Keepers fear killer bees are swarming

Keepers fear killer bees are swarming:

"Peter Burkard has been keeping bees and selling honey in Manatee County for nearly 27 years, but a few years ago he noticed something different.

'Up until a few years ago, I could go to the hive, take the honey off and not get stung,' said Burkard, who lives just north of Tallevast Avenue and sells his 'I Love You Honey' every Saturday at Sarasota's Farmer's Market.

'Now,' Burkard said. 'Even if I do everything the same, use smoke properly and not make quick movements, I seem to get a couple of stings whenever I go in.'

Burkard doesn't know for sure if his five strong hives have been invaded by the more aggressive African honeybees, also called Killer Bees, but he has his suspicions.

With more than 7,000 honeybee colonies, Manatee County beekeepers are concerned about the invasion of Africanized bees that started showing up in Tampa Bay a year ago.

But they just aren't sure it's really happening.

'Someone told me that our Manatee County bees are 70 to 80 percent Africanized, but I haven't noticed it,' Palmetto's Gary Ranker, a commercial beekeeper, said. 'I haven't seen any more aggressive behavior.'"