Published: August 12, 2008 04:48 pm         

Killer bees? Not yet

Test shows bees found in Stillwater not Africanized

It turns out “killer bees” have not been discovered in Payne County.

Dr. Rick Grantham of the Oklahoma State University entomology department said he received word in July the sample he sent to the USDA-Agricultural Research Service’s Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Ariz., came back as non-Africanized honey bees.

That was after the research center’s initial tests showed an 89 percent chance they were Africanized.

The sample came from a large, defensive colony discovered in a tree in the backyard of Stillwater residents Tom and Rhonda Houston, 35 Liberty Circle.

Chris Townsley of the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry took a sample and destroyed the rest. He sent it to Grantham, who found DNA consistent with Africanized honey bees. Then they were tested in Arizona for their wing size, with the results indicating an Africanized sample.

Despite that evidence pointing toward the sample coming from Africanized bees, the most rigorous tests told a different story.

Grantham said European honeybees have cross-bred with Africanized bees to the point it is nearly impossible to determine what counts as European versus Africanized.

“There is a researcher out there who has identified some unique proteins in the Africanized honeybee,” Grantham said. “Once you do that, you can do an antibody test. He is looking for financial backing to go the rest of the way with the test.”

Grantham said that test involves grinding up the bees and dipping a stick into the sample and seeing if the antibodies present react to the stick, causing a color change.

Unless that test becomes perfected, it may continue to be guesswork on the categorization of honey bees.

But Grantham said he is confident his sample had an African queen ancestor because his DNA tests showed the presence of Africanized DNA.

“We just call them hybrids,” Grantham said. “They can freely interbreed and do all the time. Every time they do, it dilutes. … Their aggressiveness or defensiveness may be bred down by some.”ꆱ

     

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