Continue with onX Maps
Sign in with Facebook
Killer Bees - Protective Gear?
|
As HIKER (primarily peak bagger but hence with LOTS of (mostly) off-trail hiking), KILLER (Africanized) bees have been the SINGLE BIGGEST "damper" to enjoying my adventures. I live in SE Arizona where the bees are particularly bad (don't believe me - I live about an hour away from the famous Killer Bee Guy (Reed Booth) and have spoken with him directly in terms of both my work (i.e. connecting my clients who have bee problems on their property) as well as my personal life (i.e. asking him about gear/ideas for how to protect myself during my adventures?). To my frustration, Reed does not have a good solution (aside from avoiding places where one cannot readily RUN in the event of an attack); nor I have been able to find one myself after pouring hours of research in to it. I have added a few items to my hiking pack (BeeAlert's spray AND lightweight clear work glasses), both of which HAVE proven themselves FAR greater from a safety/defense standpoint than my gun ever has!); however, I make this comment based on encounters with a mere pesky bee or two (or three)... NEVER an actual SWARM that has targeted me. I often think to myself, (at least as a HIKER who at most is doing a handful of Class 3 climbs per hike (and maybe a few Class 4 climbs per year), I have it SUPER EASY compared to a climber in terms of ability to get the **** out of dodge in the event I encounter swarming bees. Locally, I do not know anyone who is a hardcore climber. Most of my contacts in the hiking circle have dabbled in climbing as a one-off VS doing it on a regular basis where they would be more apt to be exposed to the challenges / dangers that come with doing something regularly & at a higher level. Thus, I am VERY curious as to know: |
|
Wasn't there a fatal climbing incident on Saddleback in Phoenix involving bees a few years back? That had to really suck. |
|
Yes scary, I did purchase and use standard bee net top hat net with under arm bands through S AZ near climbing areas |
|
disappointed this is not a wu tang thread |
Ghostface Sprayer wrote: #COTY |
AZHiker456 Notpublic wrote: Where specifically have you been having these encounters (location, elevation, aspect, etc.)? I'm just curious because I've done a lot of climbing and hiking down there and I'm moving to Cochise county within the next month. |
Jake Gluck wrote: EVERYWHERE! I currently live in Cochise County (prior to that 2 different areas in Santa Cruz County (AZ)) and between Real Estate & Off-trail Adventuring (Peak-bagging) they seem to be a problem everywhere around here. If bees are a concern, you'll absolutely want to talk with Reed Booth (aka The Killer Bee Guy)... decades in the biz, VERY knowledgeable, just do a Google Search on him to see his credentials which are impressive to say the least! ALL 3 times I've been stung while hiking had a several things in common: I'm a 'one and done'... RARELY do I repeat ANYTHING; thus, I would not be the best to pick up on patterns (in terms of bee activity on a given trail/route/summit), but are a few areas where the bees SEEM to be much worse: There was only one other time that something like this happened and was not quite as scary, as I was on my own property. This occurred about a year later (around April 2020). I was out pruning Mesquites having been in virtually the same spot for over an hour, OUT OF NO WHERE in a matter of seconds I was engulfed in a massive swarm of bees that were clearly just passing through in a hurry because I was not stung a single time but got hit by several of them in their haste. I was in a REALLY bad 'FU(K-IT!' type of mood and if not so angry (NOT a common thing for me!) I probably would have been terrified. In both instances, the bees were flying with "space" in between them... VS where they fly together so tightly packed that they look like a solid object (which would have been far more freaky). #2 LOWER altitude mountains / mini-mountains in the heart of Cochise County (i.e. Pearce / Squaretop hills area) - perhaps it's all the Ag out there but the bees seems to be really bad in that area (both from personal experience as well as from client feedback)... I have a few properties listed right near the Sulphur hills and finally "mustered up" the courage (or stupidity) to hike up to the Sulphur Hills high point (as expected based on the satellite imagery, some sweet 3+ perhaps even one 4- minus climbs!)