‘Killer Bee’ Swarm Detected Near Georgia, Triggering Concerns

A small county in Georgia may be facing a “killer bee” invasion.

The Africanized bee is the common honeybee’s aggressive, lethal cousin. They look just like honeybees, but this hybrid between European and African honeybees is infamous among beekeepers for ganging up and attacking intruders—bee or human—earning them the nickname “killer bee.”

Africanized bees arrived on U.S. soil in the 1990s and have since been spotted across parts of the southern U.S. But this latest sighting of so-called killer bees in Barbour County, Alabama, suggests they’re spreading north to Georgia’s Quitman County, a rural location about 200 miles (322 kilometers) away from Atlanta, Georgia’s capital city. 

“If established, Africanized bees represent a direct threat to Georgia agriculture and their aggressive behavior makes them a threat to public health,” wrote Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper in a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). There is no need for Georgians to be concerned as of now, Harper added, although local beekeepers are encouraged to report any overly aggressive colonies.

“All beekeepers who are educated at all know that when you have aggressive bees, you need to get rid of them,” Julia Mahood, president of the Georgia Beekeepers Association, told the same publication. The bees are indeed bad news, but they’re less of a threat today than they were before, she added.

Alabamian officials stated that the appearance of Africanized bees in Barbour County is likely an isolated event from the state’s own sightings of the aggressive invaders. Philip Carter, Alabama’s apiary inspector, told the AJC that the state is currently working with local beekeepers to confirm that the Africanized genes are not persisting among the local honeybee population.

That said, Africanized bees have been known to deliver enough stings to kill a human. In 2010, they stung a Georgia man to death, and the Smithsonian estimates around 1,000 people have died from the killer bees since the 1950s. Recently, a swarm of Asian hornets injured 24 people in the French town of Aurillac, although fortunately everyone recovered.

The best advice experts have to avoid bee attacks is to simply stay away. “Just be respectful when you see a bee,” Mahood said, “and chances are you’ll be fine.”