in the 16100 block of North 42nd Avenue, south of Bell Road, said Division Chief Mike Sandulak, a Phoenix Fire Department spokesman.

The victim, about 50, was taken to John C. Lincoln Deer Valley Hospital for treatment, but his condition was not immediately known, Sandulak said.

Other people were stung when they attempted pull the man to safety, Sandulak said.

In addition, firefighters were treated for stings they received while spraying foam to kill the aggressive bees, he said.

Further information was expected later in the day. (Brent Whiting, The Arizona Republic, 9/21/07.)

BLAME IT ON BEES
STUNG WORKER CAUSED 911 SERVICE OUTAGE

SAN MARCOS, TX - Was it a case of the cable killer bees?

Authorities said Tuesday's widespread long-distance and cell phone service outtage was caused when a worker, stung by bees, accidentally hit a lever controlling a drilling mechanism.

Services including 911 emergency dispatching were cut off about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, affecting San Marcos and large parts of Hays County.

Not only telephones but some other services like ATMs were also out of service.

Minutes before 4 p.m., the Hays County Sheriff's Office said the outage had been traced to a construction company working drilling holes "in the area of the kyle HEB at the intersection of FM 1626 and IH-35," said sheriff's spokesman Leroy Opiela.

"The construction worker was attacked and stung by bees. The worker jumped off the tractor hitting the hydraulic lever lowering the auger. The auger continued to drill and cut the fiber optic line."

Crews were still trying to repair the service when the announcement was made. (Anita Miller, San Marcos Daily Record, 9/18/07.)

BEES ATTACK IN SB
MAN, DOGS STUNG SEVERAL TIMES AFTER HIVE DISTURBED

SAN BERNARDINO, CA - Bartolo Carreon's plans to fix up his home did not go well with a big group of his neighbors. The problem was not with the neighbors who live on his street, but with the ones who live in his tree.

Carreon, 43, was trimming a tree in his backyard Monday afternoon, when he disturbed a bee hive. The bees responded with overwhelming force, repeatedly stinging him and his two dogs.

"It was bad, let me tell you," Carreon said at his home on 16th Street, which he has been renovating since he moved in a few months ago.

The bees stung him seven times around his head, face and arms, then chased and repeatedly stung two of his dogs, Cuco, a German Shepherd, and Nala, a Labrador.

This was not the first serious bee attack in the county this year. In May, Africanized bees killed three mastiffs in Hesperia. While it's not clear whether Monday's bees were Africanized honey bees, known as killer bees, the vast majority of bees in the county are. County vector control officials went to Carreon's house Monday afternoon to neutralize the hive.

Carreon's dogs seemed fine and he was planning to take them to the veterinarian as a precaution.

The bees chased Nala around the backyard and sent Cuco running down the street to get away.

"They followed me far away from the house," Carreon said of the bees.

Carreon's wife, Mary Carreon, was able to get Nala in the front door, and firefighters showed up to help.

If bees attack, Joe Krygier, the county's vector control supervisor, recommends running in a straight line and getting behind a closed door.

He does not recommend hiding in a body of water because the bees will wait and attack when the person comes up for air. It's also not a good idea to do what Carreon did, which was use a hose to try getting rid of the bees. The water won't kill the bees, it will make them angrier.

It's important to call 911. The foam firefighters use to attack fires will suffocate the bees, Krygier said.

It's also a good idea to inspect or fill any holes, cracks and crevices around the house so bees don't build a hive in those places. If the hive is on private property, Krygier recommends calling a pest control professional to kill the bees and remove the hive.

No one has ever died in San Bernardino because of a bee attack, Krygier said, but a construction worker with bee allergies died about 10 years ago in Riverside County after a bee attack. (Jason Pesick, San Bernardino Sun, 9/17/07.)

FIRE TRUCKS' SIRENS BUG KILLER BEES, EXPERT SAYS
BEES CONFIRMED TO BE LIVING IN ST. BERNARD PARISH

NEW ORLEANS, LA -- When you're around killer bees, it's best to keep quiet. That's what New Orleans insect experts have told local firefighters.