... on the descent, I encountered a few mildly pesky bees (this was around Jan / Feb of this year). NO ISSUES but sheesh, if they are out that time of year, it's almost like there is NEVER a safe time to beat them. In 2019 around May, temptation got the better of me and I opted to hike to the high point of Turkey Creek Ridge (right along 191 just to the North of the Mustang Mall). Well in to snake season but due to the terrain and perhaps some grazing down of the grass, visibility was quite good; thus, I opted to bushwack up and then cruise down the dirt road for my descent & return. About 100 feet or less from the summit (YIKES more gappy rocks than I was anticipating during snake season!!!) all precautions of watching for snakes when out the window at the sound of HEINOUS HEINOUS buzzing! It was a single bee and to say it was angry would be an understatement... I just hauled a$$ like the devil was after me. The HEINOUS buzzing continued and after about 2 circles around my face, I was bracing for the sting and nothing (yet the buzzing continued and I could not see the bee!). Immediately upon summiting and connecting with the dirt road, I gently tapped me head against a huge utility box and the buzzing ceased… then HAULED FREAKING A$$ down that road (cuz if the hive is nearby, the pheromones will draw them to you in a matter of seconds). Obviously no hive nearby since no bee swarms came at me and I made it back to pick the dead bee out of my hair behind the safety of my vehicle. #3 EAST side of the Galiuros/Winchesters - in addition to one of my stings occurring here (Winchesters), like with the Whetstones, the number of times I am "buzzed" in a moderately to highly "angry" tone by a pesky bee or two or three is higher in this area. ^^^Seriously, I could go on forever on this topic. Bees are / can be deadly and for anyone who is new to this and doesn’t take it seriously, just do a search and you will get plenty of graphic videos / info. It would be nice to have better protection but decking out in a bee suit is obviously not feasible for me / most of us I’m guessing. Everything with life comes risks, even driving a car, so right now I continue to do what I love; but the number of bee encounters I’ve had has really put a damper on things… in fact, given my natural athletic ability, the ONLY thing that gives my stomach butterflies when looking at cliffy terrain / summits is NOT whether I’m going to take a false step but the speed (or lack thereof) that I can traverse such terrain if I need to flee from bees. |
Kristian Solem wrote: I don’t know about that one Kris, but there was one in Tucson some years back where a climber working alone on some route development was killed by them, as was his dog. They are around and it is scary. |
|
Interesting you mention the whetstones. Been climbing out there all summer. We see bees but no problems. They seem to sometimes land on me to drink sweat after a grueling uphill but buzz off once we dry off. However, if you swat/crush one then you will release a pheromone that will make the rest much more interested in you. |
|
 |
Peter Underwood wrote: Be interested in your fuller response. I've no experience with this insect horror, but have been around honeybees in recent years, and some swarming this past year. DEFINITELY not killer bees. I suspect that some of the stories of "bees" actually concern yellowjackets. I can just note that there can be some chance of seeing nest sights, during summer, by scanning an area and looking for the flight paths --as these nests tend to have a lot of insects and so should show themselves if one takes a moment to look. (The Killer Bee Guy's site & videos are amazing!) kN* |
|
kN*, (you made mistake of asking for a "fuller response" anyone who wants executive summary just check out the 2-minute video link that will be at the end of this likely 2 part response) Longtime beekeeper and beekeeping educator, officer of Southern Arizona Beekeepers Association. Have years of experience with docile European genetics honey bees in the Midwest and plenty of experience with Africanized honey bees in the Southwest – managed colonies and feral colonies, hundreds of swarm captures. To address kN*’s comments: You don’t mention where you live or where you have been around honey bees, but, if it was in central or southern AZ, then the bees you were around were with near 100% certainty “Killer Bees” (I will use the more scientifically appropriate term of Africanized Honey bees – the hybrid of European and African honey bees). You are correct that some stinging experiences at crags or at other places are from wasp species (such as yellowjacket wasps), which are also prevalent in the southwest and across the U.S., but honey bees are even more plentiful in the southwest, so chances are also high that a sting was from a honey bee. I would estimate that yellowjacket wasps are about as aggressive as Africanized honey bees in terms of it not taking much provocation at a nest site to move them into stinging/attacking mode, but yellowjacket wasps tend not to attack in near the numbers as Africanized honey bees and certainly won’t follow you far from their nest site. Still, wasp stings are about the same pain intensity as honey bee stings and wasps are more capable of stinging you multiple times, whereas honey bees almost always die after