By Lindsey Hoshaw, Sunset intern 

I’m no stranger to Africanized honeybees.A few years ago my dad was attacked in Tucson while watering the plants in our backyard. Even after he frantically ran inside, more than thirty bees followed him, and my entire family had to swat for nearly ten minutes to get rid of them. He was stung more than thirty times. 

The year before an inspector told us they were Africanized bees, but we’d never had a problem until that day.

Most people know Africanized bees as killer bees, a term UC Davis entomologist Eric Mussen says is misleading. “They were called assassin bees in Brazil because the bees go into European honeybee colonies and wipe out the other bees, not because they kill humans.” They do pose a more serious threat than European bees though. While you might receive up to 200 stings from a honeybee attack you could receive up to 2,000 from Africanized honeybees, something virtually no one can withstand. Genetically, AHB are more aggressive in guarding the hive—they’ll follow you for up to 30 minutes and thus you’re more likely to be stung.

In the past ten years, AHB have gradually been moving north; so far they’ve been located as far north as central Nevada. But Mussen says that trend is slowing and that no new migration has been recorded in recent months. “It appears as though the Northwest expansion has slowed down to a trickle, if not stopped,” Mussen said. “We were predicting they’d be in the Bay Area by now, but for some reason they didn’t make it.” There’s enough pollen and NorCal has the right climate, so entomologists don’t really know why the bees aren’t migrating.

The good news is, beekeepers have learned how to mitigate aggressive AHB colonies by introducing European honeybee queens, which then cross-breed and produce gentler offspring. If only I’d had beekeeping skills back then and could have re-queened the hive outside our house. Ok, you’re right, I probably wouldn’t have had the gusto to suit up and try to reengineer an entire hive. That’s something I’d happily leave up to a professional!

In the end, my dad was fine and never had to go to the hospital. But he’s jumpy around bees now and even the sound of a fly makes the hairs on his arms stand up. It’s too bad he never got the chance to meet Sunset’s bees. Even though they have their feisty moments, they’ve completely won me over.