The Louisiana Department of Agriculture has confirmed that Africanized bees are in St. Bernard Parish. Unlike their nickname suggests, killer bees aren't poisonous, but they are more aggressive than regular honeybees.

Firefighters are often the first to respond to a report of killer bees, but experts said the crews shouldn't blast their sirens as they approach. (WDSU-TV 6

"The bees don't like loud noises and it gets them agitated, so we told them not to sound the sirens when responding," said Ken Brown, with New Orleans Insect Control.

Killer bees were first found in Louisiana in Caddo Parish in June 2005. Fire departments have been urged to buy special bee suits for killer bee calls. The foam used to douse electrical fires also works to control the bees. (WDSU-TV 6, 9/17/07.)

SWARM OF BEES ATTACKS VICTORIA MAN, 81

VICTORIA , TX -- An 81-year-old Victoria man suffered a light heart attack after being attacked and stung by more than 100 bees on Burroughsville Road on Friday evening.

Around 5 p.m., Herbert J. Hanselman, of Victoria, was cutting tall grass and weeds with his riding lawnmower on his nephew's property, said Amarylis Tschirhart, Hanselman's girlfriend who lives nearby.

Suddenly, a swarm of bees appeared.

"He doesn't know where they came from," Tschirhart said on Saturday. "They came from behind him."

Hanselman told Tschirhart, 79, that he ran to his truck and was trapped inside it for 45 minutes while he waited for the swarm to leave. Then he drove home and called and asked Tschirhart what to do.

She said she called 9-1-1, and a dispatcher sent an ambulance to Hanselman's residence in the 7500 block of Hanselman Road, but Hanselman refused treatment and went to Tschirhart's home instead.

Tschirhart called his doctor, who recommended that Hanselman go straight to the hospital. Tschirhart took him to Citizens Medical Center, where emergency doctors found he also suffered a light heart attack, in addition to the nearly hundred stings to his face, nose, eyes, ears, throat and arms.

Tschirhart said she saw no swelling around the stung areas. She said with news of the heart attack, he was transferred to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit for overnight treatment and observation.
Tschirhart said he's in stable condition.

"So far he has been strong, healthy and active," Tschirhart said, expressing surprise about the heart attack. (Tara Bozick, Victoria Advocate, 9/16/07.)

BEES ATTACK IMMIGRANTS, BORDER PATROL AGENTS

SIERRA VISTA, AZ - Several U.S. Border Patrol agents and illegal immigrants were stung by bees Friday morning, and one agent and three illegals suffered fall injuries as well as stings when running from the bee swarm in the Coronado Pass area of the Huachuca Mountains, according to county authorities.

A group of about 32 illegal immigrants and three Border Patrol agents ran from a bee swarm near U.S. Forest Service Road 61, off Coronado Monument Road on the backside of the Huachuca Mountains, Fry Fire District Chief Bill Miller said.

Authorities and rescue personnel responded about 10:30 a.m.

In general, the rule for escaping an angry swarm of bees is to run directly away from them in a straight line, because after going past a particular distance from their hive they won't chase you anymore, Miller said.

The Border Patrol agents and the group of illegal immigrants suddenly found themselves to have a mutual and emergent situation involving the attacking bees, Miller said.

"I think they all fell when they were running from the bees," Miller said.
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All three agents were apparently stung, and many of the illegal immigrants, but only one of the agents and three of the illegal immigrants were injured seriously enough to merit medical transport.

One of the illegal immigrants was injured seriously enough to call for a medical transport helicopter. She had gone into anaphylactic shock because of the bee stings, and was flown to a Tucson hospital in serious condition, Miller said.

A reported fourth, more serious injury involving an elderly illegal immigrant who had suffered a heart attack, was the subject of a search by an Arizona Department of Public Safety Ranger helicopter, though no heart-attack victim was found, Miller said.

Possibly another 10 illegal immigrants in the group were unaccounted for by Border Patrol, Miller said, presumably having taken the bee swarm opportunity to flee from the Border Patrol.

