Lots of buzz, less honey from Cape bees

Lots of buzz, less honey from Cape bees: "These bees produce only a quarter of the honey that would be expected of such insects in other parts of the country.

During his conservation work in and around the De Beers mining properties in Kimberley, Angus Anthony began keeping bees and extracting and selling the honey they produced.

The industrious African killer bee (Apis scutellata), which is indigenous to most of South Africa north of the Karoo, enabled him and hundreds of other bee enthusiasts to develop small but lucrative businesses from honey production or renting hives out to pollinate fruit and seed crops.

Since moving to George after his retirement in 2005, Anthony has been disappointed to find the unique species of honey bee endemic to the Cape – from East London through to the west coast – does not have the energy of his northern counterpart.

The Cape bee (Apis capensis) is reluctant to get going in the morning and has an unpleasant habit of encouraging his African killer bee neighbour to follow suit whenever they meet.

Cape bees typically produce only about 10kg per hive per year. The northern variety produces up to 40kg."

2theadvocate.com | Suburban | St. Bernard abuzz on ‘killer bees’

St. Bernard abuzz on ‘killer bees’:

"A wave of comic relief washed over residents of flood-damaged St. Bernard Parish on Saturday.

After enduring back-to-back hurricanes, a housing shortage and an ongoing insurance crisis, reports that officials are now on the lookout for swarms of Africanized “killer bees” was too much for some residents.

“What’s coming next?” laughed Chris Cochran, 24, who lives on Estaban Street, a block from where a colony of the aggressive bees was found shortly before Christmas.

The swarm — the first in southeast Louisiana — chased away workers trying to demolish a storm-damaged home at 2225 Estaban St., then routed a beekeeper.

Officials from the parish Mosquito Control Department were summoned. The pests were exterminated as residents remained indoors, Cochran recalled. “They wouldn’t let anybody outside,” he said of the Mosquito Control authorities.



Cochran, the single parent of a 4-year-old boy, said he has not seen any of the newly placed official bee traps. “I haven’t really looked for them,” he said."