Attack of the Killer Bees

Killer Bees sucking up rainwater after our daily rain showers

I have mentioned before our experience with bee hives, some of which have been attached under the eves of the house, some in the attack space in our guest house. The little pesky things are a pain sometimes, especially when you come close to them. Like about 5 ft near them and they start hovering around your head and if you don't get out of "there" space one of them will stick his stinger in you. Usually when that happens a few more will follow, trying to target some easy flesh. By that time I am usually running back to the house looking for my little white bottle of something I bough  on a 4AM TV show years ago that guaranteed to remove the sting out of the bee venom.

Yes it still works, but it's probably something really cheap that anyone can make or buy, but at 4 AM your judgement sometimes is not as sharp as it should be.

Anyway, my problem is that I have a dilemma.

I have been reading about the declining bee population in North America for the last decade or so, something called Colony Collapse Disorder where the worker bees disappear , leaving the queen with plenty off food and no worker bees etc.

Bees have a very important role in production of our food here on this planet. Without them scientists say we can lose up to 50% of our food production if the situation continues.  Yeah, sure, save the whales, save the trees, save the dolphin, save the bees...

So I read a little and verified that this was actually a situation that was indeed real and concerning to the agricultural community. As long as Al Gore was not going to be bloviating  about the cause, I wanted to know more about it and see what I could do.

So here is my problem. I wanted to build a few hives on the property to increase the bee population, but then I was told that because we have these aggressive Killer Bees on the property that they would infest the hives and create even more problems.

So now what?

Kill the Killer Bees  but that will probably just bring more of them from the area back here.  What I need to do is probably go to the states capital and talk to someone in the agriculture department and find out what the govmints position on all this Killer Bee stuff is, unless someone else can direct me to a reasonable conclusion.

 I got interested in Bee welfare after seeing a friend of mines hive operation awhile ago. She started with a couple of hives, as a hobby which then grew to more hives, to the point of them having enough honey to sell part time to people from a roadside table.

So far the honey police haven't shut her down yet,  good for her, her pocketbook, her Bee colonies and the support of Bee welfare.