Africanized+Honey+Bee-Becky


 * Africanized honeybee (Apis Mellifera Scutellata)**

__**General Information:**__ The Africanized honeybee is an insect measuring about 3/4 inches long with a black body and orange bands around its lower body. They are relatively similar to the European Honey Bee with one exception. The Africanized honeybee is smaller with a weight of about 90 to 100 milligrams.(6) Being a hybrid species, they were created in Brazil by scientists how wanted to develop faster growing bees that produce honey at an increased rate unlike regular bees. The Africanized honeybee was created when the European honeybee and African honeybee mated. This combination caused nasty affects leading the development of the killer bee.(6)

The Africanized honeybee has a life cycle just like other insects. With the queen responsible for reproduction, the job of the drone bee is to mate with the queen and that is all. The worker bees are all female. They bring nectar and pollen while other workers defend the colony from harm.(5) The development of the bee is fairly simple. First, the queen lays eggs in different cells of the honeycomb. Once the egg is laid, the larvae immediately begins to grow with the results of it hatching after three days. As the larvae continues to grow, it sheds its skin five times and by the eighth day, it is fully grown into a pupa. Once this occurs, the pupa changes color on the ninth day and turns into an adult. When they become three to four weeks old, the bee will finally leave the hive and either help the nest or make a new one.(4) The energy source of a bee is honey, which consists of nectar and pollen. They gather pollen from the flowers, bring it back to the hive and store it away in honey or place enzymes in it to feed to the larvae. Water is also important to the bee for it helps create honey and cool the nest on warm days. They are both producers and consumers with the fact that the flowers produce pollen and nectar and the bees bring it to their nest to produce honey out of it. Their diet is mainly sweets within the honey. Since they are quite fond of sweets, they are seen around picnic tables and humans who are consuming foods or drinks with high sugar levels. Some examples of what they consume include any type of clover, orange-blossom, buckwheat, tupelo, apple-blossom, sage, goldenrod, alfalfa, basswood, avocado, sunflower, sourwood, eucalyptus, and sage.(3) The fact that this bee is so successful in its new environment is based on the fact that they are extremely aggressive and have the capability to attack a predator in swarms. They have short tempers and can threaten ones life easy especially while they are swarming. Having stingers that create painful injections of poison can give them an advantage over their predators since they have nothing else to defend themselves with. The stinger is a weapon used by the Africanized honeybee. When one bee stings, than all the other bees from the nest come out into a swarm and attack the victim as well. Once the victim has been stung by one bee, an odor that smells likes ripe bananas lets loose and attracts all the other bees to come to help since the smell is a basic alert exclaiming that a worker is in need of help.(2)
 * __Detailed Description:__**

__**Habitat and Distribution:**__ Africanized honeybees are related to the African bees meaning they came from Africa. In around 1956, they were brought to Brazil where scientists tried to develop new bees with the combination of the African bee and the European bee. Scientists wanted a bee that was as fierce as the African bee but as gentle as the European bee. They had figured out that a nice, strong, and excellent honey producer would be born if the two species of bee was combined. Instead, they created the Africanized honeybee which is also known as the killer bee which had the opposite results than what they had expected to see. By accident, a beekeeper let the bees out causing them to quickly spread out into the wild and take over the European honey bee hives. By 1957, they had made their way northward from Brazil, up through Mexico and into the United States.(2) The Africanized honeybee lived throughout Europe and Africa and south of the Sahara Desert. They originated from Africa in the tropical zone, which is hot and humid, and found good quality food sources and areas for their nest. As long as the bees have good resources, they will take over the area while others of the nest go in search of another habitable area once the resources in the previous area diminish. As they continue to take over regions, they have managed to spread over South and Central America, through Mexico and straight into the United States. Every year, they spread about 200 miles northward. With this fact, they had reached southern Texas in 1990 throughout the years and even reached Arizona in 1993 along with California in 1995.(1) When they reached the United States, they began to dramatically effect the area and grow into a great concern. They started killing people and livestock and changes in beekeeping increased. As they began to take over Texas, for example, they became out of control and many have died due to it. The counties tried to quarantine but there was nothing stopping them since there were too many around.(7)