stinging a mammal due to their barbed stinger betting caught in your skin and the bee getting eviscerated when it stings. I also agree that it is a good idea to scan a crag area for flight paths of bees. If the light is right and the temps warm enough (above about 55 degrees Fahrenheit) there will be some continuous flight paths of foragers emanating from every established colony. If it is relatively cool, or the flight path doesn’t hit the light right it can be easy to miss a colony established in or near a crag. I am currently monitoring a feral colony at a climbing crag on Mt Lemmon and have put up warning signage there. Some days, when I stand at the cliff edge, with the colony about 15 feet below me I can see a clear flight path of bees. On other days (my last 2 visits), I could see nothing unless I moved around to a place underneath the colony, then it was rather obvious from that vantage point that the colony is healthy and sending out lots of foragers. Last year I climbed a route that was supposed to be near a known colony of honey bees. I didn’t see evidence of bees and climbed the route. Later, when looking more purposefully for the colony, I found possibly the largest feral colony I have ever seen with massive numbers of bees leaving on foraging flights, maybe 60 feet away from where I was climbing. If I had any notion that this big of a colony was that close I would never have climbed the route I did. So even someone attune to looking for and identifying established feral colonies can miss a dangerous scenario. It is still well worthwhile to look for exactly what you wrote about – a flight path of honey bees emanating from a rock wall, a tree, or near the top area of a crag and avoid climbing in the area if you see such. To address a couple of original posters comments about common scenarios they were stung: a) on descent, b) off-trail, c) In a wash, d) below 6k feet elevation, e) very little time gap between buzz and sting I will only comment that I can’t see why descent vs ascent would make a difference or being off-trail, (other than established colonies on trail are often identified and at least in managed parks are often cordoned off or trails are closed due to the colony). Being in a wash could bring you in more contact with bees or wasps. Washes often have rocky walls with void spaces, thus common place for such stinging insects to establish nest sites and they all have huge need water so they will actively forage for moisture in washes (though when foraging for water, nectar, or pollen honey bees, Africanized or European are exceptionally docile). Honey bees prefer not to travel too far to forage for water, whereas they will travel a long way for nectar (3 mile radius from colony) – so colonies due tend to choose nest sites within less than a quarter mile from a dependable water source. As far as altitude is concerned, Africanized honey bees do not survive well or tolerate colder temperatures where there are breaks in nectar availability, so they will not be as prevalent at high altitude, but I have seen honey bees foraging in southern Arizona up to 10,000 feet (likely Africanized honey bees) and have seen feral established colonies as high as 8,000 feet (likely Africanized). These colonies at higher elevation are less likely to survive winter, though with more European genetics may do quite well at this elevation (honey bees with docile European genetics are more adept at surviving significant breaks in nectar availability – they are better hoarders and store more honey for such purposes than Africanized honey bees. As far as quick time from buzz to sting, honey bees can easily fly at 15 mph, faster than you can run for any distance – that is 20+ feet per second, so by the time you hear the buzz, if they mean to sting you, you will have little chance to react. European genetics honey bees typically first investigate you and maybe bump you to move you away, but they also may be triggered to sting immediately if they have been adequately disturbed. Honey bees can recognized faces (not individuals, but facial structures of mammals), and face or head stings are quite common initial attack points. On the general topic of honey bees and rock climbing: First to discuss Africanized bees. In Arizona, anywhere from Phoenix and to the south, Africanized bees dominate the area over docile honey bees with European genetics, and essentially all feral colonies that you encounter are Africanized. This has been fairly well established by research and colony monitoring since the time Africanized honey bees moved into Arizona in the early 1990s. It actually takes labor intensive anal-retentive beekeeping management practices to try to maintain docile European honey bee genetics in colonies in this area. Some beekeepers do manage docile European honey bees in the area and Tucson is home to one of the largest USDA Bee Research facilities