In this day of age, with colony collapse disorder, wiping out bees left right and center, nobody should be killing bees. In fact it is against the law to kill bees in San Diego, unless they are a danger. But it does not take much for San Deigo county to deem bees a danger. Almost any colony in any water box or public place is deemed a danger in San diego county. They just hire an exterminator to come in and kill them. Bee extractions are not that hard or dangerous , it would cost about the same price to hire a bee removal service as in would an exterminator.
Here is the catch.
Almost all wild bees in San Diego are Africanized to some extent. Because of Government red tape, and a sue crazy society, the powers that bee, will not allow anyone to take and re queen a africanized hive.
The Irony
By killing and not re housing killer bees , the killer bee problem is only getting worse. Thus the danger of killer bee attacks multiplies because of this san diego county policy.
If every time they found a colony, they allowed someone like sandiegobee.com remove and re queen them. The ratio of killer bees to domestic bees would be shifted in favor of the domestic bee.
The only real answer to the killer bee problem is to out breed them. If there were not so many stringent laws on keeping bees. and lots of people were allowed to keep bees in their back yard. The killer bee problem would disappear and San Diego County would have a large bee population to help combat Colony collapse disorder.
I also maintain that pesticide resistant stock of bee Genes needed to fight the onslaught of chemicals forced on us by bayer and Monsanto has been killed over and over again by San Diego county. A blend of tough killer bee, and domestic bee can do it. I see it all the time. Domestic bees are too inbred to survive this chemical onslaught. Killer bees are too mean to be bred and kept. But there is a blend of killer bee and Domestic bee that is hardy and not aggressive.
I own of of these colonies, I found it in an SDG&E box, it is tame and tough, I’d say 25% killer bee and 75% domestic bee. It is super tame, and super tough. Until we can get the big chemical companies to stop using systemic pesticides, we should be breeding theses colonies left right and center, not killing them every time we find them.
Killer bees can’t live in the cold. San Diego is right on the edge of their furthest northerly expansion. We have the unique environment to allow some killer bee stock into the genetic line of honey bees, But we are too far north to be overrun by them. These rare strains of bees should be saved and bred to fight Colony collapse disorder, not killed every time they are encountered.
Save the bees
James McDonald