The Border Patrol agent and the other two illegal border crossers who were significantly injured were taken by ambulance to Sierra Vista Regional Health Center, Miller said. "All of these guys had bee stings and fall injuries," Miller said. "A bunch of other UDAs and other agents were stung, but didn't require transport."

The scene was cleared about 1:25 p.m., Miller said. The original group of northbound border crossers consisted of about 50 people, Miller said.

U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson Sector spokesman Richard DeWitt confirmed the sting injuries involving three illegal border crossers and the agent, that happened as they were all descending the mountain, as well as their subsequent transport to the Sierra Vista hospital.

"An agent called over the radio that he and some illegals were attacked by bees," DeWitt said.

"The agent was in pretty bad shape from the stings," DeWitt said.

The spokesman declined to comment regarding the ongoing condition of the injured.

But the Fry Fire chief said no one's injuries appeared to be life threatening.

Involved in the response were U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Park Service officers, Cochise County Sheriff's Office deputies and Sheriff's Assist Team members, Cochise County Search and Rescue volunteers, Fry Fire District and Palominas Fire Department, as well as LifeNet, Borstar and DPS helicopters. (Gentry Braswell, Wick News Service, The Douglas Daily Dispatch, 9/16/07.)

SOUTH TEXAS MAN DIES AFTER BEE ATTACK

MISSION, TX - A disabled South Texas man has died after being stung by as many as 1,000 bees, fire officials said.

Paul Lee Campton, 57, who used a walker, was covered by a swarm of bees after he and his brother, Lester Campton, 41, opened a garage door Wednesday. His brother ran to neighbor's house to call for help.

The bees also attacked firefighters who drove the swarm away, then followed after paramedics who took the man to Mission Regional Medical Center. Campton died late Thursday night at the hospital.

His brother and rescue workers were not seriously hurt. Pest control workers later destroyed the bees.(AP, 9/15/07.)

BEES ATTACK RAILROAD CREW; 1 MAN DIES OF HEART ATTACK

GRAHAM COUNTY, AZ -- A Safford man died Wednesday after he was swarmed by bees and had a heart attack on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, an official said.

Bobby Bell, 74, and a crew of men were doing some work for the Arizona-Eastern Railroad 40 miles east of Safford, which is about 90 miles northeast of Tucson, when they disturbed a beehive, said Graham County Undersheriff Dave Boyd.

The other men were able to run, but the bees attacked Bell, who had a heart condition and was taking medication, Boyd said.

He suffered a heart attack because of the bee stings and died at the scene, Boyd said. (Arizona Daily Star, 9/15/07.)

BEES ATTACK GROUP OF ENTRANTS, AGENTS

SIERRA VISTA, AZ --- A Border Patrol agent and three Guatemalan illegal border crossers were taken to Sierra Vista Medical Center at midday Friday after being attacked by bees. The swarm descended on them while they were hiking down a mountainside in the Huachuca Mountains southwest of Sierra Vista.

The incident occurred at about 10:30 a.m. as two agents escorted a group of 32 illegal entrants.

A 39-year-old Guatemalan woman and a male Border Patrol agent were stung between 60 and 100 times, said Richard DeWitt, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman.

The woman was taken by helicopter to the hospital after she suffered anaphylactic shock and passed out. The agent also sustained injuries when he fell down while trying to run away from the bees.
Both were released from the hospital in the late afternoon, DeWitt said.

The other two border crossers, a 26-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man, had less-serious injuries from the bee stings.

The other crossers suffered minor cuts, bruises and a few stings but didn't need to be taken to a hospital. (Brady McCombs, Arizona Daily Star, 9/15/07.)

TWO PEOPLE ATTACKED BY POSSIBLE AFRICANIZED HONEY BEES

DURANT, TX --- Two people in Johnston County are recovering after they were attacked by a swarm of what medical officials believe are Africanized Honey Bees. The victims were rushed to the University Medical Center in Durant Friday morning following the attack. KTEN's Andrea Kurys reports.

The two victims were working with cattle on the ranch when they were attacked by swarms of bees and stung dozens of times.

