Let’s BEE careful out there

Monday, May 15, 2000 | 10:10 a.m.

Are killers lurking in your attic? How about the tree in your back yard? Or perhaps in your water meter box?

Africanized honeybees, the infamous "killer bees" of "B" movie fame, have virtually taken over the wild bee territory in Southern Nevada since they were first sighted here in May 1998.

Officials estimate that 70 percent of the wild bee population of Clark and Nye counties is now a crossbreed of the relatively docile European bee and the aggressive Africanized honeybee, which crossed the border from Mexico into Texas in October 1990.

State Agriculture Director Paul Iverson recently warned legislators that it is only a matter of time before someone in Nevada dies as a result of an attack by Africanized honeybees.

The bees have killed at least seven people in the United States. Hundreds have died in Mexico and South America, largely because most of the victims were elderly and didn't have adequate medical care.

The presence of the hybrid bees in Nevada has been well-documented over the past two years. These incidents have occurred since two swarms of the alien bees were discovered in and around Laughlin:

* Sept. 19, 1998: Africanized bees killed an 80-pound dog in Boulder City.

* Oct. 3, 1999: Africanized bees killed a Rottweiler in a Northwest Las Vegas neighborhood and stung a 12-year-old girl several times as she attempted to rescue the dog.

* Feb. 9: A 79-year-old Las Vegas man was stung by more than 30 Africanized bees when he attempted to remove a nest on a wood fence between two houses in the northwest valley.

* Feb. 18: A swarm of bees forced the temporary closure of a day-care center in Southwest Las Vegas.

* March 27: A 77-year-old Las Vegas woman was stung 500 times by Africanized honeybees as she walked near their hive at Maryland Parkway and U.S. 95. Officials said she was lucky to have survived.

* March 28: About 800 students at Bryan Elementary School in Northwest Las Vegas were kept inside the school as bee experts destroyed a hive.

Bee hysteria?

The thought of living among killer bees terrifies some people.

"There is definitely a sense of paranoia in town, largely because of the (media) hype and the fear of the unknown," Gina Stoneking, with the state Division of Agriculture, said. "If I didn't know anything about bees I would probably be paranoid too. This is just normal. (The Africanized bees) are not what we are used to.

"Some people are overreacting. A few are worried about going for a walk. They are afraid they will get 'swarmed' and stung to death. And the lady who got stung (500 times) didn't help (quell the fear)."

Mark Floyd, UNLV professor of psychology, said he hasn't seen any signs of mass hysteria or intense phobia related to bees.

"There is a distinction between what is a legitimate fear and a phobia," Floyd explained. "A phobia is reaction to stimulus far in excess of what is justified. For example, if somebody points a gun at you and you don't get scared, that is not normal. But if someone points a banana at you and you are scared, that is an excessive response.

"The bees are a legitimate thing to be afraid of, but I haven't seen any indication of mass hysteria. I don't hear people talking about them a lot. If people were staying inside more than what is normal that would be an indication of something unusual."

Floyd said that a certain number of people in any population are going to have an exaggerated fear of something.

"Some will be afraid to go to Red Rock Canyon, afraid to walk around like they normally would for fear of going by a beehive. These are probably the people who are a lot more anxious than the average person on just about anything," Floyd said. "They tend to be more high-strung, fearful and anxious."

Floyd added that when he goes to Red Rock Canyon bees cross his mind and he thinks about how to deal with the problem if it arises. "Doing that kind of mental planning is adaptive. You cross over the line if you cannot enjoy going to Red Rock, or don't go at all because of the threat of bees."

Where they came from

According to historical records, bees are not native to the Americas. During the 1600s settlers brought European bee colonies with them. The descendants of those bees are now cross-breeding with bees that originated in Africa.

In 1956 researchers in Brazil wanted to develop a better honeybee. They imported bees from Europe and from Africa in an attempt to create a hybrid that would have the best characteristics of both -- the docile quality of the European breed and the durability of the African breed.

In 1957 some African bee swarms escaped and began breeding with wild European honeybees. The offspring of these bees defended their nests more vigorously, swarmed more often and were generally better suited for survival in the tropics than European honeybees. Researchers named this African/European hybrid the Africanized honeybee.

The first Africanized honeybee colony found in the United States was reported on October 15, 1990, in Hildago, Texas, very near the Mexican border.

Folks in Hidalgo do not share the same concern over bees as people elsewhere. Soon after the bees arrived the town erected a giant statue to the insect in front of city hall and dubbed itself "Killer Bee Capital of the World." Ten years later tourists still come to Hidalgo to have their picture taken with the bee and to buy killer bee post cards, T-shirts and other memorabilia.

Killer bee signs and billboards point the way to the town that straddles the Mexican border near Brownsville at the southernmost tip of Texas. "We turned lemon into lemonade," City Manager Joe Vera said in a phone interview. "It has worked out well for us. We are glad we took the action we did."

Although there are occasional bee scares, the town's 6,000 residents generally live in peace with the bees, which are routinely seen in the city limits and around the countryside. "It's just a matter of educating the people," Vera said.

From Texas, the bees spread through the Southwest, to Arizona and New Mexico in 1993, California in 1994 and Nevada in 1998. To date, two counties in Nevada (Clark and Nye), 120 counties in Texas, eight counties in New Mexico, all 15 counties in Arizona and eight counties in California have reported Africanized honeybee finds.

