Bees Killed at Border May Have Been ‘Killer’ Type

Two swarms of bees that were killed after apparently hitchhiking by ship and truck from Brazil to the border town of Mexicali inside spools of electrical wire may have been the feared Africanized honey bees, authorities said Tuesday.

Even if they were the notorious “killer bees,” the danger posed to California was relatively minor and is now moot, officials said.

The two swarms, totaling about 10,000 bees, were exterminated by the contractor who discovered the hives while unloading the spools, said Bill Routhier, an expert on the Africanized honey bee for the state Department of Food and Agriculture in San Diego.

“We don’t have confirmation these were Africanized bees, but it’s very suspicious,” Routhier said. “They came from Brazil, where all the bees are now Africanized; it’s unlikely two (docile, European honey bee) swarms would hitchhike, and these bees were pretty defensive.”

Word of the May 3 incident has only now reached U.S. officials, Routhier said, and it remains unclear how the swarm was killed or if any people were stung first.

Because the physical distinctions between the aggressive Africanized bees and the European honey bees are slight, experts in Mexico City were examining some of the dead bees under microscopes to positively identify them, Routhier said.

Even had the two swarms escaped and flown north into California, their numbers would have been insignificant compared to the masses of Africanized honey bees that are expected to arrive in California next year, Routhier said.

Already, swarms of Africanized bees have settled in 54 counties of southern Texas, where there have been 100 incidents of multiple bee attacks on humans, but no deaths.

The California-bound bees are expected to reach Tucson by this summer and enter this state in the summer of 1994 after flying along Arizona’s Gila River, Routhier said.

The Africanized bees have been spreading north from Brazil ever since the strain--desired for its resistance to heat--was bred, then escaped in 1957, feeding the horror film industry and public anxiety.

The bees are not more poisonous than the European honey bees used for pollination and honey production, but react more aggressively if threatened and defend their hives in larger numbers. Africanized bees have killed people in Mexico and elsewhere in Central and South America.

The swarms headed toward Tucson are about 100 miles south of the Mexican border, Routhier said. Their survival depends on the proximity of their hives to water sources, and officials say they may hopscotch along California’s irrigated farm fields into urban areas.

Another swarm of Africanized bees was discovered in Kern County about 10 years ago, after apparently hitchhiking in oil-drilling equipment shipped from Venezuela. The swarm was discovered by a back hoe operator who destroyed the hive by burying it.