A woman who was nearby was able to spray the bees off of them with a garden hose, and they were rushed to a local hospital.

The doctor who examined the men told them he thought they may have been attacked by Africanized Honey Bees...or "killer bees" as they are sometimes called. The victims were held for several hours for observation, but have been released and are doing fine.

Brent Smith is a friend of the men says nobody has gone back to the site since the attack because the bees are still swarming the area.

"When the call came in to me, when we were talking and discussing with people who were on the scene," he said, "there was a suspicion that that maybe what they were, because the bee being solid black, it was definitely not a honeybee, we could recognize that pretty quickly. But their reaction, the victims are doing real well at this point, they're sore and really shook up as you can imagine. They were covered in bees."

At this point, the Department of Agriculture is taking DNA samples to confirm if they really are Africanized Honey Bees. In the meantime, officials want residents living in that area to take extreme precaution.

If you do encounter any bees, Department of Agriculture officials say do not use hornet or wasp spray because it will enrage them and cause them to attack even more. Of course, we will continue to follow any developments with this story. (Andrea Kurys, KTEN-TV News 10, 9/14/07.)

'KILLER BEES' DESCEND ON NEW ORLEANS

MERAUX, LA. - Africanized honeybees, a fierce hybrid strain sometimes referred to as "killer bees," appears to have established themselves in the New Orleans area, the state agriculture commissioner said.

A swarm of the bees was captured about five miles from where demolition workers found a colony of Africanized bees in January, commissioner Bob Odom said Tuesday.

The most recent find was close enough to the earlier find that the bees might have come from the same colony. But they might also have flown ashore from a passing ship or barge, Odom said in a news release.

"Although the exact source can't be identified, we have to assume Africanized honeybees are now established in the area and people should be careful when working outside," Odom said.

The Department of Agriculture and Forestry keeps traps along a north-south line through the state and at all deepwater ports to monitor the bees, which are smaller and more aggressive than the European honeybees raised for honey.

"Because Africanized bees have been labeled 'killer bees' for years, there's an idea around that they are bigger than European honeybees," Odom said. "The truth is they're actually smaller but a lot fiercer."

They have the same venom as honeybees, but attack in groups. Experts recommend that anyone confronted with Africanized bees find cover quickly.

Africanized bees are the result of an experiment to increase honey production in Brazil. A swarm escaped a lab in 1957 and headed north. When they mated with native strains, the offspring were as aggressive as the African parents.

They reached Texas in 1990 and have spread west to California and east to Florida. They were first found in Louisiana in Caddo Parish, in June 2005, and identified the following month. They have moved steadily east since then, and were most recently found near Pecan Island and Turkey Creek. (AP, 9/12/07.)

MORE AFRICANIZED HONEYBEES FOUND IN ST. BERNARD PARISH

NEW ORLEANS, LA --- More Africanized honeybees have been found in St. Bernard Parish, the state Agriculture and Forestry office said Tuesday.

The "positive sample'' was found in a trap on the Mississippi River in near Meraux, the office said in a news release. The site is about five miles downriver from a confirmed find earlier this year, the news release said.

"In January, a colony of Africanized honeybees was found in a St. Bernard Parish house being torn down because of damage from Hurricane Katrina. The proximity of this find indicates the bees could be a swarm from that colony or could be from a ship or barge passing by on the
river," Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom said in the news release. "Although the exact source can't be identified, we have to assume Africanized honeybees are now established in the area and people should be careful when working outside."

The Department of Agriculture and Forestry maintains Africanized honeybee traps along a north-south corridor through the state and at all deepwater ports. These traps will continue to be utilized in monitoring the progression of Africanized honeybees across the state.

So far this year, LDAF's New Orleans District has collected 40 samples from traps near the Mississippi River and the port. Five of the samples were sent to the USDA for further confirmation. Of those, three were negative, one was positive and one is pending results.

Africanized bees are smaller and more aggressive than the European honeybees commonly raised for honey production. Their hostile nature concerns many outdoor enthusiasts.

