Killer Bees in the United States (BEE Case)

     Case Number:        279
     Case Mnemonic:      BEE
     Case Name:          Killer Bees in the United States      

Description of TED categories and clusters

A.  IDENTIFICATION

1.  The Issue

     Africanized honeybees (AHB's)--popularly known in the United
States as killer bees--present an interesting case study on the
inter-relationship between commerce and the environment.  A measure
taken to improve productivity of a good has created a biological
crisis, which in turn has had adverse effects on the very industry
that was supposed to benefit.  African honeybees were imported into
Brazil to increase honey production there.  But the bees, which are
also much more hostile than are their European cousins, soon
escaped into the wilderness, swarming out of control and hurting
beekeeping interests and their beneficiaries from Argentina to the
southern United States.  As the swarms approached and later crossed
the US-Mexico border in 1990, federal and state agencies have
responded with regulatory measures designed to check the AHBs'
progress and to protect American beekeeping and agriculture.

2.  Description

     African honeybee queens were imported from South Africa and
Tanzania to Brazil in 1956 as part of a government initiative to
increase Brazilian honey production.  The European honeybees that
had been used until then had not adapted well to the tropical
Brazilian climate, resulting in low honey production.  The African
variety was known to produce substantially more, but it was also
known that it was extremely aggressive and more apt to sting. 
Geneticist Warwick Kerr experimented with cross-breeding the two
varieties, hoping to create a new hybrid bee that would be both
docile and productive.  Kerr tried to contain the African queens
from escaping into the wild, but in 1957, 26 queens and many of
their hybrid offspring swarmed into the wild.
     
     Since 1957, the AHB's have swarmed outward from Sao Paulo at
an astonishing rate of 300-500 kilometers per year.  By 1971, the
bees had crossed the border into Argentina; they reached Venezuela
in 1976, Colombia in 1980, Mexico in 1986, and were first spotted
in South Texas in 1990.  Interestingly, the AHB's have appeared to
reach their southern limit in central Argentina--where the climate
is more temperate--and have failed to cross the Andes into Chile. 
Based on climate analysis, it is predicted that the AHB's northward
progress will halt at North Carolina's latitude around 2000.      

     The possibility of human fatalities from AHB stinging is
present, but only if the person is stung hundreds of times or is
already allergic to bee-stings.  But the danger to humans has been
exaggerated by American popular magazines (including Time, which
gave the insects their notoriety in America in 1965), horror movies
and classic Saturday Night Live skits.  Scientists routinely state
that a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than stung
to death by killer bees.  In fact, much of the bees' bad reputation
may be political in origin:  Dr. Kerr became a fierce critic of the
Brazilian military regime in the 1960's; the
government retaliated to his protests by portraying Kerr as the man
responsible for creating a plague, and all stinging incidents--
whether by bee or by wasp--were attributed to Kerr's
experimentation.
     
     The real danger in the United States lies within American
beekeeping and, indirectly, American agriculture in general.  AHB's
often enter European colonies and mingle with them, and mating
results in more hybrid bees where African genes and tendencies
dominate over European ones.  The whole colony may suddenly take on
a new behavior.  The bees may become more aggressive and short-
tempered:  even vibrations from a tractor in the vicinity are
interpreted as threats to the queen, and any persons or livestock
nearby become targets of mass stingings--and these persistent
insects can continue an attack for hours after the original
provocation.  Furthermore, unlike European bees, which rarely swarm
away from an apiary to form another in the wild, AHB's are very
quick to abscond and follow their queens elsewhere (explaining the
rapid movement of the bees across the Americas).

     Apiculturalists in the United States will incur more costs
annually than usual after the AHB's enter their apiaries.  For
honey-making purposes, beekeepers will have to purchase more
protective equipment, as the sheer quantity of stings will render
current protection useless.  Secondly, apiaries will have to
carefully located (or relocated) so that livestock and people will
not be immediately threatened.  Finally, the AHBs' tendency to
abscond--when they also take much of their honey with them to help
build new hives--will result in lower honey yields.  Production is
widely expected to take a significant dip in the next few years--
down from 200 million pounds and $100 million in sales in 1993--
leaving most family-run honey enterprises bankrupt.

