With the discussion recently about Africanized Honey Bees (AHB), I thought I would post this snippet regarding the characteristics of AHB, borrowed from the Entomology and Nematology Department of the University of Florida. entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/bees/ahb.htm African honey bees cannot be distinguished from European honey bees easily, although they are slightly smaller than the various European races. Laboratory personnel use morphometric analyses to determine the likelihood that a given colony is Africanized or fully African. With honey bees, the measurement of wing venation patterns and the size and coloration of various body parts (morphometry) are important determinants of identification at the subspecific level. Morphometry has been used to differentiate honey bee races since the 1960s and remains the first round of identification when suspect colonies are discovered. Morphometric analyses were first used to differentiate Africanized and European honey bees in South America in 1978. A more rigorous identification is achieved by genetic analysis and often is necessary when the suspect bees are a hybrid between African bees and the European subspecies. Other differences between African and European bees manifest themselves behaviorally. To the casual bystander, the primary identifying behavioral characteristic of Africanized bees is their heightened defensiveness compared to that of European subspecies. Selection pressures induced by man may be, in part, responsible for this increased defensiveness. Beekeeping (management of honey bee colonies by humans) is more common in Europe, where the native honey bees have been bred for gentleness and ease of management. In contrast, honey hunting (near-complete destruction of hive to harvest contents) is more common in Africa, resulting in a bee that is more defensive of its nest. Other selection pressures that might have led to a heightened defensiveness in African bees include climatic stresses, resource availability, and predation by birds, mammals, and various reptiles. These selection pressures resulted in an African race of bee that can be many times more defensive than most of the various European races of bee. All honey bees readily defend their nests, and an attack usually means that the victim is too close to the nest. While European races of bees may attack a nest intruder with a few bees (usually no more than 10-20 bees), African bees may attack the same intruder with hundreds of bees. Further, African bees generally defend a larger radius around their nest and usually require lower levels of stimuli to initiate an attack. Because of these characteristics, African bees are capable of killing large mammals, including man. This defensiveness has earned them the nickname killer bee. It is important to note that their ability to kill humans has nothing to do with their size or the potency of their venom. African bees are smaller than European bees and probably deliver a comparatively smaller dose of venom to their victim than do European bees. Because both bees use the same type of venom, human deaths usually are a result of the number of stings received rather than an increased potency of African bee venom, unless the victim is allergic to bees in which case a single sting can cause death. Another behavioral difference between African and European bees concerns colony level reproduction and nest abandonment. African honey bees swarm and abscond in greater frequencies than their European counterparts. Swarming, bee reproduction at the colony level, occurs when a single colony splits into two colonies, thus helping to ensuring survival of the species. European colonies commonly swarm one to three times per year. African colonies may swarm more than 10 times per year. African swarms tend to be smaller than European ones, but the swarming bees are docile in both races. Regardless, African colonies reproduce in greater numbers than European colonies, quickly saturating an area with African bees. Further, African bees abscond frequently (completely abandon the nest) during times of dearth or repeated nest disturbance while this behavior is atypical in European bees. Another common difference between African and European honey bees is their choice of nest locations. African honey bees are less selective when considering a potential nesting site than are European bees. They will nest in a much smaller volume than European honey bees and have been found in water meter boxes, cement blocks, old tires, house eaves, barbecue grills, cavities in the ground, and hanging exposed from tree limbs, just to name a few places. One rarely finds European colonies in any of these locations because they prefer to nest in larger cavities like those provided by tree hollows, chimneys, etc. As one can imagine, humans inadvertently provide multiple nesting sites for African bees. Therein lies the primary reason African bees are encountered frequently by humans. A final behavioral curiosity of African bees concerns nest usurpation (or colony takeover) of European colonies. Small African swarms containing a queen often land on the outside infrastructure of a European colony (a wall, beekeeper-managed hive, etc.). As time passes, the worker bees in the African swarm begin to exchange food/pheromones with the European workers from the colony. This gradually ensures the adoption of the African bees into the European colony. Somewhere during this process, the European queen is lost (perhaps killed by the African bees, her fate remains uncertain at this point) and the African queen is introduced into the colony, thus becoming the reigning matriarch. European bees do not display this behavior but often fall victim to it, thus creating an African colony from a preexisting European one. Other behavioral differences between African and European races exist and are worth discussing briefly. For example, African bees are often more flighty than European bees, meaning that when a colony is disturbed, more of the bees leave the nest rather than remain in the hive. African bees use more propolis (a derivative of saps and resins collected from various trees/plants) than do European bees. Propolis is used to weather-proof the nest and has various antibiotic properties. African colonies produce proportionally more drones (male bees) than European bees. Their colonies grow faster and tend to be smaller than European colonies. Finally, they tend to store proportionately less food (honey) than European bees, likely a remnant of being native to an environment where food resources are available throughout the year.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 16:02:06 +0000
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