Although all female honeybees will sting if provoked, you’re unlikely to face much harm from a single bee. The real danger is when honeybees gather in a swarming formation, as they sometimes do in order to protect their hive from a suspected threat. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
According to Jerome Rozen, curator at the AMNH, one type of bee, the africanized honeybee, is more likely to swarm than others.
“It’s gotten very bad press, many very gruesome stories about people being killed. In actuality there have been very few deaths caused by that bee, but the deaths that have occurred often tend to be very horrible because there have been cases where people have been stung maybe a thousand times and there’s just no chance of survival if you’re stung a thousand times.”
The africanized bee – the so-called “killer bee”, was accidentally released during a breeding experiment in Brazil in the 1950’s. Since then, populations of the bee have migrated north as far as Texas. Surprisingly though, the only thing that makes the Africanized honeybee more deadly than other honeybees is its personality.
“The other important point to remember is that the Africanized honeybee is the same species of bee as the common European honeybee. The venom is exactly the same as the common European honeybee. The danger in the Africanized honeybee is the fact it is more aggressive. The workers will come out in greater numbers and will chase the apparent intruder much farther and much than will the normal type honeybee which tends to be more docile. It’s just strictly a matter of attitude”
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.