     But American apiculture serves another purpose:  colonies are
rented out to farmers to pollinate their crops.  The raising of
almonds, blueberries, apples, cucumbers and other products are
greatly facilitated by this practical service.  In 1993, beekeepers
earned $40 million in rental fees, and farmers depend on these bees
for $10-20 billion of agricultural produce.  But the threat of
AHB's has garnered more stringent state- and federal-border checks
in order to keep certain areas of the country AHB-free, leading to
higher prices for the bees' services and an imbalanced demand for
northern apiculturalists who can better guarantee  pure European
stock.  

     Even more indirectly, the profusion of AHB's into the United
States may affect tourism in California, Texas, Arizona and other
southern states, although the extent of disruption to tourist
services will be difficult to quantify.

     The U.S. Department of Agriculture has responded to the
impending threat of killer bees with strict regulations on the
transport of all commercial bees.  Under congressional law, the
Agriculture Department has the authority to prohibit all
importation of honeybees and honeybee semen from countries where
AHB's are active.  It is also authorized, with or without
cooperation from state and private agencies, "to carry out
operations or measures in the United States to eradicate, suppress,
control, prevent, or retard the spread of undesirable species or
subspecies of honeybees."  It further has the power to destroy any
samples of bees that are found to be Africanized.

     Furthermore, the United States has cooperated with the
governments of Canada, Mexico, Colombia and the Central American
nations specifically to collaborate on research into AHB's. 
Collaboration with Mexico has been particularly vital, as
government agencies have teamed up to detect and destroy swarms
moving toward the U.S.-Mexico border.  And at the state level, most
states have apiary inspection laws to deal with the problem.  Most
states enforce quarantines of interstate bee transports to check
for AHB proliferation.

     In the end, it is difficult to say how adversely the
beekeeping industry in the United States will be effected, if at
all.  Today, reports from Brazil state that once the AHB's can be
domesticated, they are capable of producing record amounts of
honey, as Dr. Kerr had originally prophesied.  It is also difficult
to separate the economic impact of AHB's on American apiculture
from those of the spread of bee diseases and parasites (to which
the AHB's seem to be immune), the recent cut in federal subsidies
to domestic honey producers, the increased use of artificial
sweeteners by food industries, or recent competition cheaper
Chinese honey imports.  But it is almost certain that the
proliferation of AHB's in the United States will force significant
economic burdens onto beekeepers until and unless the AHB's can be
managed.

3.  Related Cases

RABBIT Case
BALLAST Case
POTATO Case
APPLE Case
NEMATODE Case

    Key Words
     1.  FOOD
     2.  NORTH AMERICA
     3.  INFESTATION

4.  Draft Author:  Jason B. Silberberg (May, 1996)

B.  LEGAL CLUSTER

5.  Discourse and Status:  AGReement and INProgress

6.  Forum and Scope:  United States and REGION

7.  Decision Breadth:  11 (United States, Canada, Mexico,         
Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica,
Panama and Colombia)

8.  Legal Standing:  TREATY

C.  GEOGRAPHIC CLUSTER

9.  Geographic Locations
     a.  Geographic Domain:  South America
     b.  Geographic Site:  Eastern South America
     c.  Geographic Impact:  United States

10.  Sub-National Factors:  YES
     Most states have made border-checks to sample incoming bee   
transports for evidence of AHB's.  These states may destroy entire
bee shipments in order to protect in-state beekeeping.

11.  Type of Habitat:  TROPical (and sub-tropical)

D.  Trade Cluster

12.  Type of Measure:  Import Standards (IMSTD)

Both live bee transports and bee semen transports are subject  to
inspection for evidence of Africanization.  There are no complete
bans on imports from Latin America, though they are severely
restricted and used mostly for official government or government-
sponsored research on the behavior of AHB's.  This measure greatly
affects American apiculturalists, who each make $10,000-$100,000 in
extra income by leasing hives out to crop farmers (including berry,
almond, and apple growers).   European bees are cheap and efficient
means of pollinating  crops over large spaces of farmland.

13.  Direct or Indirect Impacts:  DIR 

Apiculture is directly effected by stringent bee transport laws
because they affect their supply and their mobility, even within
the United States.  The decreased availability of bees for
pollination, in the meantime, affects farmers down the road, as
their production may be hampered in the absence of pollinating
bees.

14.  Relation of Measure to Environmental Impact
     a.  Directly Related to Product:  Yes   Bees
     b.  Indirectly Related to Product:  No
     c.  Not Related to Product:  No
     d.  Related to Process:  Yes   Species Loss Air

The threat of AHB's warrants the purchasing of more and better 
protective clothing, and it mandates the removal of apiaries   to
places where other people and livestock will not be harmed.  Also,
when European bees interbreed with AHB's, the offspring  are
usually more "African" or feral in nature.