Although this bee has many negative effects, it has many positive ones as well. For example, since the Africanized honeybees are in the tropical region, they influence 25-30% of the pollination of the plants. Without these bees in the tropics, there would not be many plant species around since there would be no insects to pollinate. This in term would cause the plants to die and not give food for other organisms. These bees also have a big influence on crop production. They are able to pollinate much more efficiently than European honeybees since they are able to emphasize grouping of their family and colony growth instead of honey production. For example, in Sinaloa Mexico, the bees invaded the area but caused no harm to anyone or anything. In fact, they help the crops there and helped the farmers receive more money for their crops.(1) On the other hand, the bees are very competitive towards other species of bee. They compete for nectar and pollen while pushing the other bees away by swarming around them. Since they push the other bees to relocate in another area, they caused the pollination of the plants to decrease. With the Africanized bees around, the honey industry gets affected as well. For example, since these bees are aggressive, it causes more conflict between the beekeeper and the bees. During the winter, the bees may leave the nest and try to find another area to live in but fail to do so causing them to die out. With this occurring, beekeepers would be put out of business since they cannot manage to get a hold of bees. With the Africanized bee around, they out compete the native bees with the result of having less honey production. Another negative factor includes how these bees are a type of food source for other insects and animals. With the bee being extremely violent and vicious, it causes many plants and animals to look for other means of food. By doing so, the population of Africanized honeybees may increase to dangerous levels.(1) The Africanized honeybee also has a huge impact on humans. Aside from making beekeepers create less honey production, they are able to kill many humans as well with as little as one sting. Their poison is able to swell up a humans flesh, go into the bloodstream, and cause a severe allergic reaction. Although some do not get a reaction, they are still able to die considering that these bees swarm and attack numerous times. Africanized honeybees also cause a severe economic impact as well. Such as the damages they do to buildings, shacks, homes, and much more. The problem most face is that it would be harder to exterminate them since they are a wild and non-domesticated breed. As they mate with other species from the native land they invaded, it creates more hybrid species that are also wild and vicious.(1)
 * __Impacts:__**

Today, humans are trying to eliminate the Africanized honeybee since they are not domesticated like the other species of bee and are aggressive and harmful to human society. In the states and countries these bees have taken over, humans spend an average of two hundred dollars to exterminate them. Along with the price of exterminating them, a person with a bee problem would also have to consider how much it would cost to repair the damages the bees caused.(1)
 * __Control Measures:__**

__**Video of the Africanized Honeybees attacking:**__ []

media type="youtube" key="Q0ZVkypYYqU" height="344" width="425"

Citations: 1 Ohar, Christina. "Africanized Honey Bee." //Columbia//. Ed. James A Danoff-Burg. ColumbiaUniversity, 1 Mar. 2002. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. [|http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/ Apis _ mellifera_scutellata.htm] 2 Landau, Elaine. //Killer Bees//. Illus. U.S. Department of Agriculture and Hemera Technologies, Inc. Ed. Elaine Landau. New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, Inc, 2003. Print. 3 Micucci, Charles. //The Life and TIme of the Honeybee//. Illus. Ticknor & Fields. New York: Houghton, 1995. Print. 4 "The Honey Bee Life Cycle." //Benefits of Honey//. N.p., 2007. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. []. 5 Lyon, William F., and James E. Tew. "Africanized Honey Bee." //Ohioline//. Ohio State U., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. []. 6 Hickman, Karen. "Africanized Honey Bee." //Oklahomainvasivespecies//. Div. of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, 2007. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. . 7 Visscher, P. Kirk, and Richard S. Vetter. "The Progress of Africanized Bees in the United States (1990-1995)." //Bees//. Ed. F. Chris Baptista and Arizona Department of Agriculture. U. of California, 2009. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. .