africanized bees, do I have to give up beekeeping if they arrive?

[Jim 134]

No problem, just buy or raise a queen and requeen them. In a few weeks they will be european again.

 Who is faster on the queen to mate african drones or  european drones ?

So who is faster???

[AllenF]

I don't think anyone can answer that one.   It would be hard to study, but there might be a thesis idea there.    I would flood my neighborhood with cool easy drones just to keep the odds on my side not to get any bad queens around.

[sarafina]

All you have to do is requeen. Africanized drones will not dominate the landscape so if you do raise them and the mate outside of your control the odds of you having the same problem are slim.

"The Hive and the Honeybee" claims that in their study, European queens mated preferentially with Africanized drones.  They were not sure of the reason and that research was published in 1992 so it may be outdated.  But you would have to think that if the Africanized colonies multiply faster, they will eventually be the majority.  So I guess the worst case is that you would always have to buy mated European queens from a place the Africanized haven't reached.

I bought my new queen from Kentucky because they are outside AHB area (for now).  On the other hand, my other hive re-queened itself and it gentle as can be and we have lived with AHB for 10 years now.  I helped do a cutout of feral bees and they were very gentle also, so there are still a lot of European genetics around here even after 10 years.  You just have to be aware of it and prepared for it but it's not like we deal with it constantly.

I asked the lady who does bee cutouts for a living and she said only about 10% are Africanized.  That seems to be about the same percentage of hot hives I hear about at my local beekeeper's meetings.

[sarafina]

Don't 1/2 of the genetics for worker come form the drones  

yes,

With the amount of swarms per year said, why don't we see more?  Whether by death of the elements, requeening, cross breeding, killing intentionally or flooding areas with drones, something is going on.

They are all "hybrids", not pure African bees and I think over time the genetics are becoming more and more diluted, even as they are spreading.  Like I said in my other post, my experience with my club and beeks who do cutouts is the really mean bees are only about 10% of the population but I have no science to back that up.

[Jim 134]

The only way you can tell if you got African bees or not as by DNA testing.I had lots of really mean bees in the 50s 60s 70s the sill get a few.



    BEE HAPPY Jim 134  

[sarafina]

The only way you can tell if you got African bees or not as by DNA testing.I had lots of really mean bees in the 50s 60s 70s the sill get a few.



    BEE HAPPY Jim 134  

You are correct.  I sent mine off to Texas A&M for testing.

[AllenF]

If we keep flooding the area with gentle queens, and gentle drones, that would keep the african bees in check, but they will always be south of us pushing their genetics to the north.  Unless they dilute the mean bees out way south of us (mexico to brazil) this will be the way we will have to deal with them from now on.   

[slacker361]

i thought they could tell by the length of the wing if they are African or not, i saw this on discovery, the Africans have slightly smaller wings

[Michael Bush]

If they are mean and not Africanized do you want to keep them?  If they are nice and they are Africanized do you care?  If they are mean, requeen.

The smaller Africanized bees are just because they are feral on natural comb.  DNA is the only real test, but since the USDA was raising and distributing Africanized honey bees up into the 60s, my guess is they are all Africanized.  Still, the issue is that you want workable calm bees.  So requeen if they are not.  If you want to calm them down quickly, split and requeen.  A smaller hive is much less defensive.

[Jim 134]

i thought they could tell by the length of the wing if they are African or not, i saw this on discovery, the Africans have slightly smaller wings

    Don't think you may hurt your head LOL 


                 BEE HAPPY Jim 134 

[slacker361]

i thought they could tell by the length of the wing if they are African or not, i saw this on discovery, the Africans have slightly smaller wings

    Don't think you may hurt your head LOL 


                 BEE HAPPY Jim 134 

i really didnt hurt

The popular term 'Killer bee' has only limited scientific meaning today because there is no generally accepted fraction of genetic contribution used to establish a cut-off. While the native African bees are smaller, and build smaller comb cells than the European bee, their hybrids are not smaller. They do have slightly shorter wings, which can be reliably recognized only by performing a statistical analysis on micro-measurements of a substantial sample.


I got this info from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee

[OzBuzz]

Easy way to ensure you get good genes is get a queen that's artificially inseminated...gives you much greater control over your genetics

[sarafina]

Easy way to ensure you get good genes is get a queen that's artificially inseminated...gives you much greater control over your genetics

I looked it up and the first artificially inseminated queen I found cost $150 

For a queen you aren't even sure will be accepted?  Or might be superceded in a couple of months?  It might be worth it to some, but not to me.

[Michael Bush]

There is no point buying an AI (II actually) queen unless you are a breeder looking for very specific traits.