Door-to-Door Search On for Killer Bees

Fears that killer bees have spread beyond the Kern County site where a large underground hive was uncovered sent a team of insect experts on a door-to-door search today.

In a field operation that is being compared to the 1981 effort to eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly, the teams questioned residents of this sparsely populated area about bees they may have observed.

They also examined commercial hives for signs of the Africanized honeybees that several weeks ago abandoned their nest in an oil field near this community northwest of Bakersfield.

Scientists knew that the hive had been there for many months because of its size and the darkened chocolate color of the combs.

Suspicious Swarm Spotted

Just a quarter of a mile from the now-excavated hive, team members Thursday located a suspicious swarm of bees and honeycombs in the branch of a tamarisk tree.

After cutting down the branch and killing the bees, they sent samples off to a laboratory to determine if they are the Africanized variety.

Preliminary indications suggested that the bees were not what the search crews were looking for. The insects from the suspect hive did not show the belligerent behavior characteristic of Africanized bees, which are no more venomous than ordinary honeybees but are much more likely to attack a person or animal that might represent a threat to their colony.

However, UC Davis scientist Norman Gary, who is a key member of the bee search team here, noted that Africanized bees are not dangerous when setting up their colony or moving. “Once they have set up shop and are making honey and producing new bees, they are very, very defensive,” he said.

Several Thousand Hives

He said a moving swarm of Africanized bees might measure 25 to 50 yards across. It would not be seen as a dense cloud, but it would certainly be noticeable, he said.

Government officials are continuing their efforts to identify and place a quarantine tag on every hive of domesticated, European bees in a 400-square-mile quarantine area.

There may be several thousand hives. State agriculture officials hope to complete their aerial identification of all the domesticated hives by Monday, when an intensified effort to locate Africanized colonies will begin.

Officials have already identified 60 apiaries, each containing 50 to 70 hives of domesticated bees. A spokesman for the Agriculture Department said more state workers are already en route to the search area, accompanied by trailers that will be used to establish a fully equipped headquarters, reminiscent of the operation used to eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly four years ago.