What are Africanized Honey Bees (AHBs)?
Video clips courtesy of the Arizona Department of Agriculture. Honey bees are not native to the Americas, but were brought to the Americas by European settlers during the 1600s. This type of honey bee, which is the one that is now common in Utah, is the European Honey Bee. The Africanized Honey Bee was brought to Brazil and cross-bred with European Honey Bees so that they could better tolerate the hot tropical climate in South America. Several of these Africanized colonies escaped, swarmed into the Brazilian jungle and interbred with local European colonies. Over the past 40 years, these colonies have been spreading northward, arriving in the United States in 1990. Because Africanized Honey Bees defend their colonies more aggressively than do European Honey Bees they could be called bees with attitude. Africanized Honey Bees do not just swarm out of the sky and attack people like some ‘B’ movie, but they are far more aggressive in the way they defend their colonies and will defend a la
