Apis mellifera scutellata

Nowadays, more than 57 years after the African bee advent, their descendants no longer exhibit such a strong defensive behavior.

All the colonies testing negative to American foulbrood are in agreement with a study conducted in South Africa which reported that the pest is not yet prevalent among African bees [31].

Now, with the first swarms of African bees expected to cross from Mexico into Texas within the next few months, entomologists are becoming increasingly agitated themselves.

White-fronted African bee eaters will face spitting cobras, forage tirelessly for bees and delay having their own young--all to help close relatives raise a clutch of baby birds.

But African bees have evolved to sting and attack large predators who raid their nests.

But African bees have evolved to and attack large predators who raid their nonetheless they produce substantial quantities of honey where good quality flowers are rare.

In a hive of ordinary European bees, about 10 percent will attack if the hive is threatened, but with African bees, all of them attack you.

Aggressive African bees were accidentally released in Brazil in 1957.

Bob and I live in south-central Texas (San Antonio) and these African bees are invading the southern states at an alarming rate.

The African bees are good colonizers, so in areas where the natural colonies are gone or in areas where communities have banned bees and there is a void, they are going to have an easier time of colonizing.

Read "Bad News for the Good Guys," about the most important animal to our food supply, the bee, and you will learn about our history with this insect, the bee lifecycle, bee communication, new hive formation, various bee diseases, and even why African bees were introduced to North America.

The name "Africanized honey bee" came about because it was long believed that African bees would hybridize with European honey bees already in the wild, especially in temperate areas, where African honey bees were expected to lose their tropical climate adaptation advantages.

Standing there a few Saturdays ago, you might have seen a shimmery white dot in the distance, followed by a deep buzz growing louder, as menacing and hypnotic us a swarm of African bees.

They wore protective clothing, but the intrepid African bees still managed to sting them all - even Davina got stung on the head.

Africanized bees were intentionally bred in the 1950s in South America from imported sub-Saharan African bees that are known to be more aggressive, and more productive, than the honeybees native to America.