If you’re about forty-five or older, you probably remember hearing during the 1970s about how “killer bees” were making their way north and would be taking over the United States by the 1990s. It was actually quite a scare. There were numerous documentaries filmed about it and several movies were produced—most notably the 1978 Irwin Allen film, The Swarm.
Obviously, the killer bee menace never destroyed America.
So, why were people so scared of these killer bees? And have they even lived up to the name?
To begin with, the term “killer bee” is actually just a colloquialism for a new type of bee that was bred by Brazilian biologist Warwick Kerr in the 1950s. Kerr crossed European bees with East African bees to create a new “Africanized” hybrid that would create more honey. But these bees were quickly found to be difficult to control. They escaped from their controlled environments in 1956 and quickly spread across Brazil.
Within a few short years, the Africanized bees had spread through much of Latin America, especially the tropical and subtropical zones.
The Africanized bees soon proved to be much more aggressive than normal bees and they had a unique ability to migrate long distances. Wherever the Africanized bees went, they often replaced the normal bee populations.
But have they earned a reputation as killer bees?
The sting of an Africanized bee is no more toxic than that of a normal bee. But Africanized bees are more aggressive, attack in swarms, and have been known to chase people for nearly a mile. It is believed that at least one thousand people have been killed by Africanized bees worldwide since the 1950s, which isn’t that many when you put it into perspective. By contrast, over seven hundred thousand people are killed each year by mosquitos, and about one hundred are killed by elephants.
Still, you certainly don’t want to get attacked by Africanized bees. The elderly and the sick tend to have the highest fatality rates from killer bee attacks, as well as apiarists (professional beekeepers). Experts say that the biggest threat Africanized bees pose to America is in apiculture. The killer bees’ European lineage has allowed them to migrate farther north than a true East African bee would be able to do, but the long winters of the Midwest, Northwest, and Northeast appear to be an effective barrier.
It looks like all the doomsday predictions about a killer bee invasion of the United States will never happen. I guess that means The Swarm II won’t be hitting theaters anytime soon.