Killer BeesThe morning of August 12, 2007 Ron went out to the trailer to find it covered with killer bees. A loud humming noise was coming from that direction. The underside of the trailer and the inside windows were covered. These are also called Africanized honey bees. They are a hybrid of the European honey bee and a more aggressive African which 26 queen bees were accidentally released in Brazil during experiments of cross breeding. They arrived in Arizona in 1993. Killer bees are less picky about where they make their colony. They swarm about 30 times per year which means they are making new hives when a new queen is born. The older queen usually moves to a new area. The queen can lay about 1500 eggs per day. They are agitated by high pitch sounds, the smell of a dead bee which gives off a hormone smelling like bananas, and something that may threaten the hive. Their natural predators are bears and skunks so dark colored animals or someone in dark clothing are a threat. I am told that all of southern Arizona are killer bees. There are no garden variety of bees here anymore. Not knowing if they were just swarming and moving on, we waited 24 hours. I got up very early this morning to walk the dogs before it warmed up and before the bees would become active. On August 11, 2007 I went out to the trailer we used to live in which is now used for a storage area. There was no sign of any bees. August 13, 2007 I called the Killer Bee Guy. I told Reed what was going on over the phone. He was at our property within an hour. I drove to the gate to usher him to the property. We drove up to the trailer and the bees were crawling inside and out and flying about. Reed put on his suit and told me to go into the house before the bees chased me home.
When he came back he said that he always tries to take the bees with him. He returned honey dripping from his suit. These killer bees were too aggressive and had to be exterminated with a bomb. He took out the hive which had already been established. Reed was very helpful in answering all of my questions and what if s. He said that the queen will send in about 30 bees to check out a new area, if the bees do not come back they move on to a new location. If they come back about 30,000 bees are sent in and within one day there will be about 100,000. I tried to take the dogs out but the bees are very aggitated. My mastiff had two bees on him as soon as he got out the door. I brushed them off and brought the dogs back inside. I cut up some old white t-shirts that I had to cover the dogs. Bees have difficulty seeing white. We ventured back outside for our afternoon walk and the bees only seemed interested in me. I was stung on the back of the neck. The bees are attracted to odors good and bad and they also go for the face and eyes. Flying insect sprays unless you drown them in it, only aggrevate them. We have to wait for 24 hours to go into the trailer. I tried to go over there thinking I was going to take pictures of dead bees but they were still hovering aggitated in the trees around the trailer so I made my way back to the house pretty quickly. It is now the morning of August 14, 2007. I went over to the trailer this morning but the bees are still swarming about. I was going to take pictures but could not get close enough. I could see pools of dead bees under the trailer so I cannot imagine what we are going to find inside. One of the swarms has gone to our neighbors about a 1 1/4 miles from us. They have a new baby so hopefully they will take action soon. I called Reed to confirm that the swarms are normal and waiting for a return call.
All of the dark dots are bees. The bees are about an inch thick. They are scattered underneath and around the surrounding area. They are still hovering in the mesquite trees.
But I must tell you, I had on a long white tee shirt and a white make shift turbine on my head, since they go for dark hair. August 19, 2007 The bees have finally calmed down and we went into the trailer. There were a few bees in there but for the most part the swarm had left. I was really happy not to have to clean up buckets full of bees. The ones under the trailer were apparently the ones that did not get out quick enough. This morning I was sitting on the east porch and a snake went under the laundry room. There are two small areas less than an inch wide that I did not put hard cloth. Go figure. We found it twice but it ducked under some pallets. So far we have not been able to find it.
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I left so I could not see very well exept that he walked around the trailer and then went inside.
I went back over to the trailer this afternoon and the bees are starting to calm down. I still could not get close enough to go inside. I took a couple of pictures of underneath the trailer.
The bees started flying around me so I backed away and went to the house. I was able to take the dogs out without any incident.
