Beekeeping & Development 62
AFRICANISED HONEYBI by Dewey M Caron, University of Delaware, USA
Photographs
Dewey M Caron
Human association with honeybees is a long one. We have and continue to move bees, beekeeping equipment and the products of bees as we travel. Thus it was not unusual for Brazilian beekeepers to look elsewhere for better adapted bee stock as they
sought to improve beekeeping return in the 1950s. The resulting importation of African bee queens into Brazil would, like our repeated importations of Varroa into countries, prove to be a costly, serious mistake. Africanisation of honeybees in the Americas from Argentina to the south-western USA (with only Chile and a few Caribbean islands as exceptions) has completely changed the culture of raising bees in the Americas. Paradoxically it has also opened new opportunities for rural development using bees.
HISTORY OF AFRICANISATION
MANAGEMENT
Africanised bee swarm as the bees colonised
Beekeepers with European bee experience have universally expressed optimism in their ability to handle Africanised bees, both before
Panama and the Isthmus of the Americas in
their arrival and then for one or two years
1982. Like swarms elsewhere this one was gentle to handle and hive. Since 1982 have
post-arrival. In fact, in every country Africanised honeybees have colonised,
travelled among the countries and visited
beekeeping has been negatively impacted in numbers of managed colonies and honey harvested. Many, but not all commercial
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was involved
in the capture of the first
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many beekeepers, old and new, who have had to deal with the population of Africanised
honeybees. The Africanised bee population is well suited for tropical/sub-tropical conditions and has advantageous biology for colonisation of new territory. Today nobody particularly ‘likes’ the bee but they have no other option
as repeated attempts to reintroduce European (temperate-adapted bees) have repeatedly
beekeepers, quit beekeeping and virtually all part-time/hobbyists have given up their bees. Beekeeping techniques practised with European honeybees sometimes lead to stinging incidences involving animals and humans. Some instances do unfortunately result in death to people or animals from
Beever
oni
case
a toxic reaction of too many stings in too short
your apiary location (nobody wants to be an
a time period. The beekeeper trying to keep
these bees is often the first to suffer with these
apiary neighbour but isolated sites invite night time vandalism and honey and/or hive stealing).
somewhat longer in higher elevations and as it extends beyond the 30th parallel.
stinging instances.
Established beekeepers have a hard time
Changes are necessary with Africanised bees.
adjusting to the ‘new’ beekeeping.
The Africanised honeybee is a tropically
You dress for the worst, you must isolate your
failed. Once numbers arrive the changeover to Africanised genetic material is exceedingly — rapid in two years in tropical areas -
It is
adapted ecotype. virtually unchanged genetically from the bee imported in 1956, although this is a debated topic. It is not a hybrid of imported Apis mellifera scutellata
and the then existing honeybee populations of Brazil. In Brazil and in other regions to which it spread there is initial hybridisation but then
change-over to African genetic material. The Africanised honeybee is a bee well suited a
apiary (not in distance necessarily but by maintaining it within a vegetation corral), you must inspect rapidly (either late in the day or at night), you simplify equipment to basics but proper fitting frames is a necessity, you harvest
products besides honey (the bee is an excellent pollen collector), you reduce colony numbers and space colonies within the apiary and you seek to reduce stinging incidences so you can keep
to rapid reproduction and extremely responsive to environmental conditions. By reproducing
more rapidly than temperature-adapted honeybees, it is able to exceed at the
‘numbers’ game. The bee colonises with high swarming rates and then out-reproduces the existing population of the region because it
divides more frequently and rears queens faster (in both days and in the yearly cycle) other honeybee races. It thus
than do
the existing bees. completely replaces It-4s a bee population well suited for ~ successful colonisation.
ae
neers
crepe Highway in front of the owner’s
A Bees for Development publication
NEW RESOURCE The Africanised honeybee does represent a ‘new’ resource for rural subsistence farmers campesinos of the Americas. Honeybees are readily available and free as swarms, as bee colonies in trees and caves and for honey hunting. The campesinos are not by tradition keepers of honeybees, traditionally keeping stingless bees. European honeybees seldom
