America depends on gentle, manageable honey bees for agriculture and food production. Killer bees are honey bees—but not all honey bees are killer bees. Highly defensive Africanized “killer bees” are an invasive form of honey bee that is breeding with and changing the honey-bee population we depend on. They attack people and animals, reproduce rapidly, and are spreading through the Americas.
This is no longer somebody else’s problem. It is already ours.
A short introduction to the problem, the evidence, why honey bees matter, and why Honey Bee Awareness believes the time to act is now.
Content Warning: This video contains approximately 10 seconds of disturbing audio from an actual bee attack in progress, beginning at approximately 2:40.
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Follow the Honey Bee Awareness video series from the beginning, or continue with the part that interests you most.
Highly defensive colonies are the problem—not honey bees themselves. Honey Bee Awareness supports the gentle, productive, manageable honey bees that beekeepers, agriculture, and communities depend on.
See real class footage, the bees we are working to preserve, and The Bee Place research commitment of up to 150 hives for properly designed scientific study.
See What We Mean by Save the Right Bees →They are already attacking people and animals. Their colonies reproduce, their offspring reproduce again, and unmanaged genetics continue entering the surrounding honey-bee population.
Based on the published national rate of about 162,080 per year, the cumulative burden is now estimated at 4.05 million bee-related U.S. emergency-room visits from 2001 through 2025. A later national study covering 2011–2015 estimated 1.17 million noncanine bite-and-sting ER visits per year, with insects accounting for 71%. The newer figure is broader than bees and is not an Africanized-bee-only count. International records add another major layer across the Americas.
The real scale is much larger than our incident database alone can show.
Agriculture requires large-scale movement of honey bees for pollination. That movement can also transport genetics far beyond the regions where Africanized bees first became established. Canada already treats Africanized honey-bee genetics from the United States as an import risk.
Public safety is only part of the cost. Highly defensive genetics can affect queen replacement, worker safety, apiary placement, liability, bee production, honey production, commercial pollination, and the breeders working to preserve dependable, manageable stock.
Scientists have already studied Africanized-bee behavior, breeding, genetics, and population change. Modern breeding, genomics, and DNA-based research tools give scientists better ways to identify, measure, select, and track inherited traits than previous generations had. We do not have to start from scratch — we have to coordinate the effort.
The next step is to bring the right people together: researchers, commercial beekeepers, queen breeders, emergency managers, agricultural leaders, public-safety professionals, and agencies with the data and resources to help solve the problem.
Highly defensive colonies continue to reproduce, honey bees continue moving across the continent, and serious incidents continue to affect people and animals.
The problem does not stand still while we study it.
A home. A work site. A pasture. A school. A neighborhood.
Recognizing the risk earlier can prevent injuries and save lives.
Save the RIGHT Bees.
Keep the honey bees. Remove the danger.
Honey Bee Awareness is building public-safety education, research, incident documentation, and outreach around a problem already affecting people, animals, beekeeping, and agriculture.