Africanized Honey Bees Identification Guide

Africanized Honey Bee Identification Guide

Africanized honey bees are a cross between two kinds of honey bee. One parent is the African honey bee (Apis mellifera scutellata). The other is the European honey bee that beekeepers here have kept for centuries. The cross escaped from a research yard in Brazil in 1957. It spread north through Central America and Mexico. It reached southern Texas in 1990.

They are not established in Virginia, Maryland, or Washington, DC. Their spread stopped in the southern states. Mild winters there let a colony feed most of the year. Do you live in the Mid-Atlantic and see a fuzzy golden bee with dark bands? That is almost always a European honey bee. It is the same species, just without the African genes.

Physical Characteristics

• Size: workers are about 10 to 15 mm long, or 3/8 to 5/8 inch. Africanized workers run a little smaller on average. The sizes overlap too much to tell them apart this way.
• Color: golden to brown, with darker bands across the abdomen.
• Body: a fuzzy thorax, two pairs of clear veined wings, bent antennae, and pollen baskets on the back legs.
• Stinger: barbed, like any honey bee, so the bee dies after it stings. The venom is no stronger than European honey bee venom. The difference is how many bees sting at once.

You cannot identify an Africanized bee by sight. Labs confirm them with wing measurements or DNA tests. What people notice instead is behavior.

Behavior Clues

• Many guard bees patrolling the nest entrance
• Bees reacting to a mower, a dark shirt, or a vibration from many feet away
• Dozens or hundreds of defenders at once instead of a few
• Bees that chase a person several hundred yards from the nest
• Nests in small or open spots: water meter boxes, tires, grills, old appliances, and bare branches

Common Species and Look-Alikes

Every honey bee in North America is Apis mellifera. The word “Africanized” points to ancestry inside that one species. It is not a separate insect. Beekeepers also keep the Italian honey bee (Apis mellifera ligustica) and the Carniolan honey bee (Apis mellifera carnica). Both are known for being calm.

Here is what people often mistake for an Africanized honey bee:

• Honey bees: European stock. They look identical and stay calm near the hive. This is what homeowners in the DMV see.
• Bumble bees: rounder and much furrier, with patches of black and yellow hair. They nest in the ground in small yearly colonies.
• Carpenter bees: large, with a shiny black abdomen and no hair on it. Males hover near eaves but cannot sting. They bore round holes in wood instead of building comb.
• Yellowjackets: smooth, bright yellow and black, with a narrow waist. They get pushy around food and trash in late summer. A “swarm of bees that keeps stinging” in Virginia is usually yellowjackets.
• European hornets: much larger, brown and yellow, and active at night near lights.

Africanized Honey Bee Behavior and Biology

Colony Structure

A colony has one queen that lays the eggs. It also has thousands of female workers and, in season, a few hundred male drones. Workers raise the young, build comb, gather food, and guard the nest. A grown colony often holds 20,000 to 60,000 bees. Africanized colonies are often smaller. There are simply more of them, because they split so often.

Habitat and Nesting

Honey bees nest in hollow spaces and build sheets of wax comb inside. European colonies like a big sheltered space, such as a hollow tree, a soffit, or a wall void. Africanized colonies are much less picky. They will move into a space the size of a bucket. That includes meter boxes, valve boxes, tipped-over flowerpots, and holes in the ground. They will also build comb out in the open on a branch. European colonies rarely do that.

Diet

Adults gather nectar for energy and pollen for protein. They also haul water back to cool the nest and to thin stored honey. The young are fed stored pollen and honey.

Life Cycle

Eggs hatch into legless larvae. Nurse bees feed them, and then the larvae pupate in capped cells. A worker takes about 19 to 21 days from egg to adult. A queen takes about 16 days and a drone about 24 days. Africanized workers develop on the fast end of that range. That is one reason their colonies build up and split so quickly.

Swarming and Leaving the Nest

All honey bees swarm to reproduce. The old queen leaves with part of the workforce. The group clusters on a branch while scout bees look for a new home. Africanized colonies swarm several times a year instead of once. They also abscond. That means they leave a nest outright when food runs short or the spot is disturbed. Both habits sped up their spread through the Americas.

A resting swarm has no comb and no young to defend, so it is usually calm. A settled colony with brood inside is a different story.

How We Treat for Africanized Honey Bees

We do not treat honey bees of any kind, Africanized or European. Honey bees are protected pollinators. Killing a colony inside a wall also leaves the comb and honey behind. That mess seeps, stains, and draws ants, wax moths, and rodents.

Here is what happens instead:

• Identification first. If you are in our Northern Virginia, Maryland, or DC service area and you are not sure what you have, send us a photo or have us look during an inspection. Most “bee” calls in the DMV turn out to be yellowjackets, paper wasps, bald-faced hornets, or carpenter bees. Those we do treat.
• A referral for honey bees. When the nest really is honey bees, we point you to a local beekeeper or a live-removal specialist. They open the cavity, take out the comb and the colony, and move it. Many beekeepers collect swarms at no charge.
• Stinging insects we do handle. For yellowjackets and hornets, we find the nest and treat it with an EPA-registered residual or dust. Nests in wall voids get dust and foam. A nest we cannot find cannot be treated. For carpenter bees, we treat the tunnels and seal the holes. This work is part of our recurring pest control plans. Those plans include unlimited free callbacks between visits.
• Prevention. Seal gaps in soffits, fascia, siding, chimneys, and vent screens before spring. Cap open meter and valve boxes. Clear out stored tires, empty pots, and old appliances that make a ready cavity.

In states where these bees live, work on a defensive colony is a job for a licensed applicator in full gear. People and pets should stay well back until the job is done.

If bees live in a wall and someone in the home reacts badly to stings, call a removal specialist that day. Do not plug the entrance yourself. Blocked bees push into the house through outlets and light fixtures.

This page is general information, not medical advice. Talk to a doctor about any sting reaction.

References and Additional Reading

• Africanized Honeybee, National Invasive Species Information Center (USDA)
• USDA Map of Africanized Honey Bee Spread, USDA Agricultural Research Service
• Bee and Wasp Stings, University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources
• Prevention and Treatment of Nuisance Honey Bees Around Your Home, Mississippi State University Extension
• Honey Bees, University of Maryland Extension
• Protecting Pollinators, US EPA