"Because Africanized bees have been labeled 'killer bees' for years, there's an idea around that they are bigger than European honeybees," Odom said. "The truth is they're actually smaller but a lot fiercer." (The Times-Picayune, Posted by St. Bernard bureau, 9/11/07.)

BEE EXTERMINATION IS A DIRTY JOB

HARLINGEN, TX - Killing Africanized bees is a dirty business, but someone's got to do it.

Whether it's the city health department, fire department or private exterminator, this isn't a job for the squeamish.

"It's part of the job," noted Dave Blackwell, senior animal control officer for Harlingen. "I don't like going to bee calls and neither do the other guys, but we have to take care of them."

Ramiro Gonzalez, environmental health director for the City of Harlingen, agrees.

"It's not fun, especially with the heat," he said. "Those (bee) suits get pretty hot."

And, Gonzalez noted, bees have a nasty habit of finding their way into a bee suit through the smallest crevice and delivering a painful sting.

Blackwell said he has been stung numerous times in his nearly six years of exterminating bees.

During an extermination, the remaining live bees tend to stick to the suit, even after the hive has been destroyed.

"The only way you can get them off is riding in the back of the truck and just letting them get blown off," he said.

No one wants someone with bees clinging to them in their office, home or vehicle, he added.

Local bee killers have been particularly active over the past year.

Blackwell said that from October 2006 through this past June, the city responded to 113 bee calls, up approximately 10 percent from the previous eight-month period.

In June alone, the city responded to 41 calls, one of the heaviest months in memory.

And there's no telling how many home or business owners have killed bees on their own.

If the city health department is contacted about bees, someone is dispatched to look into the problem.

"If the bees are outside, like in a tree or area where we can get to them, animal control officers will use soapy water to eradicate them," Gonzalez said. "If they're inside a structure, it's the owner's responsibility."

Many times the structures where bees have taken up residence are dilapidated or abandoned.

"We send a certified letter to the owner of record, which we get from the tax roll, giving them 10 days to correct the problem," Gonzalez said.

If no action is taken, an exterminator will be contacted who will provide an estimate for the extermination.

If the quote is more than $300, Gonzalez said the job has to go out for bids and the low bidder will get the contract.

The city then files a mechanical lien against the property to recoup the money it paid the exterminator. That means the deed cannot be transferred until the lien is paid, along with a $20 court fee.

"A lien can stay on the property for years," Gonzalez said. "Some liens for many, many years.

"The city is not trying to make money, just recoup what it paid."

Mike Phipps, manager of Valleywide Pest Management, said the price for eradicating bees varies.

"It could cost $125 or $350 if we have to remove boards to get to the bees," Phipps said.

He said Valleywide Pest Management receives about 250 calls a year, but 2007 has been particularly busy.

"This year there has been a definite increase," he said. "It ran about the same for seven years, but at the end of the spring and beginning of the summer, we got more calls.

"The bees have been much more aggressive than in the past. They will go after you more," he said.

Sometimes, too aggressive.

"We have had situations where we had to walk away," he said. "But normally we'll get rid of them."

If the bees do become too aggressive, exterminators return at daybreak when the bees are more docile.

Phipps remembers one hive inside an abandoned house in Harlingen that was 4 feet wide by 10 feet tall and contained thousands of bees. It took eight 20-gallon trash bags to remove the honeycomb.

Valleywide Pest Management has eight technicians trained in bee eradication.

"We have state training and company training," Phipps said. "But the majority of training is hands-on."

Gonzalez said the city health department would eradicate outside bees during normal business hours.

If there is a bee emergency after hours, particularly one in which people are threatened, residents are advised to call 9-1-1 and the fire department will dispatch a team to get rid of them. (Steve Sinclair, Valley Morning Star, 9/9/07.)

AFRICANIZED KILLER BEES SWARM VALLEY

Editor's Note: We watched, worried and waited for the feared Africanized bees to enter the United States. And, finally, on Oct. 19, 1990, the first Africanized "killer" honeybee recorded in this country was found in a bee trap near Hidalgo. Now that they are here, have the fears been realized? Today and Monday, we take a look at Africanized bees in the Rio Grande Valley. Today's stories include an overview and a look at their impact on Valley agriculture. Monday's story deals with getting rid of bad bees.

