Not all bees the 'killer' kind - Docile `cousin' aids economy, ecosystem

Broward County is abuzz.

Recently a swarm of thousands of bees attacked a couple, their dog and two firefighters in Fort Lauderdale, leaving the people with nasty stings and sending the pet Husky to the veterinarian. Officials are waiting on test results to find out whether the insects were Africanized bees, also known as "killer bees."

On Thursday, a pest control company removed a 3-foot-long hive from a tree in a Cooper City parking lot after customers got nervous.

Beekeeper Wainsworth Brown hears of such incidents and worries -- but not for the reason one might think. Brown, of Lauderhill, is afraid the arrival of Africanized bees will provoke residents to kill off the more docile, European bees that are vital to South Florida's ecosystem and economy. He also worries their negative reputation will lead to further decline in local beekeeping, a practice the Florida Department of Agriculture calls the "first and best defense" against Africanized bees.

"You get people who are not educated, and they just want to get rid of them," laments Brown, who has about 400 hives spread out across the state, including seven in Broward County on a small farm off Griffin Road. "If we don't have bees, we don't have food."

As bees go from flower to flower gathering nectar, they pollinate plants (everything from Brazilian pepper to watermelon), enabling them to reproduce and bear fruit. In north and central Florida, where citrus groves and other crops still proliferate, beekeeping is big business, creating about $12 million worth of honey in 2005, ranking the state fourth in the nation, the Florida Agricultural Statistics Service reports.

Beekeepers fight the spread of Africanization by maintaining more docile bee populations, which compete with the Africanized bees and dilute their numbers. But because of development, there aren't many beekeepers left in South Florida.

"We have fewer and fewer because of all the construction," says Ute Hartmann, a West Palm Beach beekeeper who has been in South Florida since 1974 but has only five hives left.

In the wild, Africanized bees are a hardier strain that reproduce faster and attack with greater ferocity. A single Africanized bee sting is no more venomous than a regular bee's -- but they attack in greater numbers, creating danger, especially for those with bee allergies.

African bees were originally brought to Brazil as an experiment, to see if they could improve the productivity of Brazilian bees through scientifically controlled interbreeding. But the visitors escaped into the wild and bred at their own pace with the locals, creating Africanized offspring.

The hybrid spread through South and Central America into the southwestern United States. In 2002, Africanized bees were first found in Tampa. Most made their way to Florida on freighters from Guatemala, according to the state Department of Agriculture.

A few large commercial beekeeping operations still exist in undeveloped areas of South Florida, like Loxahatchee in western Palm Beach County. Lee Del Signore owns one of them: 4,000 hives in Homestead in Miami-Dade County that produce about 650,000 pounds of honey a year.

He says the biggest threat to his docile, European bees isn't human encroachment or Africanized bees, but parasitic mites, which destroy hives and have caused a decline in the nation's bee population. In 2005, honeybees had to be imported from outside North America for the first time since 1922, according to a National Academies report.

Once mites weaken a European colony, Del Signore said, it is much easier for an Africanized queen to take over. For this reason, beekeepers like Del Signore check their hives regularly for Africanized bees.

Because Africanized bees look no different from their cousins to the naked eye, the best way to be sure about their presence is to conduct a genetic test. But Del Signore uses a faster, if more dangerous, method.

"We walk past the hive and knock on the hive," he explains. "The normal reaction would be maybe a few bees would come out ... so you just get out of the way. With Africanized bees, you have to run out of there. They send out more bees, and faster and for further distances."

Del Signore said he has never found any Africanized bees in his hives, and tries to keep it that way by importing genetically tested docile queens. In 1998, scientists identified a set of "mean genes" Africanized bees possess that are linked to aggressive behavior, including stinging.

Since then, Del Signore said, a whole class of designer bees has been created, bred not only to be docile, but also to produce larger amounts of honey and fight off mite infestation.

Hartmann, the longtime West Palm Beach beekeeper, hopes to educate other South Floridians about the positive aspects of bees and beekeeping at this year's South Florida Fair, which runs Jan.12-28 in West Palm Beach. Her group, the Palm Beach County Bee Keepers, will have a booth in Building 5, where people can sign up for beekeeping classes and sample Florida orange blossom honey.

Like Brown, Hartmann says residents need not destroy beehives they find; they can instead call a registered beekeeper who will remove and relocate the hive to a safe place. (To find a beekeeper, contact the Florida Department of Agriculture or the county extension office.)

"They are almost endangered right now worldwide ... because of these mites, and beetles and lack of room and spraying of insects," she said. "If we lose [the honeybee] we lose 30 percent of the world's food."