'Killer' Bees Possibly as Far North as Oklahoma

August 26, 2004

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A swarm of bees that attacked a work crew earlier this month may be of the Africanized variety, which would mark the furthest north the so-called "killer" bees have traveled in the United States, scientists said.

DNA tests show the bees have Africanized traits, said Russell Wright, head of the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at Oklahoma State University. "They certainly are more Africanized than European," he said.

link to story, john
www.cnn.com...

It's funny... when I was in 3rd Grade (1987) the students used to get this publication called Scholastic, or something of that sort, every week and in it there was always a current events feature. I distinctly remember one of those features being about killer bees and how they were in Brazil and over the next few years would be migrating further north and it scared the heck out of most of us. Thoughts of huge nets surrounding new york were abound. I guess that never happened lol. Seventeen years later and they only made it to Oklahoma?

It looks like they're now as far north as Utah.

ksl.com-Killer Bees Discovered In Utah

Going to make hive robbing a little more difficult but smoke still works on Africanized bees as well as European ones. The aggressive type seems to go for the eyes and will wait for you even if you jump in water to escape them. Clever little devils.

Be a fairly quick death if attacked by a group of them if that's any comfort to anyone. Nasty thing about bees is that when one stings you, it marks you with a scented message that tells the other bees: Attack Here!

One bee you can easily swat away or kill and deal with the minor inconvenience of a sting (barring allergic reactions) but a whole hive? You're toast! Still, one has to play the odds on things like this and I rank this threat level right along with lightning strikes and cattle stampedes.