COMBES - Cecil SoRell didn't know that in just a few minutes, he would be fighting for his life.

A longtime Combes resident, SoRell regularly mows the lawn on his lakefront property.

But one day in 2003, the loud hum of his riding lawnmower incited a frightening response: a massive swarm of angry Africanized honeybees that surrounded him and started stinging.

"I tried to outrun them, and you can't outrun them," SoRell said. "So I jumped in the lake and started to swim."

Every time he came up for air, the bees encircled his head to sting more. The bees were so thick that he couldn't clap his hands together, he said.

SoRell was stung about 300 times that day, and the doctors told him if he'd arrived at the emergency room a few minutes later, he would have died.

Today, SoRell, now 78, and his wife, Marjorie, said they have a real respect for the aggressive Africanized bee - commonly known as the "killer bee" - and what it can do.

"I don't like him to go out there to mow the lawn," Marjorie said.

Oct. 19, 1990
Since they first entered the United States through South Texas on Oct. 19, 1990, killer bees have made their presence known in the Rio Grande Valley and the southern United States.

Most of the time this type of bee, although more aggressive than the mellow domestic honeybee, will leave people alone. But once they're disturbed, the bees attack in such force that a person can be stung hundreds of times in seconds, experts say. Survivors report terrifying experiences with killer bees swarming them and attacking en masse.

However, their invasion hasn't been as deadly as residents feared when the bees first arrived.

Despite their moniker, "killer bees" have killed few Valley residents - 10 in the last 17 years, according to one expert - and no children.

In many cases, the people who died were sickly or elderly and so were especially vulnerable to the venom, said Dr. William McKenna, a Harlingen allergist and expert on Africanized bees who has published several papers on the subject in medical journals.

McKenna said that the reality of living with Africanized honeybees is not as frightening as portrayed in movies like "The Swarm" and "The Bees." But that doesn't mean they aren't dangerous when provoked.

"It's not a science fiction B-movie, where you get stung by one killer bee and you're dead, and everyone's screaming and yelling and swatting," McKenna said.

"But it's true that once an attack starts, there's no calling it off. Then it is like the movies … One second, you're mowing your lawn, and the next you're under attack."

How the bees got here
The Africanized honeybee made its entrance into the United States 17 years ago in the Rio Grande Valley. But its journey began in Brazil decades ago.

In the 1950s, South American scientists attempted to crossbreed African honeybees with local bees, hoping to increase honey output, according to the Smithsonian Institution.

But in 1957, the experiment took on a life of its own when a group of African bees were accidentally released from the apiary and began breeding with wild and commercial bees throughout South America.

Over the years, the bees spread to Central America and Mexico, claiming victims along the way. Researchers, and U.S. residents, began to panic at the possibility of "killer bees" invading the United States, inciting a media blitz and a string of horror movies.

In October 1990, the first Africanized bee in the United States was found in Hidalgo, and the hybrid bees quickly spread throughout South Texas. Shortly thereafter, the bees claimed their first Valley resident when they killed an 82-year-old Starr County man.

Researchers documented 12 known attacks from Laredo to Brownsville by 1994, but only a few deaths.

Africanized honeybees now have invaded most of Texas, and researchers consider all wild bees in the state to be Africanized or African hybrids. The bees now can be found from California to Florida and across much of the South, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Learning to live with - and not provoke - these bees is necessary in Texas because they are now everywhere, said Bob Cox, an entomologist at USDA's Kika de la Garza Subtropical Agricultural Research Center in Weslaco who studies bees.

"There's nothing you can do about it - our bees are going to be part Africanized," Cox said.

It's all in the personality
To the naked eye, Africanized bees appear identical to European bees, although they are slightly smaller. The true difference comes down to temperament, experts say.

European bees were bred to be gentle and produce honey, according to Texas A&M University's entomology department.

Africanized honeybees, however, aren't so docile. They sense a threat from a greater distance, become more easily upset and sting in much larger groups than domestic bees.

