African Bee

[bowtarist]

Justin, thanks for the post.  I knew that wasn't a killer bee, but was trying to figure out a way to say that w/o looking like a reble rouser.  I  keep bees and find all hymenoptera (bee, wasp, hornte, etc.) facinating.  I try not to kill any of them unless they are posing a real hazard to my family, such as yellow jackets or bald face hornets under the porch.  I put out flyers every spring for free honey bee removal and all others inexpensive.  Most people arn't as allergic as they think they are, you are supposed to swell up and itch for a couple of days when stung by a bee, they've been doing it for 160,000,000 years.  Now on another note, if you feel short of breath after being stung you need to go get some help.  We live way in the country I keep two hives in my front yard. We keep benadryll around, both kids and adult for anyone who gets stung and needs it.  It doesn't happen very often, but once in awhile a buddy brings their dog over and it gets stung messing around by the hives.  No benadryll for the dog though.  Honey Bees are great, one out of every three bites of food is pollinated by bees...well, unless you are strickly carnivorous.  Cool looking bee mullett, it's helping the birds by pollinating your sunflower.

[bowtarist]

One more thing...The metallic blue wasps you are seeing are called mud dabbers.  They are usually docile.  They are the ones that make the mud "fingers" on the walls.  A nuisance to some.  They are cool though.  If you ever open up one of the active "fingers", you'll see it is full of spiders.  They appear dead, but are really in a suspended animation, only paralysed.  The female wasp lays her egg at the top end of the "finger", then fills the tube w/ these spiders.  When the egg hatches it eats these spiders, the pupates and emerges as another mud dabber.  Pretty cool, huh? 

[Pat B]

I appreciate Bowtarist's viewpoint. I do landscape work and lately we've "discovered" at least one yellowjacket or baldface hornet nest on our job each day. In most instances we eliminate these nests because of the proximity to the public. I don't kill these fabulous predators just to kill them...or the pollinators.
  I have a sensitivity to all stinging insects. I even swell from gnat bites. Before I went to Colorado in 2006 I was tested to see just how sensitive. It turns out that I am infact allergic to paper wasps and sensitive to all the rest.  For that trip I bought an Epi pen. This is the second Epi pen I've bought over the years but never used either...and they are expensive and expire in one year. I do keep benedryl with me at all times and so far that lessens the swelling and possible hives from most stings. I did miss a day of work last week after being stung on the back of my hand. I didn't take the benedryl until I got home but by then the swelling had begun. By the next morning my right forearm was half again it's normal size all the way to my elbow, painful and bruised. Had I taken the benedryl right off I would have prevented most of the swelling but someone would have had to drive me home while I slept. 
  I watched a NOVA show on "killer Bees" that said that they and the "standard" European honey bees are very similar. The big difference was the number of attackers and the distance the majority of the killer bees would attack. Normal honey bees will attack out to about 100 feet or so. The killers will attack out past 1000 feet from the hive and in large numbers.

[Rick Wallace]

That's pretty scary that they're showing up.  Hope they don't cause any problems for you. 

On a related note, we've had these ginormous Cicada Killers showing up around my place.  They're not too aggressive supposedly, but their stingers look like hypodermic needles.  I just hope my kids don't get nailed by one.  I don't like 'em.

We got lots of those here in Santa Rosa County

[Justin Snyder]

You are right Pat, the "killer bee" African honey bee is no more dangerous than the European honey bee. The difference is how aggressive they are which means more stings. They will attack and defend up to 1/2 mile from the hive. The fascinating thing is that they are all descended from a handfull of African queens that escaped, with almost every queen being a daughter or daughter of a daughter of those queens.

They have been here for some time, but we have yet to have a problem with them attacking anyone in our area.

[stickbender]

     Bowtarist, the wasps I am talking about in the woods are not Mud Dabbers, I know what they are, I used to bust their nest to get fishing bait when I was a kid. They are one of the wasps that I have never been stung by.  I normally don't bother them, unless they start a nest on the front of the house, or something like that
these "Wood" wasps, are identical to the regular paper wasps, including the paper nest, same color body, but they are about half again as big, and only the tips of the wings are the metallic blue. Well for those Cicada wasps, go to Harbor freight, and get yourself a couple of those electric fly swatters!   They are like a yellow tennis racket, and have a metal grid.  They are bug zappers with a handle!   They take two D cell battery's.  Or just mix up a fifty/fifty solution of Dawn detergent, and water, and spray them.  That solution is good for plants also, palms, strawberries, etc.  it kills the bugs, and fungus and such.    But the electric fly swatters are more fun!

                                                                     Wayne

[criveraville]

We have them here in Erath County, TX. Several folks have been attacked and I belive one fatality.

[mullet]

 I've been looking at pictures of bees and I don't know what this one is. It's bigger than a honey bee, very dark with some small yellow hairs on it's abdomen.

Criv, we had an old woman get attacked by a swarm here a couple of weeks ago.

[bowtarist]

After posting yesterday I went out to shoot my arsenal of squirrel arrows for practice.  I was shooting at dog toys and tennis balls against the hill side.  When I went to retrive my arrows I realized a few of them had hit a ground hornet nest.  I've been shooting there all summer, but at flat targets, not on the ground. I took one good sting to the belly, grabbed my arrows and changed the placement of my ball targets.    Made me think of you all on this post.  Careful out there.

[bowtarist]

Eddie, Down there where you live it could be anything, maybe came in on a boat from Asia or somewhere.  That's where the larger, Apis Dorsata is from, well, Malaysia.  It almost looks like the thorax, right behind the head where the wings come out is bare of hairs.  Is that right?  Honeybee queens don't have hairs on there thorax, but they also can't feed themselves, but rather are fed by the workers.  Maybe you can send a link to the State Apiest and ask them.  I know the one in Indiana if you'd like me to send her a link?  Did you capture it?   

[mullet]

 No, I didn't do anything but try to take pictures. It had hair all over. It was identical to a honey bee but was bigger and darker. It looked just like the one I saw in Colombia. I'm going to check the pictures I took down there, I think I took a picture of that one, too.

[Prarie Bowyer]

Do african bees make honey?  I know there is an invasive bee that does not and takes over domestic bee nests.  I think another one maybe African is cross breeding with our bees.  It's been a while since I saw that documentary.  They are larger and more agressive as I recal.

[Justin Snyder]

African bees will take over a hive, but they do produce honey. They were trying to cross them with European bees to produce more honey, but the experiment went all wrong when a replacement bee-keeper accidentally let 26 queens escape in 1957. Both European and African bees are domestic.

There are no other bees that will take over a domestic hive, but there are some species of wasps that will kill so they can eat the larva, or other pests that can kill a hive off, but they don't move in.

[Prarie Bowyer]

Ah  . . . So I was close . . . cosmically speaking.

[bowtarist]

WOW Justine, you're really up on your apis history.  They tried to calm the Africanized bee down in Mexico by saturating the area w/ Italian Queens, but it didn't really work and may have even done worse by giving the Africanized bees better over wintering habits.  The Africanized bee doesn't like the cold.  They also will regularlly make comb on a tree limb w/o any other shealter.  No hive, just comb.  That's how they do it in Africa.  I've read that they are migrators in Africa and travel from area to area making this kind of open comb hive.