My son and I attended the Greater Cleveland Beekeepers Association Beginner Beekeeper Class Series in February 2010. During those classes and throughout the next few years of attending monthly meetings, the topic of Africanized Honeybees was mentioned here and there. No in-depth discussion since we in the northern states do not need to worry about Africanized Honeybees. They are typically only a concern for the southern, hotter climate regions.
The Africanized Honeybee as we know it in the United States is the result of experimentation done in Brazil in the late 1950s. Researchers were attempting to cross breed a species of honeybee from Africa with European species. The African species was a more prolific honey producer and performed better in tropical regions. Although the researchers had protocols and procedures in place to contain the more aggressive African species, several swarms still managed to escape. By the mid 1980s, feral colonies of these aggressive bees were found in the southern United States.
After keeping bees for several years in Northeast Ohio and then in Washington DC, my family moved to Texas, just north of San Antonio, in 2015. I called my trusted bee supplier, Queen Right Colonies, and ordered enough equipment to keep 12 hives. Due to dangerously high temperatures in Texas, I could not mail-order packages of bees; I had to obtain them from a local supplier in Texas. My son and I set up our 12 hives in late April of 2016. Early on, backyard beekeeping in Texas seemed like business as usual, but by mid-July, we could not step closer than 30 feet into our apiary without being met and stung by an aggressive bee. After trying to toughen up for a few weeks and take the stings that were generously given to us by our hives, we decided we had to call it quits. After receiving some advice on how to go about exterminating the 12 colonies, my son and I poured 5-gallon buckets of soapy water into each hive during the dead of night. It was a sad event; both of us felt sick about it.
So, what went wrong? For starters, we had taken the same approach of backyard beekeeping in the north to backyard beekeeping in the far south. Texas is a hotspot for Africanized Honeybees. We did not take any precautions to prevent or stay on top of our hives being taken over by feral Africanized bees. In a recent visit to Texas, I was introduced to a backyard beekeeper who keeps seven hives and lives in the same town as we lived. I asked her how she prevents what happened to us. Her solution is to re-queen at least four times a year. I know other backyard beekeepers in Texas just chalk up the aggressiveness to part of beekeeping and only re-queen every two years. For us, re-queening so often and/or taking on a bunch of stings was not an option. We paused our hobby until we returned to Northeast Ohio, where conditions seem to be pretty amiable to backyard beekeeping.