15.  Trade Product Identification:  Bees, Honey

As discussed above, bees are a commodity on their own--they  
provide a service as pollinators for American farms.  Honey    
production is also an issue:  the proliferation of AHB's in     
the short-term will result in lower yields because of the      
increased risks inherent in collecting honey from hives.

16.  Economic Data
     a.  Industry Output:  $100 million in honey sales
                           $ 40 million in apiary rentals 
                                   (1993 estimates)

     b.  Employment:  about 2000 commercial beekeepers nationwide 

17.  Degree of Competitive Impact:  LOW

For apiculturalists, the impact is unknown due to several other
mitigating factors besides the AHB's, including bee diseases and
parasites, cuts in federal subsidies and Chinese competition. 
Together, though,  these factors are driving many casual and small-
time beekeepers out of business.  As for the effects on American
agriculture in general, Winston reports, "If we assume only a 1%
reduction in crop yields over all of the United States due to
inadequate pollination, crop loss will be a staggering $93
million."

18.  Industry Sector:  FOOD

19.  Exporter and Importer: USA and MANY

E.  Environment Cluster

20.  Environmental Problem Type:  SPLA, BIODIV

In purely environmental terms, the AHB's do not pose a real  
crisis.  The change occurs when African(ized) and European     
bees mate, creating hybrids that are new to the ecosystem and   
that may be a little too aggressive while they accustom         
themselves to their new environment.  No specific plant or       
animal is in danger of extinction due to AHB's.  It is interesting
to note that "traditional" European honeybees are imports
themselves; the Americas had no honeybees until European
colonization 500 years ago.  All in all, the "devastation" caused
by AHB's is relatively minor in environmental terms.

21.  Species Information
     Name:  Honeybee
     Type:  Animal/ Arthropod/ Insect/ Hymenoptera
     Diversity:  European and Africanized varieties
     ICUN Status:  Not threatened

22.  Impact and Effect:  LOW and STRCT

23.  Urgency and Lifetime:  LOW and 25-40 days

Both species of honeybee are surviving, though at different rates
in different climates.  However, it has been noted that AHB's have
significantly shorter lifespans than do European bees.

24.  Substitutes:  LIKE

Sugar and artificial sweeteners are plentiful for the food   
industry to use, as is cheap imported honey from China.        In
1995, the U.S. and China averted a trade war over honey when China
agreed to stem the quantity of imports entering the U.S., as well
as to raise the price of Chinese honey above "dumping levels." 
This move was mostly due to the efforts of the U.S. honeybee lobby,
which lobbied for import restrictions after their federal subsidies
were ended in 1993.

F.  Other Factors

25.  Culture:  NO

26.  Trans-border:  YES

The bees' progress across the Mexican border cannot be stopped 
completely.  After the first Texas sighting in 1990, colonies  of
AHB's were spotted in Arizona and California.  The AHB crisis has
so far involved the United States, Mexico, all of Central America,
and all South American countries with the exception of Chile (due
to the inability of  the bees to cross the cold Andes). 
Furthermore, AHB's have been spotted in Puerto Rico; stowaways may
invade other Caribbean islands via ships.

27.  Human Rights:  NO
 
The AHB's have no known political agenda.

28.  Relevant Literature

Abels, Harriette Sheffer.  Killer Bees.  Mankato, MN:  Crestwood  
House, 1987.

Cheney, Sheldon.  Killer Bees/ Africanized Bees.  Beltsville, MD: 
National Agricultural Library, 1990.

Crane, Eva.  Bees and Beekeeping:  Science, practice and world    
resources.  Ithaca:  Comstock Pub. Associates, 1990.

Flakus, Greg.  Living with Killer Bees.  Oakland:  Quick Trading  
Co., 1993.

Lavies, Bianca.  Killer Bees.  New York:  Dutton Books, 1994.

Morse, Roger A. and Richard Nowogrodzki.  Honey Bee Pests,
Predators, and Diseases (2nd ed.).  Ithaca:  Comstock
Publishing Associates, 1990.

Spivak, Marla, David J. C. Fletcher and Michael D. Breed, eds.    
The "African" Honeybee.  Boulder:  Westview Press, 1991.

Winston, Mark L.  Killer Bees:  The Africanized Honeybee in the   
Americas.  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1992.