What are Africanised honey bees?

The programme and the escape

Apis mellifera scutellata is adapted to tropical Africa and performed far better in tropical Brazil than the European subspecies beekeepers there were using. It was imported in the 1950s to breed a productive tropical bee combining that vigour with European temperament — a reasonable aim.

In 1957 swarms escaped. The population hybridised with resident European stock and spread north, reaching Central America and then the southern United States by the end of the 1980s. It is among the fastest and best-documented biological invasions on record.

What they are like

More defensive — more individuals respond to disturbance, faster, and pursue further from the nest. More inclined to swarm and abscond, which is much of why they spread so effectively. Well adapted to tropical conditions, and productive: Brazilian honey production rose substantially in the decades after hybridisation.

How beekeeping responded

Not by stopping. Apiaries are sited away from people and livestock, requeening with selected stock moderates temperament, protective equipment is heavier, and management accounts for a bee more inclined to swarm. Some traits — vigour, tropical adaptation, disease resistance — are agriculturally valuable, and selection for better temperament within Africanised populations has been part of the response.