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<osborndo@pilot.msu.edu> I've just heard one time too many about "Africanized" bees and wondered if anyone on this list can help with any information. I realize that entomological questions are a bit off topic for H-Africa, but since it seems that characteristics assigned to (or perhaps more accurately, highlighted in) European, African, and Asian varieties of bees echo some longstanding Western stereotypes, perhaps some list participants may have some comments or insights. While there is no questioning the aggressiveness of bees descended from a cross between European and African varieties of bees in Brazil, I've never heard anything about "killer bees" in Africa. There are several questions: 1) Are bees in Africa really that aggressive and I just missed it somehow? (I once worked with a Peace Corps volunteer forester in Guinea who did some beekeeping as a secondary project -- he worked without protective clothing for several months and was stung only once.) 2) Is there a particular variety of bee specific to a part of Africa that is especially aggressive, and if so why hasn't it spread throughout the continent like the "killer bee" has been spreading in the Americas? 3) Is it the crossing of European and African bees that somehow yields a greater aggressivity than one finds in either variety separately? (In which case one might just as well refer to them as "Europeanized" bees.)
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