Remember, in childhood, many of us watched movies about terrible sharks, giant squid, cannibal ants and killer bees? If everything is clear with sharks and squid, then how can small flying creatures kill a person, because their poison can cause only allergies? Not everything is as simple as it might seem at first glance. Killer bees do exist! We’ll talk about them.
Myth or reality?
This is not fiction, much less a myth. Unfortunately, these especially dangerous insects really exist and have already managed to take many human lives. From the point of view of entomological classification, they represent the extra taxonomic group of honey bees. Their Latin name is Apis mellifera, which in translation into Russian sounds like an "Africanized bee."
But what are these strange insects? Where did the killer bees come from? As a matter of fact, they did not appear from anywhere. They were removed artificially during the experiment. True, it turned out spontaneously. The bees, which the people have christened the murderers, are nothing more than a hybrid of African bees with any others that live in Europe.
African killer bees. How it was?
In 1956, in Brazil, during a special experiment and the oversight of some people, bees were inadvertently bred, which posed a threat to human life. Once, a Brazilian entomologist and geneticist Warwick Kerr brought with him from another African expedition local bees. The scientist carefully studied his “wards” for some time, finding out their strengths - excellent fertility and good physical strength.
This prompted Kerr to a fundamental decision to create by crossing a specific subspecies of African bees that could easily take root in the hot South American climate. But here, as in the horror film, it could not do without force majeure. It is not known by whose mistake the obtained uterus of the newly-made hybrid was released in 1957 by a geneticist in the wild with his own hands. In freedom, the uterus of their own free will crossed with the drones of ordinary bees, producing a terrible legacy. So there were killer bees.
Wrong Bees
These creatures are distinguished from all their relatives by their large size and brutal aggressiveness. The physical strength inherited from African bees made these insects real fighters in the fight against inclement environmental conditions: their amazing vitality and resistance to various external factors is simply amazing! At the same time, their incubation period is one day shorter than that of ordinary bees. This gives them a significant advantage in reproduction.
Moreover, Africanized bees produce twice as much honey as their regular counterparts. They begin to collect it before all other insects, and finish - later. These creatures are much more hardworking than their relatives. And they pollinate plants an order of magnitude better than other types of bees. Nevertheless, in the language of the famous Winnie the Pooh, killer bees are “wrong” bees. Why? Yes, because they kill people!
Spread
Over time, these dangerous creatures spread in South American forests, and then in rural areas, and even in cities. Currently, Africanized bees settled throughout Brazil, crowding out their relatives and unconditionally occupying the territory of all of South America. Scientists closely monitor their movement. It is noted that now these creatures are steadily settling north at a speed of about 270 kilometers per year.
Ruthless killers
Already 10 years after an unsuccessful experiment, the first case of an attack of a whole swarm of Africanized bees on houses in Rio de Janeiro Bay was recorded. Then the killer bees killed more than 150 people and several hundred animals. All attempts by rescuers to use flamethrowers against them were in vain. Statistics is a harsh thing. According to her, since 1969 in Brazil, more than 200 people died from the bites of these flying mutants, and several thousand were seriously injured.
What can we say about domestic animals that died "at the hands" of these insects: they generally number in the thousands. Entomologists warn that Africanized bees without hesitation attack any living creature that appears within a radius of 5 meters from their hive. Often they chase their victims for 500-700 meters. Be very careful! We wish you never to know from experience who killer bees are!