Beeing Afraid

Howard Wetsman MD
Aug 31, 2018 · 4 min read

Many people are afraid of honeybees. I used to be one. Growing up I was told they were dangerous. I was told they were devious. I was told they were out to get me. The truth is that most honey bees I’ve ever seen don’t even know I’m there and couldn’t care less if they did. But about the time I became an adult and could have taken a look for myself, news broke that a new honeybee had come into America from the south. Africanized honeybees were on the way and they were aggressive. These bees thought your presence was a threat, so I kept being afraid.

And I wasn’t the only one. People who lived in cities figured that glass and brick buildings were no place for honeybees regardless of what the honeybees thought. Even if urban humans did build really great weather proof trees, they didn’t want the bees living there. So for city folk who see bees, it was, “let’s get rid of all the bees.” But there’s a problem with that solution.

Approximately 1/3 of all the food we eat is pollinated by honeybees. They are the only source of honey on the planet. They are also the only source of beeswax, which has so many uses it would blow your mind. If we got rid of all the honeybees, there’s a lot we’d have to go without.

What if we just keep the bees in the country where they belong and kill them when we find them in cities where good people are trying to live in peace? I mean after all, even if most honeybees are nice and don’t care if we’re here, those Africanized honeybees are more aggressive.

First, let me say something about the Africanized honeybees and then we’ll talk about keeping the bees in the country. Africanized honeybees are real, and they really are more aggressive. They can attack when you approach their hive, even if you haven’t done anything to them, but they aren’t likely coming to a neighborhood near you.

Africanized honeybees are the way they are because our local honeybees have hybridized with African bees that are more aggressive. African honeybees were brought to Brazil in the 1950s because someone thought they’d make more honey. That may actually be true, but they are difficult to contain. As if to presage Jurassic Park, they escaped and spread to the wild. Interbreeding with local bees, the aggressive African bees’ genes spread north (and south, but most of you who are reading this live north of Brazil). Since the 1990s Africanized honeybees have been in the US and currently are only a problem in the southern tier of states.

So, all the more reason to keep honeybees in the country where there are few people to get stung to death by rogue Africanized killer bees, right? Well, actually, no.

When you see a bee, you think you’re seeing an individual animal. I get that, but that’s not actually how bees live. For honeybees, the organism is the hive. It’s not bees that multiply; it’s hives that multiply. And like all living things, they multiply a lot as long as there’s food available. Short of exterminating all the bees, and I think we covered the consequences of that above, we’re going to have to get used to the idea that any attempt to keep them out of the cities is going to be a constant and losing battle. But, given the threat of Africanized bees that are so aggressive, isn’t it a battle worth fighting?

No, there’s a better way. Aggressive genetics in honeybees spread through mating, and, for honeybees, mating is a matter of statistics. The queen mates just once or twice at the beginning of her life, each time with multiple drones so she can get a good sampling of the local genetics. The smaller the percentage of aggressive bees there are around, the lower the chance of her being inseminated with any aggressive genes. We can make that percentage smaller two ways. We can keep out the aggressive bees, or we can get more docile bees to be around.

The Americas have been trying to contain Africanized honeybees by getting rid of them since the 50s, and they’ve moved all the way from Brazil to Texas. That way may slow them down, but it isn’t a wall on the Rio Grande. We can’t kill them all without killing the good ones too. And, remember, the good ones are what gives us about 1/3 of everything we eat. Luckily, there’s another way.

The best way to prevent aggressive genetics from entering an area’s honeybee population is to have a lot of docile bees flying around filling up the space in the ecosystem that bees fill. Kill the nice bees and there’s plenty of room for aggressive bees to move in. If you are afraid of aggressive bees, the best thing you can do is become a beekeeper and keep docile bees. The more docile honeybees we have, the better off we’ll all be.

Isn’t it ironic that our best hope against cities filled with aggressive bees stinging innocent bystanders is keeping bees? It’s also true that efforts to kill docile honeybees just to rid the area of any threat is the best way to ensure that aggressive bees will be moving in. Life is funny like that.

If you’re interested in learning more, just google “how do I start beekeeping” and you’ll be on your way. If you’re a YouTuber, try taking a look at the videos of Jeff Horchoff and 628 Dirt Rooster. I dare you to watch the joy these guys get from bees and not want to get your own hive. Don’t bee afraid!

Howard Wetsman MD
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