Friday's Internet Edition, September 10, 2010.
|
News editor - A man in the bee business is warning Central Texans to be on the lookout for beehives, as Africanized honeybees are showing increased activity.
Darrell Lister, owner and operator of Bee Buster, said Africanized honeybees are more active because the queen has been invigorated with the recent rains. The weather has installed a false sense of spring in the queen, who is now laying 1500 to 2000 eggs per day, he said.
Lister also said all of the worker bees are now at the hive, pulling guard duty. Vibrations will cause the bees to attack, he said, and they then choose their victim based on the strongest odors and darkest colors.
The Copperas Cove Fire Department has reported approximately two calls per day while Lister himself was called in to remove an Africanized honeybee hive from city property.
Lister cited a recent bee attack in Marlin as an example of what Africanized honeybees can do.
According to a recent story in The Marlin Democrat, Lola Fischer, who has lived in her home on Gift Street in Marlin since 1960, has had bees residing outside in an old barbecue pit. When her neighbor was outside mowing, the bees attacked him, stinging him in the face, said the article.
The article said the bees also covered the neighbors’ dog, a medium sized terrier mix, and killed him within ten minutes. The dog weighed approximately 30 or 35 pounds, about the size of a one-year-old child.
According to The Marlin Democrat, Fischer’s neighbor was treated at the local emergency room and released without any complications. The dog however, was buried the next day.
Lister said that no bees are safe to have around, even ones that seem peaceful and haven’t harmed anyone. “People think these bees are all okay,” he said. “That’s the biggest
problem today, is that people have gotten complacent. Everybody’s got bees that they’re not doing anything about.”
He said African bees prefer cavities close to the ground, as opposed to the European bees that build hives up high. People should be observant, looking for hives, said Lister. If a hive is found, the best way to remove bees is to call a professional.
“Get someone that removes the wax as well as the bees, so it will be done properly,” Lister said. “Especially when it’s in the wall of the house, more damage can be done in leaving the honeycomb.”
Parker County, where Weatherford is the county seat, joined a growing list of those under state quarantine, which restricts the movement of commercial bee operations following the detection of Africanized honeybees.
The addition makes 148 counties in Texas now quarantined for Africanized honey bees, according to the Texas Apiary Inspection Service, a unit of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station.
The quarantine allows beekeepers to move beehives within, but not out of, the zone in an effort to prevent assisting the spread. Africanized honeybees look just like regular domestic honeybees but are more defensive in protecting their hives, according to Jackson.
State bee inspectors continue to monitor a series of bee traplines that extend across the state from Louisiana to New Mexico. The Africanized bee was first detected in the United States near Brownsville in October 1990.
Since then, the bee has spread through much of the state, along a line roughly from Houston to Lubbock to El Paso. Africanized honeybees also have been found in Arizona, California, Nevada and New Mexico.
Coryell, Bell and Lampasas counties are included in the quarantine. For information about Africanized honeybees on the Web, try http://agnews.tamu.edu/bees.