in the U.S. (Carl Hayden Bee Research Center) and they mainly research European genetics honey bees for agricultural purposes, so there are many research colonies around that are of pure European genetics. But, on the whole, you can pretty much be assured that any established colony you run into in the wild is Africanized and any honey bee you see foraging on the plants around town or in the rural expanse is Africanized. Africanized honey bee behavior is quite variable from not very aggressive to evil incarnate. This has to do with genetic mix as well as the age and the size of the colony (older bigger colonies tend to be more aggressive than young newly established colonies). A colony will also change behavior with queen turnover and as more aggressive genes are expressed depending on what sperm is being used to fertilize offspring in a colony (a queen mates once in her life with 10-25 drones and thus the resulting offspring behavior will depend on its dad’s gene contribution – one bee in a colony being docile due to docile dad, another being aggressive due to dad’s genetics – obviously the queens own genes contribute to behavior as well)). Africanized honey bee tend to reproductively swarm more often (approx. 2x/year) than European genetics docile honey bees (approx. 1x/year), thus any colony you run into in AZ will have likely have as many as 3 different queens within a single season (old queen always leaves with reproductive swarm, then they make a new queen for parent colony). Thus, the behavior of a single colony can have wild swings because the genetics are changing so often as well as the age and size of the colony. After a reproductive swarm the parent colony population is depleted and they will be docile for a while, but as new queen grows the colony and new genetics take over the colony can change from quite docile to horrifically aggressive. Anytime anyone say “oh that colony at such and such a crag are a bunch of puppy dogs” I would reply “just wait a couple weeks then stick your nose in there and you might be changing your mind … and your shorts!” One should treat any feral colony with serious caution even if their behavior was gentle last time you saw them. (to be continue on subsequent post) |
|
(continued Africanized honey bees) When you see a large cloud of honey bees in the air (and intimidating and loud event, cloud of bees often would fill the space of a large living room or bigger), it is almost without a doubt a reproductive swarm that is splitting off the parent colony (honey bees do not attack in from these type of large clouds of bees). There is no time in a colonies existence when they are more docile than when they are swarming. They have no home to protect, no resources to protect (nectar, honey, pollen, developing young), and they are simply moving to find a new home. This is a predictable 2 stage process. 1st the old queen and about half the colony move out all at once and then they land (bivouac) in a cluster or clump within 10 to 100 yards of the parent colony on a tree branch or some object and THEN they send scouts to start looking for a home (bees are poor planners). Within 2 hours to 3 days when they have decided on a new hive site, they then depart, all at once again, in a hurricane of loud bees and travel directly to their chosen home. During this period they are extremely docile. I have stood in the middle of such clouds of bees many times without protective gear on. I don’t advise doing so, because if a bee gets stuck in your hair or bumps into you by mistake or you hit one by mistake it will sting you. But Africanized or European, swarms are docile (this is why saying you were “swarmed” by bees is challenging terminology, because bees only swarm in this reproductive manner and are docile when doing so – they don’t attack in these type of large clouds – though Africanized honey bees do attack in great number when their established colony is disturbed or even if you get too close to an established colony. It is important to understand that when honey bees are foraging for water, pollen, or nectar they are extremely docile as well – Africanized or European – it doesn’t matter. They are not near their colony to protect, so they are simply too busy to bother with attacking you (unless you try to swat them or perturb them or sit on them etc). When you hike anywhere in southern Arizona you likely pass within feet of thousands of Africanized honey bees all day – likely brushing past 10,000 bees on a hike – and you won’t get stung. This is why I am uncertain why the original poster is getting stung with frequency. Unless you disturb an established hive or “nest” or are near a hive, honey bees rarely pay you any mind. Even if you are stung at a place where bees are foraging and not a nest site, the alarm pheromone they release is unlikely to elicit any response from other bees in the area to gang up on