Killer bees in the US
Killer bees in the US (Wikiepdia)
- As of 2002, the African honeybees had spread from Southern Brazil to Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida and southern California. Their expansion stopped for a time at eastern Texas, possibly due to the large number of European-bee beekeepers in the area. However, discoveries of the bees in southern Louisiana indicate this species of bee has penetrated this barrier, or has come as a swarm aboard a ship. In June 2005, it was discovered that the bees had penetrated the border of Texas and had spread into southwest Arkansas. On September 11, 2007, Commissioner Bob Odom of the Department of Agriculture and Forestry said that African honey bees established themselves in the New Orleans area. In February 2009, African honeybees were found in southern Utah
- African bees are expected to be a hazard mostly in the Southern States of the United States, reaching as far north as the Chesapeake Bay in the east. The cold-weather limits of the African bee have driven some professional bee breeders from Southern California into the harsher wintering locales of the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade Range.
Africanized honeybees, sometimes referred to as “killer bees,” appear to have established themselves in the New Orleans area, according to the state agriculture commissioner..
The Las Vegas Sun reports that a swarm of the bees were captured roughly five miles from where demolition workers found a colony of Africanized bees in January. 5 miles is close enough to the earlier find, to think that the bees might have come from the same colony. Unfortunately, they might also have flown ashore from a passing ship or barge.
- In 1990, Killer Bees reached southern Texas, appeared in Arizona in 1993, and found their way to California in 1995. They are expected to form colonies in parts of the southern United States.
- Many authorities have been working on the problem of Killer Bees in the United States.
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