Honey Bee Awareness Public Safety Brief
Saving the right bees while reducing public-safety risk from dangerously defensive honey bee behavior.
Honey Bee Awareness was created after a serious honey bee attack on April 9, 2026, that hospitalized Tammy Rankin and resulted in the loss of three beloved dogs: Summer, Bunny, and Wingnut.
What began as a family tragedy has become a public-safety, education, incident-documentation, and research effort focused on one larger question:
How do we protect people, animals, workers, responders, agriculture, and responsible beekeeping while preserving the gentle, productive, manageable honey bees worth saving?
The Core Concern
Highly defensive Africanized or Africanized-influenced honey bee colonies can become a serious public-safety issue when they establish near homes, schools, farms, ranches, work sites, roads, parks, livestock, pets, or emergency scenes.
This is not about being anti-bee. Honey Bee Awareness supports responsible beekeeping, commercial pollination, queen improvement, and the preservation of gentle, productive, manageable honey bees.
The concern is what happens when highly defensive genetics continue to reproduce unmanaged, influence local mating areas, swarm (reproduce) and migrate into populated spaces, and become accepted as normal.
Why This Matters Now
Other regions of the Americas, south of our border, already live with widespread Africanized honey bee genetics. In some places, beekeeping, public awareness, colony placement, safety practices, and removal methods have changed because highly defensive bees became part of everyday life.
The question Honey Bee Awareness is raising is whether parts of the United States still have a window of opportunity to avoid drifting farther in that direction.
We do not know how large that window is. But we believe it should not be wasted.
What Honey Bee Awareness Is Building
Public Safety Education
Plain-language guidance for families, outdoor workers, animal owners, responders, and communities.
Incident Documentation
A growing record of serious honey bee incidents involving people, animals, workers, responders, and public spaces.
Responsible Beekeeping Awareness
Education about the difference between normal colony defense and dangerous behavior that should not be treated as acceptable.
Veterinary and Animal Impact
A stronger focus on bee-related injuries and deaths involving pets, horses, livestock, and working animals.
Research Pathways
A way to connect field experience with credible questions about temperament, genetics, mating, swarming, and long-term management.
Collaboration
Connecting beekeepers, Extension, emergency management, veterinarians, agriculture, researchers, and public officials.
Working Objective
A Practical Field Platform for Research
The Bee Place operates commercially in South Texas and is prepared to provide a real-world field platform for properly designed research or structured observation.
Depending on the study design, this could include approximately 72 colonies in one designated bee yard, up to 144 colonies across two yards, or smaller groups divided among separate yards if needed.
Bees, locations, equipment, and normal colony-management support can be made available. What is needed is the right scientific design, institutional structure, funding, and oversight so any work is done responsibly.
Invite Honey Bee Awareness to Speak
Honey Bee Awareness is building a small team of people who can help carry this message to beekeeper associations, animal and veterinary groups, emergency responders, public officials, agricultural organizations, civic groups, and the public.
Organizations may request a guest speaker for a meeting, conference, training program, or public-safety event. Speaker availability and the best person for the audience will depend on the location, subject, and format.
Use our Contact Us form and select Presentation or speaking request from the topic list.
Who We Hope to Connect With
Researchers
To help frame valid questions about temperament, genetics, mating, swarming, and long-term management.
Extension and Beekeeper Educators
To improve public and beekeeper understanding without creating fear or anti-bee messaging.
Emergency Managers and Responders
To strengthen practical awareness of bee-related public-safety incidents and response challenges.
Veterinarians and Animal-Care Professionals
To help document and understand the undercounted animal side of serious bee attacks.
Agriculture and Pollination Leaders
To protect pollination while recognizing the need for manageable genetics and public trust.
Responsible Queen Producers and Beekeepers
To support the message that productive bees do not have to be dangerous bees.
This network is intentionally open-ended. If your profession, organization, or community can contribute, there is room in the honeycomb.
Contact Honey Bee AwarenessWhere to Start
Honey bees matter. Pollination matters. Agriculture matters. Responsible beekeeping matters.
But public safety matters too.
Honey Bee Awareness exists to help connect the pieces before more families, animals, workers, responders, and communities are forced to learn this lesson through tragedy.