you. They aren’t in a guard mode when foraging and there aren’t enough bees in that concentrated area when foraging to respond to that alarm pheromone. Disturbing a colony is another thing entirely. If you disturb a European genetics colony with enough force some guard bees will come out and send a couple to check you out and maybe consider stinging you if you seem like a threat – maybe just bump you to send you a message. They will follow you for 10-20 yards to push you away from their territory. If you disturb an Africanized colony, you will be met with quite possibly hundreds of attacking bees or a near firehose of honey bees and they will follow you for easily up to a quarter of a mile and immediately try to sting you. This is where the alarm pheromone is problematic. Once you have been stung once a significant amount of alarm pheromone is released by that stinging bee and honey bees have an amazing ability to detect exactly where that pheromone was released and will hone in on that exact spot. When inspecting honey bee colonies, even fully garbed beekeepers first response to a bee sting is to use their smoker and waft smoke right on the sting site. That effectively masks the alarm pheromone and stops other bees from going into attack mode. If you don’t do that you will quickly have 6 more bees immediately descent on the prior sting site and they turn into stinging machines. European honey bees are a bit more lackadaisical about responding to alarm pheromone than Africanized honey bees, but they will still start getting interested in you more than you want them to and they may well try to do a little group sting at the initial site. Africanized honey bees are a serious threat to rock climbers in the southwest. Rocky crags provide good hive sites in void spaces or sometimes under overhangs as open air hives (significant minority of established colonies, they much prefer enclosed void spaces). As stated, honey bees can easily fly at 15 mph and thus it is hard to get away from them even if you were on flat open terrain and not tied into the rock surface with a climbing rope. It doesn’t take much to disturb an established colony. They respond quickly to vibrations in the area and if Africanized honey bees detect you within 50 feet of a colony they can start an aggressive response quickly. So, if you rope wanders on the route below you and bumps near an established colony things could get ugly fast. People and pets/animals are killed every year in the Tucson area and there have been climber deaths and serious attacks on climbers. You do not need to be allergic to honey bees to succumb to an attack. European honey bees rarely attack in great number, so massive envenomation deaths are unusual, but possible. Africanized honey bees often attack in great number and massive envenomation deaths do occur in non-allergic individuals. One of the most prominent entomologist with a specialty in venom research (who lives in the Tucson area) has put an estimate at 600 hundred stings as being a likely lethal dose for non-allergic adult humans. Some have survived more stings than that (notably a local Tucson climber who suffered some 1500 stings and miraculously survived after maybe a week in intensive care), but I am sure 300 stings or less could kill some individuals (or certainly children) and anything over 20 can be a very miserable experience. I have been tentative about recommending carrying protective gear when climbing or hiking because I think people need to first thing about getting away from any place where bees are getting aggressive or stinging you. To reiterate my recommendations from above post the NUMBER ONE PRIORITY is getting away from the area if bees sting you or are harassing you – move quickly and leave gear behind – you can pick it up later when bees are no longer disturbed (or if you are in Tucson area contact me and I will put on my protective bee gear and go get your stuff for you or loan it to you). Donning protective gear is second priority. Spraying bees is zero priority - wastes time & more likely to piss them off. I do think there is value in keeping a mosquito type veil handy and I keep one on my harness (Currently my favorite is Ben’s UltraNet Insect Head Net – the version with arm loops to hold the headnet down and secure it somewhat from bees getting underneath the netting, which they are very good at). The version I have weighs less than an ounce and I am oblivious to it – I keep it on the same biner that holds my chalk bag. It costs all of $12. But, if the headnet is in the bottom of your pack and you are getting stung it is not worth the 2 minutes you are going to spend trying to get it out of your pack if you have a clear path of retreat – just run away. These head nets are something to just buy you time and protect your eyes so you can proceed to get out of dodge – they are imperfect protection. Honey bees can sting right through such head netting, so you ideally will be wearing a brimmed had or helmet that will tent the netting away from your eyes. Anywhere the netting touches your skin you will be stung. Proper beekeeping veils typically have 2 layers of sturdy netting and are firmly tented away from all skin on the head and neck, but if you lean forward and your nose or chin touches this netting, they will still sting you and they are expert at finding skin. (to be continued when MP will let me post again) |
