American Notes TEXAS

Yet another swarm of intruders has crashed through America's porous Southwestern border: so-called killer bees. Last week the Department of Agriculture spotted the first incursion on U.S. soil of Africanized bees, originally imported to Brazil from Africa in 1957 for a breeding experiment. All the bees were trapped east of Hidalgo in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and promptly destroyed.

The arrival of the killer bees had been feared ever since hives were discovered in northern Mexico in 1986. The insects' sting is normally no more dangerous than that of their domestic cousins, but, says Terry Lockamy of the Texas Agriculture Extension Service, "these are bees with an attitude problem." They are more aggressive and can attack an intruder by the hundreds, and kill, when their colony is disturbed. The bees' real threat, however, is to the farming and honey industries: Africanized bees are less efficient crop pollinators and honey producers, and could cause multimillion- dollar losses if they infest the nation's apiaries.