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Africanized Honeybee

Scientific Name

Apis mellifera scutellata Lepeletier (Ellis and Ellis 2008; Sheppard and Smith 2000)

Common Name

Africanized honeybee, African honey bee (AHB), killer bee

Native To

Originally from Africa; first hybridized in South America (Kono and Kohn 2015)

Date of U.S. Introduction

First found in Texas in 1990 (Kono and Kohn 2015)

Means of Introduction

Imported to South America for honey production, where they escaped containment and hybridized with European honey bees (Kono and Kohn 2015)

Impact

More aggressive than European honeybees; negative impact on honey production industry (Kono and Kohn 2015)

Africanized honey bee
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Adult of the African strain of the honey bee seen at the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater

Credit

Photo by Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University

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Selected Resources

The section below contains highly relevant resources for this species, organized by source.

Council or Task Force
Partnership
Federal Government
State and Local Government
Academic
Professional
Citations