|
(part 3 of africanized honey bees) I also always wear a thin neck gator I can pull over my face, but I can see through the stretched fabric. I mostly wear the gator to protect my neck from the sun, but I am aware I might use it if attacked by bees. I also almost always wear light hoody shirt (again, sun protection) so with the hoody up & neck gator pulled up it will buy me time to get away. It is Poor protection, but again, buys time. If I was at the top of a hundred foot pitch and my belayer was getting attacked seriously I would connect to an anchor and tell my belayer to leave. The bees might well ignore me 100 feet away, or I might be screwed. I would be hesitant to pull up rope as bees might have accumulated on the rope and once I was stung the colony is more likely to find me, plus I wouldn’t exactly want to rappel into the problem area. But, I might wait 30 minutes and if bee activity seemed to be resolved I would likely try to rappel and run. It’s hard to try to figure out the answer to the multitude of scenarios you might run into. In the past approximately year and a half I have been on a climb 3 times when a reproductive swarm flew right past me. Twice I was belaying from the top of a pitch and once I was halfway up leading a second pitch. I have been amidst tens of thousands of honey bees when inspecting colonies pretty much every week for over 15 years, so it isn’t like I am mortified of honey bees. I have been around hundreds of reproductive swarms of honey bees and I find this one of the most fascinating nature experiences I ever get to witness. But, my initial reaction each of these times of hearing a loud freight train buzz of honey bees while climbing is 1) I hope that is a reproductive swarm I hear (not a problem) and simultaneously I am thinking 2) If just disturbed an established colony of honey bees I am utterly F***ed anchored into the top of a pitch with no quick escape. It has usually taken me or my wife just a few minutes to discern that it was a reproductive swarm and we both relax knowing that we are safe – that cloud of bees has no interest in us. In two instances the hurricane cloud of 10,000+ honey bees flew within feet of us and right in between us with my wife being belayed halfway up the pitch. In an instance just about 2 weeks ago I yelled SWARM OF BEES to my wife belaying me up a second pitch and she was prepared to lower me since I had just reached a bolt and she heard the bees at the same time. The cloud of bees flew 30-50 feet above and then past us. Even to an experienced beekeeper, discerning between a disturbed established colony (really bad thing) and a reproductive swarm (no problem at all) is not immediately obvious. You will typically hear them before you see them and there is little sound difference between a reproductive swarm and a large scale attack of hundreds of honey bees. My conclusion is that Africanized honey bees dominate the honey bee population in the southwest and because of their unpredictable and ever changing behavior all established honey bee colonies should be treated with the utmost of caution and I would recommend keeping a serious distance from any feral colonies in the southwest. People will likely respond with many stories of simply climbing around some colony in a rock void space and they were never stung or even pestered. That is certainly one possibility. I walk past hundreds of managed colonies without gear on and as long as I am aware of avoiding flight paths I am relatively safe. Given the ever changing genetic characteristics of an established colony of honey bees it can be extremely dangerous to get so close to a colony of honey bees when you have little opportunity for a quick exit. If I am going to manage/inspect a known Africanized colony at someone’s bee yard I typically suit up at least 20 yards away from the colony, sometimes much further away if there are multiple Africanized colonies in a bee yard. I think I have posted this video before, but I have a 2 minute video of an Africanized colony that I was helping a beekeeping friend “rehabilitate” (introduce a docile European genetics queen to turn around the aggressive behavior of the colony). We barely had the colony lid removed for a minute before we were so overwhelmed with bees that it was useless to try to proceed with the operation. Even though we have full beekeeping grade protective gear on, my friend was stung some 20 times when they found access to his leg by going down his boot and up his pant leg. Older guy, I was seriously worried about his health even though he has been stung likely thousands of times in his beekeeping career. Turn the volume up and think about being at a crag with no protective gear on. This is not unusual aggressive behavior for Africanized colonies: |
