Another Swarm of Africanized Bees Found in Kern County

Another swarm of Africanized bees has been found in Kern County a short distance from the spot where the first ones known to be in California were discovered June 25, state officials reported Friday.

The new discovery was at an apiary owned by a man caught smuggling honeycombs from the quarantine area into Riverside County, officials said.

The latest discovery, according to a spokeswoman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture, was made in the Lost Hills area northwest of Bakersfield, about 2 1/2 miles from the oil field fox burrow where the initial colony was found, setting off an intense search for others.

A top state official who declined to be identified said the new find was made Wednesday in a routine check of a commercial apiary, one of the inspections being made throughout the 462-square-mile quarantine area established by the department to contain the possible spread of Africanized honeybees.

Definitely Africanized

Inspectors sent a sample of suspicious looking dead bees from the colony to the USDA Bee Center in Baton Rouge, La., and received word Friday that they were definitely Africanized. There was a queen, some drones and some workers in the colony.

The commercial apiary is owned by Milton Knoefler of Riverside, whose honey trucks attempted to carry loads out of the quarantine area Wednesday.

The bees are called “killer bees” because of their aggressive nature. State officials have banned the removal of commercial hives and honeycombs from the area until they can be inspected to make sure no Africanized bees have taken up residence with the domestic insects.

One of the Knoefler trucks was stopped by inspectors before it could leave the area, according to Riverside County Assistant Agriculture Commissioner James Wallace. The second truck drove off and was traced to Knoefler’s bee operation in Riverside and quarantined, but only after inspectors had to call police to gain access to the property.

Refused Access

Wallace said that when his inspectors tried to look at the 250 boxes containing honey combs they believe are from the Lost Hills area, they were refused access to the Knoefler property. The boxes, called “supers,” usually contain a few bees that are lifted from the hives along with the combs.

Knoefler, angered by the quarantine regulations that hamper his honey harvest, at first contended that the honey-laden boxes on the truck came from “outside the restricted area.” But later in a telephone interview he said he wasn’t sure where the quarantine boundaries are and complained that his employees, who picked up the honey, were being harassed.

He contended that the honey had to be taken from the hives to keep the queen from feeling crowded and leaving with the swarm. “We just had to pull the supers off,” he said.

Also, he insisted there were no Africanized bees in the supers hauled to Riverside. “I know what an African bee looks like,” he said, “and there were none there.” He claimed that the supers were gassed with cyanide after the honey was removed to make certain no bees remained alive.

But Clare Berryhill, state food and agriculture director, was angry and skeptical. He said late Friday, “I’ve ordered them to kill all of his bees in Riverside . . . kill everything he has out there.”

Wallace said the honey containers, truck and warehouse in which they are stored all have been quarantined while laboratory tests are run to detect if Africanized bee contamination was brought from Lost Hills to Riverside and, perhaps more importantly, to detect any sign of tiny bloodsucking insects called Vorroa mites.

The possible infestation of California honey bees by these pinhead-sized mites that are sometimes carried by Africanized bees is considered a major threat to the bee industry.

Riverside County Agricultural Commissioner Leon Spaugy said Knoefler faces possible prosecution by both Riverside and Kern counties for smuggling bees out of the quarantine area.

Earlier Friday, Riverside bee keeper Gene DeVoe, 52, who has 800 hives in the quarantine area, was found dead among some of his hives at Lost Hills.

DeVoe was not stung by bees, officials said. Deputy Kern County Coroner Jim Malouf said he died of a heart attack and was so fully suited against bee stings that “a mosquito couldn’t have gotten into him.”

At a meeting earlier this week with state officials, DeVoe had protested the fact that it will be at least two months before hives throughout the quarantine area can be examined and honey can once again be moved.

“That’s our death warrant,” DeVoe said.