"Domestic bees get upset, too - it just takes a lot more to get them upset," allergist McKenna said.

Once Africanized bees become agitated, it's as if a fire alarm goes off in the hive, he said.

"They come out like a stream of water from the hive and find the first living creature nearby," said McKenna.

With the first sting, the bee releases a hormone that marks the target, attracting all the other bees. That's how one person can quickly be stung hundreds of times.

Receiving 500 bee stings is roughly equivalent to being pumped full of a mid-sized rattlesnake's venom, McKenna said.

The human toll
Last month, an elderly Hidalgo man died after being stung by dozens of bees.

That same week, another woman in her 80s underwent treatment in Harlingen for 1,000 stings, he said. Doctors had to draw the woman's blood plasma out of her body and replace it - a process called plasmapheresis - to rid her system of the venom.
She survived.

The bees' venom can affect nearly every organ in the body, leading to kidney failure or heart problems in the most severe cases.

McKenna said he's seen more than 100 cases of people attacked by Africanized bees in the last 17 years. Most of his patients, though, escaped with 10 to 50 stings.

Luckily, most patients survive and recover, he said. Only a few bee-attack survivors in the Valley have seen lasting effects, he said.

Even relatively minor bee attacks can be frightening, according to survivors.

Harlingen residents Ernie and Mimi Willmann endured a June attack in their yard by bees hiding in their attic. Ernie had about 40 stings and Mimi about 10, but Mimi said she'd never forget the image of the bees bearing down on them.

"It's a scary feeling, and I don't wish it on anyone," she said.

Stirring them up
The bees are especially active this year because of the increased rainfall, McKenna said.

"More colonies are surviving because they have more resources, like water and flowers," he said. "They'll be popping up in many places."

The city of Harlingen received 140 calls complaining about bees from October 2006 to July of this year, animal control supervisor Dave Blackwell said. That's compared to 185 calls for the entire previous year, he said.

In Brownsville, the environmental health department receives six to eight calls a day about bees, said its director, Joe Hinojosa. He thinks increased development in Brownsville is contributing to the problem.

"I think we're disturbing their habitat," Hinojosa said. "If you clear land, you might run afoul of their colonies and see attacks."

Still, most people can avoid attacks by being aware of where bee colonies are hiding and not running loud machinery or working nearby. If a bee colony is spotted, it's probably best to call the local health department or an exterminator, depending on whether the colony is on public or private property, according to officials.

If we steer clear of them, it is possible to co-exist fairly peacefully with this permanent resident of the Valley.

"If they're in the brush or the wild, keep away!," McKenna said. "Don't try to disturb them."

Melissa McEver covers health and environment issues for Valley Freedom Newspapers. She is based in Harlingen and you can reach her at (956) 430-6252. For this and more local stories, visit www.themonitor.com (Melissa McEver, 9/8/07.)

THE BUZZ ON KILLER BEES

JACKSON COUNTY, FL -- In the 1950s, someone had what they thought was a bright idea: ship some Apis mellifera scutellata over to South America.

And before people could say "Darn, these little bees are a real buzz-kill," the Apis mellifera scutellata, better known as the African honey bee, began to conquer territory faster than the Roman Empire.

Maybe that's what got people so worried that news of "killer bees" soon spread through media outlets all over the nation, leaving scientists and beekeepers working hard to dispel some scary rumors.

According to University of Florida assistant professor of entomology Dr. James D. Ellis, the African honey bees spread from South America, through Central America and reached Texas in 1990. Since Texas, the little buzzers have set up shop in states including Arizona, Louisiana and New Mexico. By January this year, the bees were claiming homestead in South Florida. And, said Ellis, they did all this moving without any help from man.

"They conquered an entire continent and a half in about 30 years," said Ellis. "The African honey bee is actually the most successful biologically invasive species of all time."

But, said Ellis, they aren't the deadly giant bees they're made out to be. In fact, the scutelllata are slightly smaller than the European honey bees used by beekeepers, and both bees have the same venom. They're simply more defensive of their space than the bees we're used to.

