African Honey Bee

Facts about Africanized honey bees, "Scientific name for Africanized honey bees is Apis mellifera scutellata Lepeletier". They also are known as killer bees they are a hybrid produced from crossing African honey bee with a variety of the European honey bees including the Iberian bee and the Italian bee. The common names they are called are Africanized Honey bee, "Killer Bee" African Honey Bee. The Africanized honey bees are an sreeding species in the US. The known U.S. range now that you will find them includes portions of California, Nevada, Arizon, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Florida also in other country's like Brazil, northern Argentina, Central America. The strain of Africanized honey bees has been said to be officially established in Florida.

Africanized Honey Bees Physical Description

Generally the appearance of the Africanized bee is similar to the common Honey Bees, and the distinctive physical difference is you would have to have the bee at a laboratory and check the 20 different structures, and also by use of DNA and enzymes to find out exactly what type.
African honey bee bodies are covered in fuzz with a ringed abdomen with black stripes.

Morphology and Genetics of the Africanized Honey Bees

Though the African honey bees are somewhat smaller and do build small comb cells compared to the European honey bees, their hybrid is not small. The Africanized honey bees have somehow shorter wings, they are slightly shorter it makes it difficult to recognize them fronm the Honey Bee.

Africanized Honey Bee Characteristics

The Africanized honey bee acquires its killer name because it attacks animals and people who unknowingly stray in their territory, and often results to very serious injury or even death. In fact it is not necessary for you to disturb its hive to initiate an attack, they will respond to mundane occurrences including vibrations from vehicles, noise from pedestrians.

Their sting venom is just similar to the native honey bees, Africanized bees always attack in greater numbers and they will pursue their enemies for long distances. Once the bees have been disturbed, they will remain agitated for as long as 24 hours, and they will go on attacking animals and people within a quarter mile range.

Africanized bees will start foraging at a very young age and they can harvest large quantity of the pollen compared to the European honey bees. They have a high reproductive rate and their ability to gather large quantity's of food to support the survival of the large number of the larvae.

The Africanized honey bee will migrate depending on the season and can fly for long distances in search of pollen and nectar.

Africanized honey bees for bee keeping

The Africanized honey bees are very lethal and one might wonder how farmers can deal with them. Funny enough there is a mild variety that is commonly referred to as the Gentle Africanized bees. This type does not display the hyper-defensive character. This provides an opportunity for the breeders to produce a gentler stock. Generally, Africanized honey bee are among the best choice for beekeeping but its hostile characteristics giving a greater challenge in terms of handling this type of bees.

Social Organization of the Africanized Bees

Generally the killer bee is a social insect that can survive as a lone member of a community or a colony. The Queen is the sexual productive female in a colony and it is the mother of all the drones the future queens and workers. It can lay an outstanding number of eggs, equivalent to the weight of its body.

The worker bees are the numerous members of a colony. A colony can consist of about 80,000 worker bees. Adult Africanized honey bees workers obtain a body length of around 3/4 inches (19 mm), which is a tinny bit smaller than the average European honeybees length. Female Africanized honey bee workers live for around one month while male drones survive for 5 to 10 weeks. Queens will generally live for 1 to 3 years. "Fear of bees apiphobia".
There are three types of bees in the Africanized honey bee hive, a Drone, Worker and the Queen. A worker bee will die if she uses her stinger.
The hind legs of the Africanized honey bees carry pollen in them and it is called a pollen baskets. Pollen is the protein for which the baby bee needs to grow.
A Africanized honey bee has two stomachs, the first stomach is for eating and the other stomach is specially designed for storing nectar collected from flowers and water, for making it possible to carry it back to the hive.

Africanized honey bees fall in the classification of insects with six legs. Bees have five eyes; three tiny ocelli eyes and two compound eyes.
The Africanized honey bees have four stages of life, Eggs, Larvae, Pupae and Full grown Bee.