Killer Bees Effective Protection

Scary stuff. I have no experience with killer bees, but protecting your head would seem to be priority one. These bees are known to pursue their victims for a considerable distance, and you don't stand a chance of reaching safety if you can't see or breathe.

Killer bees are really very scary. I always make sure that at least one experienced guy is onboard every team. The key is always prevention and not anything else. Prevention is to determine first the existence of Killer Bees along traverse route. It it exists, we simply abandon the route.

I am thinking of designing a tent for killer bees protection. If the attack takes place, simply rush into the tent. It you get stung, at least only a minimum and the chance of survival is high.

One interesting thing is, our local killer bees hate thick smoke.

If one is allergic to the apitoxin injected by the sting
they should carry these epinephrine injectors..

But here's a possible solution...

here's a nest that broke off from a main hive when I was staying with a friend while attending the ACSM a couple years ago

Avoid them. Bees/wasps were our concern in Washington State. If you watch the bee pattern, they can be avoided. In 16 years I was stung by two nests. Several close calls.

> I am thinking of designing a tent for killer bees protection. If the attack takes place, simply rush into the tent.

That sounds like a good temporary solution. It might not work long-term; as long as they can detect you (via smell?), they may wait quite awhile for you to emerge from hiding.

> One interesting thing is, our local killer bees hate thick smoke.

While nosing around the web, I found a story about BeeAlert. It claims to be non-toxic and effective. The documentation is convincing enough that I ordered a couple of the aerosol cans to keep in the truck.

Thanks for the link...

> I am thinking of designing a tent for killer bees protection. If the attack takes place, simply rush into the tent. It you get stung, at least only a minimum and the chance of survival is high.
>
> One interesting thing is, our local killer bees hate thick smoke.

WHat about something like a smoke bomb that you can carry with you?

Bees in general have hard wired into their system to migrate with smoke. My father was a hobbyest beekeeper and that's why they use smoke when opening domestic hives. Killer bees are a whole different ball of wax when it comes to aggression and killing. Smoke would probably slow a good portion of them down, but they are so different in a lot of ways. Where brightly colored clothes. I hear they attack black especially. A tent would be a good idea and maybe some smoke bombs placed inside them. Being from GA I did a little research and apparently there exist already Africanized bees in the south. A man died in 2009 in south GA from an attack, and of 2011 were found in Monroe County, TN. They are migrating. Looks like this is not a foreign problem at all anymore. (I checked Wikipedia for possibly some defense ideas, instead I was greeted with the reality that they are already here):-X

I raise honey bees in Kentucky and to the best of my knowledge here in the US, killer bees are by and large a product of the media looking for coverage that sells. There are many types of honey bees, Italian being the most common, and the African bees are more aggressive.
Between late March and late June, a hive of bees (feral or in a box) will produce a new queen. The old queen will fly out of the hive with 10-20,000 of her closest friends and start a new hive somewhere else. They are very loud and to the untrained, very scary to see that many bees swirling around. This is the basic procreation process for bees.

When they swarm like this, they are predisposed to not sting and you can stand right in among them flying all around you. They will gather on a limb in a football shape with the queen in the center while scouts go out looking for a suitable home. You can gently wiggle your bare finger into the center of this ball of bees and they will not bother you. This is the absolute most docile state one would ever see bees in. If you shake them up they get a little riled.

Once they have a home, they have something to protect and revert to normal procedures. If you look and act like a bear, you might get stung. Color has a lot to do with it. Bees hate black or dark colors.

When I am getting into the beehives to check on them or take the honey, I alway fire up a smoker. Lots of smoke makes them think that their tree is on fire and they get docile. It makes a huge difference. If you want something to calm bees down, keep a cigar lit and puffing away.

If what you are referring to as killer bees is of the hornet or wasp family, I can believe that more readily. I was nearly killed by some wood hornets as I bushhogged near their tree. Rumor has it that if you throw a rock at a hornet's nest, they can track the trajectory and come after you. Hornets are very aggressive and don't stop easily once riled.

Bingo. I believe the reports of Africanizing of the local bees from our southern border states, but mid-America?

One really good lesson I learned the hard way while helping my grand pa with his hives: One should triple check for holes in bee suit, especially the crotch area!!! Got stung four times w/in a minute from that hole. But I didn't panic, just kept robbing.

I do miss my grand pa's honey. We would spin the honey out, run it thru some filters and bottle it up. No pasteurization.

You can really taste the difference. I will always remember my dad giving me some honeycomb still fresh. Chewed it like bubble gum. That taste is unmistakable and delicious.

I'm feeling kind of silly now whining about ticks and black flies.....

If I'm not mistaken, it takes an entomologist to determine if bees are africanized. (besides them swarming you and chasing you for five miles) Just looking at a hive and saying they're africanized won't work. There are very subtle differences. I believe they are bees and make honey like the American counterpart and not wasps or hornets.
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in738

> (besides them swarming you and chasing you for five miles)

The Wikipedia article says they'll pursue for up to 1/4 mile, so if you can keep them out of your face (and don't go into anaphylactic shock) you stand a decent chance of getting clear.

Even regular bees pursue a little bit. I was in my youth wearing cutoff jeans, no shirt or shoes the day after we had robbed the hives. The bees were cleaning out the wax from the now empty boxes and I was instructed to take one of the boxes somewhere else because the bees were mostly done with it. There were a couple hundred bees still hanging in there. I gently picked up the box but slipped somehow and shook them up, making them very angry. The pond was only a hundred yards away so I dropped the box, and sprinted for the pond. I held my breath for while underwater and didn't get stung once.

> While nosing around the web, I found a story about BeeAlert. It claims to be non-toxic and effective. The documentation is convincing enough that I ordered a couple of the aerosol cans to keep in the truck.

I just got a message from PayPal telling me that BeeAware has refunded my money. They're having some kind of manufacturing problem and are unable to ship the product. 🙁

> If one is allergic to the apitoxin injected by the sting
> they should carry these epinephrine injectors..

I carry one of these in my purse because of my raw honey allergy AND bee allergy. :-/

The bees in Arizona are MEAN LITTLE F*****S!!!! :pissed:

I use to go out to do my yard work and they'd chase me AND the dog down!! So I had to resort to going out when the sun went down. Seemed when the sun went down, the bees also split = Angel could do yard work. 🙂