|
Wow, thank you for the detailed explination, much appreciated! |
|
Peter Underwood, thank you for a fascinating tutorial! When I hike (where there are plenty of mountain lion), I usually carry bear spray with me on a sling. Hypothetically, If one were to get attacked by Africanized bees, and you sprayed a cloud of bear spray around you (it's awful stuff, but if you're going to otherwise die...), do you think this would have a confusing effect on the attacking bees? Would it stop them/kill them? |
Peter Underwood wrote: Yep. I've been engulfed in huge clouds of bees twice. Once out by Saddle Rocks in Josh. Two of us were just standing around when suddenly we were in a cloud of bees moving through. I was terrified until I realized they weren't there to attack us. Watching the cloud move away across the desert after passing over and around us was surreal. On another occasion a GF and were hanging together at the belay at the start of Upper Royal's arch on Taqhuitz, We heard this buzzing sound and the cloud of bees came up from below us, completely surrounded us as they passed on up and left us hanging there. That was intense. Years ago two guys were up at the Negropolis in Josh. They got attacked by Africanized bees, Bones were broken as they fled down through the boulders and scree to escape. Yikes. |
|
good job |
phylp phylp wrote: Phylp, I have no idea what effect capsaicin type bear sprays would have on bees. Pretty sure it hasn't been studied. That being said, I think the last thing you would want to do when being stung by bees is to further compromise your airway and your eyesight by spraying bear spray "around you". It may disrupt some of the recognition of alarm pheromone bees release much like a bee smoker does, but attacking bees use other means to find you besides pheromones (vibration, vision, etc - honey bees have unbelievable motion vision with their 5 eyes) and if you are near a colony or being attacked by a large group of bees they would likely wait till that cloud of bear spray dissipates and then attack again. Much like the erroneous notion of jumping into water when being attacked by bees. They will simply wait for you to come up for air and then you are in double trouble (someone died just recently I believe in Tucson area jumping into water when being attacked). Some beekeepers use spices such as red pepper or cinnamon to temporarily deter ants from overwhelming a honey bee colony - a very hit or miss approach to deterring another insect that relies on pheromones to follow a path - but, honey bees don't seem to be particularly deterred by red pepper or cinnamon poured around a hive - they walk right over it, so I don't think capsaicin bear spray (red pepper derivative) would dramatically kill bees and stop an attack. Now, if I was running away from chasing bees and had bear spray on my backpack would I possibly send a blast back in direction I was running away from to deter some bees - maybe. But distance from colony is your biggest goal if being attacked, so keeping moving at all cost is the primary objective and if it would slow me down a second to spray the bear spray it isn't worth it. |
SinRopa wrote: SinRopa, better put Southern California (anywhere say Los Angeles or south of there), Southern New Mexico, most all of Texas, a good chunk of Oklahoma, some of southern Nevada, and parts of Louisiana and southern Florida on your strike off list too. Africanized honey bees well ensconced in these areas as well. Geographical barriers and climate will likely deter or significantly slow their expansion to other areas of the country though. We do have some wonderful rock here in AZ and I don't mean to be alarmist as you could climb on Mt Lemmon or Cochise or other areas around here for a lifetime and never be bothered by africanized honey bees. I might have made the post just to keep crowds down at our local crags still, just something to be aware of when out in these beautiful areas and to take seriously if the situation did arise. In other temperate areas of the country you need to carry a big puffy jacket all the time to ward off dying of cold exposure - down here you could just consider replacing your big puffy with a tiny <1oz headnet of entirely imperfect protection from low risk exposure of an attack of Africanized honey bees. I am fond of the beekeepers meme/t-shirt "I am a Beekeeper, ... if you see me running, try to keep up!" |
|
Tons of great information @Peter Underwood, thank you for taking the time to write it all up and share. |