He European bees will defend an area of five to 10 yards radius around their colony, taking a large amount of stimulation to aggravate them enough to attack. When they do attack, the colony only sends out a handful of bees.

African scutellata, on the other hand, defend an area of about 40 yards away from their colony. Just about anything can set them off and they'll send out 100 or more bees to attack what they perceive as a threat to their colony.

"When bees sting, they're basically saying 'You are too close to my nest, I want you gone," said Ellis.

While the European bee colony typically forms about two or three more colonies per year, African bees form about 10 to 12. And while it's a European bee's nature to nest up high and away from the cold moist ground, the African bee will nest just about anywhere.

He said that it would take about 1,000 to 1,200 stings to kill a grown person, or about 10 stings per pound of body weight. He said 9 times out of 10, the African bee is as docile as the European.

"But you don't want to take a chance and mess with them, because that one time they become defensive will get you stung, and stung and stung," said Ellis.

Ellis said 70 percent of reported African bee attacks involved someone who was aware of the bees' presence, meaning the people were probably messing with the colony.

He said most deaths related to African honey bees happened when a person being stung panics; for instance, one man died when he was rock climbing. Instead of withstanding bee stings, he let go and fell to his death.

In Florida, no deaths have occurred related to African honey bees. African honey bee colonies have been found frequently in South and Central Florida, but not yet in the Panhandle. However, occasionally nests can be found in North Florida.

Ellis said it's practically impossible for people, even scientists to tell the difference between a European bee and African bee with the naked eye. He said it takes several hours of testing to determine a percentage of the possibility of the bee being Africanized.

The Florida Department of Agriculture advises that all suspect bee colonies be eradicated as soon as possible by a pest control professional.

Another big side effect from their annoying defensive habit, the African bees are interfering with the beekeeping business and the bees are considered a large threat to the nation's food production.

Why? Mostly fear and legal liabilities, said Ellis.

He said people are worried about being stung, and some are misdirecting the blame toward beekeepers. Beekeepers are being asked to remove their hives in some areas, reducing production and pollination of a large variety of food sources and produce.

"Beekeepers are absolutely essential. They aren't the problem, they're part of the solution," said Ellis.

He said keepers are required to mark their queens. If an African colony has taken over one of their hives, they're able to tell by the absence of their marked queen and eradicate the new colony.

There is some good news, though. Ellis said that the honey bee genome has recently bee sequenced, meaning that the reason African honey bee's defensive nature might be solved and possibly altered, eventually. (Jackson County Floridian, Kate McCardell, 9/8/07.)

BEES ATTACK GREEN VALLEY MAN, 91; FIREFIGHTERS URGE: CALL 911

TUCSON, ARIZONA -- A household chore went from bad to awful this week for a Green Valley man.

Edwin Michelsen, 91, was cleaning the rain gutters at his home when he was attacked by a swarm of honeybees. He ran through his garage and into his house, his arms and body covered with the stinging insects.

"I took his hat off and started beating them off with it," said Shirley Michelsen, his wife.

Michelsen was not in too much distress from the stings, so the couple was in no rush to seek medical attention. But wanting to make sure her husband would be OK, Shirley Michelsen, 80, drove to a Green Valley Fire District station to check with firefighters.

They felt a stronger sense of urgency.

Capt. Melissa Smith, a Green Valley Fire District spokeswoman, said anyone who has been stung several times by aggressive bees should call 911 because of the risk of anaphylactic shock. Sometimes people don't realize they might be allergic to bees until it's too late, she said.

Firefighters went to Michelsen's home about 2 p.m. after talking to his wife. They recommended that he seek medical attention, but he refused.

Michelsen was on the phone with an exterminator when firefighters arrived, still getting stung by the occasional bee, Smith said.

Meanwhile, the swarm was making its way through the Country Club Estates neighborhood where the Michelsens live, stinging unlucky passers-by, Shirley Michelsen said.

Firefighters told those people to stay indoors, she said.

The Michelsens went to their neighbors', their house having been taken over by the bees.