Overcrowding triggers killer bees attacks
-- bee expert
Guyana Chronicle
January 28, 2007
If attacked – don’t run wildly in the open; don’t `play dead’; don’t jump into bodies of water; look for shelter in a house or vehicle or hide in bushes
By Shawnel Cudjoe
THE current spate of attacks by Africanised bees in several parts of the country, which has killed at least one person and two animals so far this year, is linked to overcrowded nests, says bee keeping expert Linden Stewart.
Mr. Stewart, contracted by the Ministry of Agriculture to deal with the killer bees, yesterday took a brief break from his hectic round of answering distress calls to talk about what’s behind the rising attacks.
He explained that during August to December, bees collect plenty of nectar for the rainy season, because this is the time when flowers are blossoming most. During this period, he added, the Queen Bee produces an overwhelming number of eggs to boost the workforce to bring in nectar.
According to Stewart, when the rainy season is over, there is overcrowding in the nests and Queen Bees are moving around looking for new homes and are coming into frequent contact with humans.
Yesterday, Stewart and his team had to zip over to Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo to remove a hive from a home there and on Thursday, a swarm of about 60,000 was removed from the roof of the Venezuelan Embassy in Georgetown, he said.
Also on Thursday morning, six students of the Zeeburg Secondary School, West Coast Demerara were attacked by a swarm of African bees in the school around 10:00 h.
An 11-year-old student said six students, not four, as was reported in yesterday’s issue, had to be taken to the nearby Met-en-Meerzorg health centre for treatment. She said the students got one injection each and were sent away.
The freezer in which the hive was found in Hadfield Street, Georgetown
Regional Education Officer in Region Three (West Demerara/Essequibo Islands) Mr. Baydewan Rambarran said the school was closed Thursday but an experienced bee catcher removed the nest from the building and classes resumed Friday.
Rambarran reported that a similar attack occurred at the Zeelandia Secondary School, Wakenaam Island Wednesday but fortunately, classes had already ended and the nest there was also destroyed, allowing normalcy to be restored the next day.
Earlier this month, Friendship, East Bank Demerara farmer Abdool Hamied, 49, was attacked by the killer bees on his farm in the same village. Hamied died while being taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
His son, Tariq, and the six workers who were also there when the bees attacked were not seriously injured.
Stewart said his team visited the area after they were summoned by the Ministry of Agriculture and the men reported that they had just finished weeding and were raking up the stuff. However, a vine on the ground was attached to the tree where the bees had their nests and they were disturbed.
Stewart explained that most Africanised bees attacks occur because victims are unaware they are living in a particular area.
“When they attack people it is because they are being disturbed by sounds or vibrations,” he said. He added that once the bees can detect scent, they automatically regard the source as a threat to the Queen.
He said that a person can die from an Africanised bee attack if he/she is subject to between 500–1,000 stings -- equivalent to the bite of a rattle snake.
He said Hamied’s family members said they had burnt the nest. However, Stewart said as a precautionary measure his team still visited the area and found the nest on the ground, not far from where it had been burnt.
In another attack last week, eight persons in the backlands and two others, at Bath Settlement, West Coast Berbice, were hurt and had to be hospitalised Monday. One of them, Ramdai Matadin, 62, among a family of five, was stung in their Centre Street, Bath yard.
The others were treated and sent away but she was kept at Fort Wellington Hospital for observation before being discharged Thursday.
At Waterloo Street, Bath, too, Shiroon Phillips, two of her children, a neighbour and three others were fishing in a trench aback of the village when they were set upon by bees.
Phillips said she nearly drowned when she attempted to stay beneath the surface but swallowed some water. She was forced to leave the trench, with bees entangled in her hair and she was stung on the face, neck and shoulders.
Two Digicel workers were earlier this month installing a tower at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown when one of them stepped on an old truck tyre and antagonised a nest of about 80,000 bees. Two persons, one of the employees, and a neighbour were stung and were treated at a hospital. Two of the neighbour’s dogs were killed in that attack.
Stewart said the following day, his team was again summoned to Liliendaal to remove another nest from a tree after bees attacked workers but no one was injured.
Around October last year, officers from Guyana Water Authority Inc were in Hadfield Street, Georgetown to repair a broken water main. However, to get to it, they were forced to clean out a clogged trench from which they removed a large freezer.
Stewart said the freezer was home to about 200,000 Africanised bees which attacked and stung persons in the area.
He advised that in case of an attack, persons should not run wildly in the open and should not lie down and “play dead”. They also should not jump into bodies of water but should run as quickly as possible for shelter in a house or vehicle, he advised.
If none is available at the time, hide in a clump of bushes. Stewart said the bees will only swarm around for a little while, but would not risk going into the bushes because their wings are easily damaged.
He said that in the past week alone, six bee hives have been taken out and his team deals with about 100 a year.
Giving a background to the emergence of the killer bees here, Stewart said that from the early 50s to early 70s, Guyana and other South American countries were in the bee keeping industry. The most popular strain found in these parts then was the Italian Bee, not large honey producers.
He said that Brazil, then the 27th largest honey producing country, sent specialists to South Africa who took back African Queen Bees. They mated them with the Italian Bees and produced the strain now known as Africanised Bees.
The experiment went wrong and the bees escaped from the apiary and within 40 years, the killer bees have spread to two continents.
It was only a matter of time before Guyana, being bordered by Brazil, Suriname and Venezuela, all of which have the bees, got infested with them, he noted.
The Africanised bees were first discovered here in 1975, Stewart said.
They are more aggressive by nature because they work harder, faster and longer hours. According to Stewart, the bees attack in large numbers and that is the major difference between them and other strains.
He said it has been discovered that in other strains, when a Queen is born in a hive, all other Queens morphing are found and killed. However, in the case of the Africanised Bee, they all want the Queens to be born and they each take a quantity of bees and find new homes.
Currently, Stewart said, Africanised bees can be found in all ten administrative regions in Guyana.