Thursday, April 10, 2008

How sweet the sting...


One of the traits of the Africanized Honey Bee(AHB) is its aggressive behavior. The slightest noise or justling can cause a stinging frenzy. Huge numbers of AHBs will react to the attack/sting phermone in the air and sting anything and everything within as much as 1/2 mile around the hive. A news report from Mexico will give you insight into the character of this "freak" of nature.

At this time N.C. has been able to keep the african apis DNA at bay. If we are not vigilant, that could easily change. The NCDA and research at NCSU are two of the tools being used to unravel this threat to apis mellifera. Should the AHB species invade the gentle hardworking honey bee of N.C., it would drastically alter the apiary hobby and business climate of the state. There would be hundreds maybe even thousands of hobby bee keepers that would abandon the art of bee keeping. This would reduce the number of bees pollinating in this state by hundreds of millions of visits to flowering plants. At some point, this could influence the quality of fruits and vegetables we consume.

2 comments:

  1. My youngest ones just watched the "Bee Movie" yesterday after testing was over. Funny movie with a serious message about how important bees are - have you seen it?
    -F

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  2. No...I did not like casting the lead as a male bee and they only had four legs each;)

    I will watch it at a later date...a great bee link for kids is http://helpthehoneybees.com/

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