Urban Beekeeping Stirs a Swarm of Controversy : But Their Role in Neutralizing ‘Killer Bees’ May Take the Sting Out of Apiculture Foes

Fran Baron received an anxious telephone call some weeks ago from a woman living next to a wooded area of San Francisco’s scenic Army post, the Presidio.

“Mr. Baron, there’s a swarm of bees in the park and the SPCA told me to call you to see if you could remove it.”

No problem, replied Baron, who donned overalls, gloves and a straw hat with netting over it. Carrying a cardboard box with a piece of khaki cloth attached to one side, Baron, 67, approached the swarm buzzing under a bottlebrush tree and shook the limb above it, expertly guiding the 10,000 bees into his box. Then he covered the box with the cloth, carried the bees home and added them to his two hives.

Bee Phobia

Snaring a swarm for a nervous citizen was a relatively simple act for the 10-year beekeeper, who is used to people’s fears about bees. These fears can sometimes cause people to want to deprive him of his hives, and even push for laws to ban beekeeping.

Ironically, however, it is Baron, along with the hundreds of other beekeepers in San Francisco, who might be called on some day to perform a major public service: helping the city shoo away swarms of Africanized bees.

Africanized or “killer” bees--introduced to Brazil from Africa in 1957--have been slowly working their way north through South and Central America. Experts expect them to enter the United States through Texas and possibly make their way to California in three to five years.

Though they rarely kill and are no more venomous than other bees, Africanized bees are more easily disturbed by people and animals than domestic, or European, bees, according to Howell Daly, an entomology professor at UC Berkeley. When threatened, Africanized bees have been known to attack in swarms and engage in a frenzy of stinging that can last up to 30 minutes, he said.

Urban Provocations

It will be especially important to keep Africanized bees away from cities where they are most likely to be provoked, said Stanley Williams, a biology professor at San Francisco State University. Scientists say they are relying greatly in this effort on the urban beekeepers and their hives of domestic bees, because it will be harder for the invaders to take root where other bees already exist.

“Urban colonies are the big hope,” Williams said. “By having well-established communities with such gentle bees, it will greatly impair the establishment of the killer bees.”

Beekeepers also can help by artificially inseminating the queen bees in their hives, thus denying the opportunity of the invaders to breed with domestic bees, the experts say. Each hive has one queen that mates only once in her lifetime. By artificially inseminating the queen, beekeepers will eliminate the chance of her pairing with an Africanized bee.

If beekeepers can keep Africanized bees out of their hives, chances are slimmer that the aggressive bees will establish colonies on their own, because there is only so much pollen to go around. Without pollen, which is used to feed young bees, the colonies cannot survive, Williams said.

“If they can’t reproduce, it will slow down the establishment of Africanized bees and they will move outside the city,” he said.

$50-Million Industry

In rural areas of the state, there no doubt will be invasions of Africanized bees into domestic colonies, particularly commercial colonies, bee experts say. Commercial bees are used to pollinate crops, produce honey and make queens, generating $50 million a year in agricultural income in California, according to Eric Musson, a bee expert at UC Davis. Musson and others say there should be no serious economic consequences by the introduction of the Africanized bees into these commercial colonies.

Scientists also say the specter of advancing swarms of Africanized bees should be no cause for panic. They point out that people in Central and South America have co-existed with Africanized bees for years. They “are not marauders,” said Norman Gary, a UC Davis entomology professor. “They’re not out to kill people and animals.”

“It doesn’t stand to reason (to call them) killer bees,” added Leonore Bravo, a 13-year San Francisco beekeeper. “The population of Africa wouldn’t be left.”

About 350 people have died from stings of Africanized bees in Central and South America over the past 30 years, Musson said. Although several stray colonies of Africanized bees, believed to have come from a truckload of imported cargo, were found near Bakersfield in 1985, no one in the United States is known to have died from the sting of Africanized bees.

Although the experts say the urban beekeepers are the main hope of keeping Africanized bees out of cities, beekeepers have traditionally struggled with a public relations problem. They tend to “have difficulty,” says Daly, with those who want to outlaw domestic bee hives in urban areas.

As beekeepers know, beehives are widely regarded as lairs of a harmful enemy rather than homes to friendly defenders. Because bees swarm and sting, people who fear them often do not want them nearby, particularly in the close quarters of urban living.

As San Francisco has shown, it can take just one person’s complaint to threaten continued beekeeping. In July, City Supervisor Jim Gonzales proposed an ordinance outlawing residential beekeeping after a constituent complained that she was afraid to go outside because of her neighbor’s beehives. Blackberry bushes in her back yard went unattended, she said, because the bees frightened away gardeners she tried to hire.

Although the ordinance failed, Gonzales said he plans to reintroduce it in September. If it passes, San Francisco will join Los Angeles and several other cities that impose restrictions on beekeeping. The Los Angeles law confines beekeeping to property that is widely separated from the nearest neighbor.

An outright ban “because of one person’s fear seems to be an overreaction,” said Richard Avanzino, San Francisco SPCA president.

“It’s absurd,” said Williams of San Francisco State. To ban bees “would be like passing an ordinance against flowers,” he said.

About 10 people a year in the United States die from bee stings, said Musson of UC Davis. The latest fatal attack in California took place last month in a Fresno County cantaloupe patch when Mary Gaxiola, 66, drove a truck into a group of hives and died from 136 bee stings.

Local beekeepers said they occasionally get stung, adding that people can unwittingly provoke bees by operating power gardening tools too close to the hive or walking in a bee’s flight path.

But scientists and local apiculturists--the formal name for beekeepers--argue that bees have value that far outweighs their danger. Besides being able to ward off future swarms of Africanized bees, domestic bees produce honey and pollinate plants and fruit trees. A bee ban, says Williams, would significantly alter the environment.

“They’re so precious, so important to humankind that we try to protect them as much as possible,” said Louis Dubay, who holds the title of San Francisco’s honorary beekeeper, bestowed by a mayor some years ago. Dubay, 81, famed for working with bees with his bare hands, isn’t alone in his enthusiasm for bees.

Statewide, California boasts at least 10,000 hobby beekeepers and about 20 beekeeping organizations, including the California State Beekeepers Assn., which has nearly 300 members, Musson said.