Bad Bees of Brazil

Eleven African queen bees and swarms of half-African drones and workers escaped from a Sao Paulo laboratory in 1957, and Brazil has been pained about it ever since. Imported because of their high honey productivity, the African bees were not intended to be released until they had their foul tempers bred out of them. But by 1965 the bees had bred, spread and were obeying their instinct to attack large animals without provocation (TIME, Sept 24, 1965). By the latest count, ten people, hundreds of cattle and horses, and whole flocks of chickens have been killed in unprovoked attacks by the queens' offspring. Dogs, cats, turkeys and pigs have died. Last month a swarm descended on a group of children playing in a park in Niteroi, across the bay from Rio. Firemen had to fight them 1 with flamethrowers. In another city a police dog diverted a swarm attacking his eight-year-old master, saving the boy but dying of multiple stings a half-hour later.

Measures are being taken to stop the spreading bees, but there is considerable doubt whether they can be halted before they spread farther southward through Argentina and northward through Colombia, Central America Mexico and into the U.S. After the African bees became a menace, Brazil's worried Ministry of Agriculture ordered that all African bees be exterminated, the ruling was never enforced Moreover,it failed to provide for indemnification of beekeepers. Impressed by improved honey yields, the beekeepers did nothing, and the Africans overwhelmed the relatively peaceful Italian and German bees that previously had Brazil to themselves. Spreading 200 miles a year, new queens established new hives in rocks, hollow trees, high branches and low eaves.

Learned with Hornets. Now Edmun-Campello, secretary of agriculture for the state of Rio de Janeiro, has begun a new campaign. Importing Italian queen bees from the U.S. and Mexi-Campello plans to stage a series of apiarian palace coups. Wherever he can find a hive, he plans to kill the African queen and replace her with an already fertilized Italian. When new Italian queens, workers and drones are born more Africans will be replaced until, Campello hopes, the bad bees will be bred out of Brazil.

Samuel E. McGregor, chief of the beekeeping research branch of the U S Department of Agriculture, is not optimistic. "I can't see much hope of stopping them from coming north," he says. "The chances are that they'll reach Panama in a few years, and then come on to the U.S." McGregor believes that the long, cold winters of the U.S. snow belt would prove fatal to the Africans but that they will probably survive and thrive in California and most of the Southeast. Nonetheless, McGregor remains philosophical. The Africans are mean, and "they do sting like hornets, " he says. "But after all, we've learned to live with hornets, haven't we?"

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