Again, they’re not programmed to think about the Winter, so their stores aren’t typically as large. Swarming can be managed with regular inspections, but (see above) they don’t like that much either.Įven a productive and loyal colony is generally smaller than a European honeybee colony and will store less honey too. This means, as long as it’s not raining too much, they can forage whenever they need to.Īs such, they have no qualms about swarming regularly and often, and when they do this, they’ll take half the workforce and a bunch of their honey with them. In their home territories, there’s food all year round. Tropical subspecies don’t have that mindset, and when it gets cold, they’re more likely to go looking for a better place to live. They plan to bunker down and raid the larder until it’s warm enough to go our foraging again. But even if you manage to make one especially happy, they still might not pull their weight.Įuropean bees store honey for winter. They’ll also disappear if you disturb them too much something that comes with the territory of traditional beekeeping inspections.Īll of this means that holding onto a colony can be an issue. This might be a hive that’s too big, a hive that’s too small, one that’s too high or too low, or they just don’t like the smell of your aftershave. One of the most significant of these, to a person who wants to keep them at home, is that they are quite prone to leaving if conditions aren’t perfect. 1Īfrican bees are not as eager to please in several ways. However, they’re not actually as good as livestock as European bees. Of course, some escaped, and rampaged through South America, out-competing and inter-breeding with their counterparts, who, as you might be able to tell from the name, were not native there either. This makes them one of the most successful invaders known. On top of this, the African subspecies will invade a colony, kill the resident queen and install their own. Nobody knows why, but this is a huge factor in their invasiveness across the continent.įurther, the queens sired by African drones emerge from their cells a day sooner, giving them ample time to kill off their competition. Queen bees can be inseminated with a 50/50 mix of European and African sperm, and they’ll still use as much as 90% of the sperm from the African deposit. While the European honeybee did well in the temperate areas of North America, they aren’t well suited to tropical climates, which is why they’re easily overtaken by the African subspecies. The two subspecies are separated by thousands of miles of ocean, and would never meet under normal circumstances.īut the lowland bee from Africa was introduced on purpose, due to its eagerness and high productivity in tropical environments, to be bred with the European subspecies in the area to create a more productive colony. Organically, this hybrid would never have happened. And this scares people who have become accustomed to the placid, docile nature of the European bee. This has led to deaths, as it often does on their home continent. They are hyper-aggressive compared with their European cousins, quick to anger, and will chase for 2-4 times as far when they’re mad. The hybrid Africanised bee brings with it in its genes, a substantial portion of the African bee philosophy: Both a wild and competitive nature that reflects its harsh and difficult ecosystem but also, a freedom to move and choose where to live throughout the year.īut these bees also bring with them some serious African bee attitude. South America up to Southern North America Well, nobody’s ever heard of a killer wasp.Īfricanized “killer” bees are a tropical hybrid between the European honeybee and the East African Lowland honeybee both are the same species, but have totally different approaches to life. Meanwhile, bees get off the hook because they generally keep to themselves, and besides, we like their honey and how they pollinate our food crops and flowers. We’ve talked about the irrational fear of wasps, and how they are unfairly represented as relentless killing machines who will chase and slaughter you at any chance they get.
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