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Comment by apalmer | Hacker News Reader

I like the ingenuity of it, seems pretty counter intuitive though. I mean keeping the elephants away by bring swarms of african killer bees into close proximity with humans... not sure if the trade off is worth it. There is a reason elephants are afraid of them.

That being said I am sure the farmers understand the risks more than I do, if they are down with it seems like a good solution

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"Killer" is a misnomer -- in the beekeeping community, for obvious reasons, they prefer the term "africanized". And it is likely that these bees, being in Africa, are or will very soon be africanized.

But it is still possible to safely and enjoyably keep and tend Africanized bees -- you just require some extra precautions, like smoking the hell out of them when you're working the hive, and leaving your protective gear on even after you're far from the hive.

A friend of mine did beekeeping in Paraguay through the Peace Corps (the last country featuring a Peace Corps beekeeping program), and said bees would still be ramming his face veil, even after walking several kilometers away from the hive.

That was, however, after he had been working them for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Generally bees don't bother you if you're not bothering them. And if they do, you might just wear a veil when harvesting the crops closest to the fence.

I understand that 'killer' is a misnomer, in fact i debated the use of the term but in the end chose to use it precisely because a lot of the posters in this thread don't seem to be aware that (most?) common african bee variant is what we generally refer to as the killer bee.

To go from occasionally having an interaction with Elephants, to everyday working your field in close proximity to highly aggressive bees that relatively commonly swarm intruders.. is not a guaranteed win. I don't know enough to evaluate the trade off and I said as much.

I have kept bees in West Africa. In my experience, African bees are a bit more defensive than European bees but they are by no means "killer" bees.

Certainly, there is no more risk (from the bees, anyway) to maintaining a bee hive in Africa than one in the US. In fact, I am frequently amazed at how much less protective gear African bee keepers use.

Also, I find that hive bees tend to be generally less aggressive than their wild cousins and can co-exist just fine with people. It is not at all uncommon for hives to be situated on farms or near houses.

"Killer" bees are africanized. That is, they are european/african crossbreeds. These are simply african bees. Much safer.

thanks for the clarification

Who says they are killer bees?!

Occasionally suffer a relatively harmless sting from a bee versus have elephants destroy your livelihood... doesn't really seem like a difficult choice to me.

These are african bees, what we in america refer to as 'killer' bees. These bees are highly agressive and are much more likely to swarm a perceived threat, and once swarming will not stop stinging the preceived threat for potentially hours.

Elephants which are more than 10 times as big as a person with a much thicker hide are not 'paranoid' of bees. Their fear is well justified.

Just because the bee is in Africa doesn't make it a 'killer' bee.

No. 'Killer' bees are africanized European honeybees. These are just plain old African honeybees.

Yes, I remember the hype around "killer" bees coming to the US. Then the hype went away, even though the bees didn't. I think the threat is vastly overstated.

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