2010-03-23 11:57:00 - Biological Hazard - USA EDIS CODE: BH-20100323-25431-USA
Date & Time: 2010-03-23 11:57:00 [UTC]
Area: USA, State of Utah, Southern areas, '!!! WARNING !!! Not confirmed information! Description: Africanized honeybee colonies are spreading throughout Southern Utah. Danielle Downey, Utah Department of Agriculture and Food Compliance specialist of insect programs, told the Iron County Commission at its meeting Monday the increasing presence of Africanized honeybees - also called "killer bees" - is no surprise in Southern Utah as its migration to the state has been anticipated since its advance from Texas in 1990 and detection in Mesquite in 1999. "We found it (in Utah) in 2008," Downey said. "We don't really expect to keep it out." The human eye is unable to determine the difference between Africanized honeybees and European honeybees, with the latter prevalent in Utah. The bees can only be reliably distinguished by genetic testing, Downey said. The sting is the same for both bees, and the lifestyle is almost identical. "The important differences are the colonies are smaller. They're much more prolific so if you have an African colony it could live in a tire on the ground. They love to be in a water heater box," D owney said. "The European bee lives, typically, in a Winnie the Pooh tree with lots of insulation, and it needs lots of honey to get through winter. "This bee, because it's a tropical bee, lives in smaller, unpredictable places, and it also produces a lot of swarms. So if you have one colony, it's going to produce up to 20 swarms in a season," she added. "So once you get some, you get a lot of them."
The Africanized honeybee got its nickname, "killer bee," because of its highly aggressive nature to defend its nest, which can result in massive stinging events after one bee leaves its stinger, signaling as an alert to other bees to attack. Despite colder temperatures in Iron County, the population of killer bees shows no sign of decline. "Insects adapt quickly, and they've also been mixing with the bees that we have here already, which do survive winter," Downey said. "The most important thing is if they can find the eaves of a house or a skirt of a mobile home or somewhere where they can shave off a little bit of that cold winter, we've found them to survive." A single hive of killer bees was eradicated from a Cedar City home in March 2009, a month after the first confirmation of the bees in Utah was declared when five hives were discovered in Washington and Kane counties. Since that time, the UDAF has sampled 16 colonies in Iron County, with 10 of them testing positive as killer bees. In Washington County, 34 of 71 colonies tested were determined to be killer bees. "We do have the weather working against them, but we do have all these extra habitats that humans provide," Downey said. Though there have been no reported stinging attacks on humans or animals in Utah to date, a horse in Pahrump was killed last year by a swarm of killer bees, in addition to a 53-year-old man in Las Vegas who was hospitalized after sustaining an estimated 1,000 stings after uncovering a large colony from moving a boulder with a backhoe in his yard.
"I think the public needs to be concerned," said Sam Taylor, New Castle beekeeper. "If people are needing to tear things out, take down buildings or move old junk, they should walk around and make sure they don't have a beehive in there or something because I think that is where there is potential for trouble. People need to watch those things."
The name of Hazard: Africanized honeybee plague
Species: Animal
Status: Confirmed
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