Bugged-Out Insects by Margaret J. Anderson

Author:Margaret J. Anderson [Anderson, Margaret J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4645-0287-3
Publisher: Enslow Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Most insects only take care of themselves, but there are some, called social insects, that depend on one another. They live in a group home. They cannot survive away from the group for long. Ants and honey bees are good examples. Killer bees are also social insects, even though, from our point of view, their behavior is antisocial.

Killer bees get a lot of bad press. Even their name sounds deadly. One killer bee is nothing to worry about. Its sting is no worse than the sting of a honey bee. A few thousand stings are a different matter, and that’s where the problem lies. Killer bees attack in huge gangs.

Killer bees look a lot like normal honey bees. Even an entomologist has a hard time telling a dead killer bee from a dead honey bee. Killer bees tend to be a little smaller, and they also have slightly shorter tongues. Because bees from the same nest or hive vary in size, you need to measure the bodies and tongues of a lot of bees to be sure you’ve got killer bees.

With live bees, however, it is a different story. You can tell them apart by the way they act. “Busy as a bee” takes on a whole new meaning when it refers to killer bees. Killer bees are workaholics. They get up early and go to bed late. Sometimes they even work by moonlight. Killer-bee queens lay more eggs and lay them faster than honey-bee queens do. Killer bees defend their territory more fiercely. That’s how they got the name “killer.” Killer bees gang up on anything that disturbs their nest. They don’t care if its people, pets, or wild animals.

Entomologists call killer bees African or Africanized bees.1 Forty years ago, a scientist brought some African queen bees to Brazil. He wanted to breed them with honey bees from Europe. He hoped to produce hardworking bees that would do well in Brazil’s hot climate. While he was doing his experiments, some swarms escaped. Because killer bees are restless and hardworking, they spread quickly. The males mated with a local beekeeper’s queens.

The new bees swarmed to the north and to the south. They invaded other countries.

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