How dangerous are killer bees?
The killer bee, or Africanized honeybee, developed in Brazil in the 1950s when breeders mated the African honeybee with local bees. They were trying to produce a bee that would produce more honey in the tropics but instead got a bee that was very aggressive and attacked animals and people. Killer bees have been slowly working their way north, and appeared in Texas in 1990. But these killer bees are not as bad as they have been rumored to be. For example, they do not fly any faster than domestic honeybees, their sting contains less venom, and they are smaller than regular honeybees. Smashing a killer bee, however, releases a chemical that tells all the other bees to attack. They will also defend their nests with much more vigor than domestic bees. Hopefully, killer bees’ aggressive nature will be bred out of them as they mate with more and more domestic bees in the north.