Bee differences

The European bees and the Africanized bees differ in a number of ways, most of them not visible to the naked eye, according to published reports by a number of institutions that track bees, such as the University of Arizona and Texas A&M University, as well as the Nevada Division of Agriculture.

Only a DNA analysis can determine beyond a doubt that a bee is Africanized.

The Africanized bee is slightly smaller than the European variety. Nevada uses a measuring system involving microscopes and computers to determine which bee it is, a system that takes several days and is not 100 percent accurate.

The difference that concerns most people is that the killer bees are more aggressive, become agitated more easily and attack in greater numbers.

The Africanized honeybees will first sting a moving target in 0.3 seconds after becoming alarmed, while the European honeybees take about 9.2 seconds to sting. The Africanized bee is no more venomous than any other bee, but because more members of the colony are likely to attack, the victim may likely receive more venom.

Experiments have shown that three-to-four times as many Africanized worker bees will attack a target as other varieties and leave eight-to-10 times as many stings. A greater number of the killer bees will pursue intruders for a greater distance than other types.

Killer bees

To some, every bee is a killer, whether European or Africanized.

Las Vegas residents Alan and Shannon Cavey are allergic to bee venom and could die from a sting, no matter what variety it is. "If we get stung we swell up, our blood pressure drops, we can't breath. We have to take Benadryl and epinephrine or we could die," Shannon Cavey said.

The Caveys are both paramedics and live in an older neighborhood behind the Boulder Station hotel-casino with their three children and newborn granddaughter. Recently they discovered a hive growing in a cavity of a Mulberry tree in their back yard, about 25 feet from the house.

"For two weeks we didn't even go out there. They chased my husband all over the yard once," Cavey said. "We can sit on the patio and they don't bother us, but if we move they swarm."

The Caveys called one exterminating company to get rid of the bees, but within two days after the tree was treated they were back.

She then they tried BeeMasters, Inc., which specializes in Africanized bees. The company is owned by Rodney Mehring Jr., who was a beekeeper and a killer bee exterminator in Tucson, Ariz., before predicting about a year ago that Las Vegas was going to need someone with his talents in the near future.

"I moved here in March (of) '99, opened the business in May and by the end of December I had received 70 calls for help," Mehring said. "This year I have had 276 calls so far, 95 percent of them about hives and swarms."

He said that the average hive has 30,000 bees and 20 to 25 pounds of honey. When it reaches its maximum capacity the queen takes about half the hive members to find a place to build another colony. While European bees may split once a year, Africanized bees divide several times during the same period.

Mehring said that in the Tucson area, when European bees dominated, there were about 800 swarms. When Africanized bees moved in the number of swarms grew to between 7,000 and 8,000.

"That's what is going to happen in Las Vegas Valley," he said. "They are here to stay."

Fire department involved

Tim Szymanski, spokesman for the Las Vegas Fire Department, said that teams of firefighters are being equipped with gear to protect them when encountering bees. "The fire department does not routinely respond to bee calls unless it involves someone being attacked or the threat of an attack," he said.

The primary role of the department is to provide information about the bees. "We maintain a website and a bee hotline," he said, adding that he believes that Las Vegas is the most attractive place in the country for bees.

"We're in the desert. There is ample water in pools and at golf courses and we have year-round plant growth. It's perfect for bees," he said. "In other places plants die in winter, depriving the bees of food and they died."

Of the seven fatal bee attacks in the country over the past 10 years, Szymanski said that most of them have been elderly people who were trying to get rid of the beehives. "No way should the average person try to do it. These bees will attack by the thousands," he said.

As a public service, the department has been airing an hourlong video about Africanized bees on Cox Cable Channel 2.

"It's been run every other day for 45 days," Syzymanski said. "We've made over 100 copies of the video for use by schools, businesses and other organizations. We explain what the bee is all about, that it is a natural thing that occurs.

"A lot of people call 911 to report swarms. We ask if anyone was stung or under attack. If the answer is no, then we tell them to listen to a four-minute recording that people can get by calling 229-2000," Szymanski said. "And I get a lot of calls from senior citizens who don't know who to talk to. Many times it's just wasps or something. We just tell them to call a professional exterminator."

Szymanski also talks to students and businesses about bees. "The main issue is, don't overreact," he said. "When I talk to schools, some of the students think it's like the movies. It's not that situation at all."

No state control

Stoneking said that the state does not attempt to control the bees. It just tracks their progress and educates the public. The state knew years in advance that the bees were coming.

"We knew it would be a political and public health problem in Las Vegas. When I got here I started doing educational programs and coordinating things," she said. "People were slow to catch on at first. They thought it was someone else's problem."

In the beginning the agency received fewer than five calls a week. Then as bee incidents were reported by the media, the calls increased -- 10 a week in the spring of 1999 and up to 15 calls a day after the two people were stung earlier this year.

Foraging bees, those looking for a place to begin a colony, are not dangerous. It is when they set up a hive that they become extremely defensive.

Stoneking said that swarms of thousands of bees look horrible, but actually those bees are looking for a place to build a hive and are not particularly dangerous. Eventually the number of bees will reach a level in which the local environment will not support many more.

"It takes two to four years to reach a plateau. There will be a steady increase until the carrying capacity is reached," Stoneking said. "The number will go up a little after that, but the valley won't be overrun with bees."

Jerry Fink is an Accent feature writer. Reach him at jerry@lasvegassun.com or 259-4058.

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