Cape Town, South Africa, found 63 penguins mysteriously dead, after examination, found that they did not have trauma, but covered with the scars of being stung by the cape bees, the ground is also full of dead bees, the cause of death is obvious, related to the cape bees, and later autopsy results also confirmed that they were indeed bitten by bees.
South African penguin is a penguin that lives only in Africa, the scientific name is called the spotted ring penguin, some people may ask, penguin fur is so thick, stay in Africa is not to die of heat, in fact, this penguin is distributed in the southernmost part of Africa, here is the temperate climate, and there is a cold current nearby Benguela, so the average temperature is not high, the maximum temperature throughout the year is only about 26 degrees Celsius.
The appearance of penguins in South Africa being bitten to death by bees, which had never been reported in the news before, shows that this is a very rare thing. The protagonist of this incident is the Cape Bee, the average person may not have much impression of this, we may be more familiar with the "African Killer Bee", but if it appears in front of the Cape Bee, it will be powerless.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="30" > Why is it said that the "African Killer Bee" is not in Africa? </h1>
There are generally two kinds of bees in Africa, the East African honey bee and the cape honey bee, and the East African honey bee is not only in East Africa, it is distributed in east, central and southern Africa, and due to human factors, it has spread to South America.
After combining with the local bees here, the famous hybrid offspring, the killer bee, was born. The killer bee inherited the ferocity of African bees and the toxicity of local bees, so it obtained the title of "African killer bee", which does not mean that it is distributed in Africa.
The cape bees are mainly distributed in the southwest region of South Africa, due to geographical reasons, the two are basically isolated from each other, no one can see anyone, no one affects each other.
In addition to the fact that the belly of the cape bee is darker than that of the East African honeybee, the two are very similar and can only be distinguished by genetic testing, but the action of the cape bee exposes it.
Cape bees are more docile than they are, east African bees are provoked and will drive out intruders for hundreds of meters, while cape bees will escape. But why can the seemingly harmless Cape bees easily wipe out East African bee colonies?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="29" >2. </h1>
In 1977, the cape honeybee was known as having a narrow distribution area and a small population of only 20,000 populations. In contrast, East African bees have a wide distribution area and a fierce temperament. Cape bees look like vulnerable groups, so some scholars have proposed that a sanctuary for cape bees should be established so that they are not afraid of East African honey bees. But the next disaster made people completely dispel this idea, but in turn hunted down the cape bees.
In the 90s of the last century, beekeepers in northern South Africa transported East African bees to the cape area for pollination, and then transported back to the north, the result of the local bee colony mixed with cape bees, unexpected things happened, after the local bee colony was invaded, the first queen bee mysteriously disappeared, followed by the worker bees did not work much, and soon, the entire bee colony went to extinction.
In the next two years, more than 60,000 boxes of bee colonies were destroyed, and at that time, there were only about 70,000 boxes of bee colonies in South Africa, and it can be said that the entire South African beekeeping industry was on the verge of collapse by Cape bees.
South Africa then took coercive measures to have beekeepers discover that colonies were infected by cape bees and must be destroyed within 72 hours.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="28" >3. From protecting objects to exterminating objects, what did cape bees do to East African bees? </h1>
The structure of the normal colony is mainly the queen bee (female) and the worker bee, and the worker bee is also female, but its ovaries are highly sterile because the queen secretes a pheromone, which inhibits the ovarian development of the worker bee. On weekdays, the queen bee eats, drinks, lays eggs, and the worker bees seek honey, repair the nest, "take the child", and live a "harmonious and beautiful" life.
When the cape bee invades the local bee colony, the local queen bee pheromone does not work on it, which makes the horn bee worker bee ovaries begin to develop, and finally give birth to a new female, while also releasing new chemical odors, disturbing the original "jiangshan" of the queen bee.
Sometimes local worker bees will drag the "old queen" out of the nest under the influence of this smell, and the cape worker bee that releases these odors may become the new queen, but if so, it would be good.
In fact, many cape worker bees have produced their own offspring, and these offspring have "embraced" their own mother as the king, inside the hive, the descendants of the same cape worker bee gathered together, the entire nest is divided into smaller subgroups, and what is more amazing is that the subgroup will continue to split, so that the entire hive will be "leaderless".
Some people think that as long as it does not affect honey production, what about splitting? In fact, there are 2 factors that lead to the extinction of the hive.
The first point is that the queen bee does not work, as the number of queen bees increases, the consumption of honey increases, the number of working bees decreases, and the "food reserve" will decrease at a faster rate.
The second point is to miss the flower season. Because the climate of the Cape region is different from the rest of South Africa, this also creates a unique habit of the Cape Bee, the cape flowering season is from June to August, and the Cape bees are also accustomed to collecting honey in this season, but the flowering season in other parts of South Africa is from October to February of the following year.
Therefore, after the cape bee dove occupies the magpie's nest, it will miss the local flower season, and finally there will be no honey to collect, and the entire bee colony will eventually starve to death, and only a small number will flee to the nearby bee colony and repeat this terrible process. It can be said that if it infects the bee colony of other countries, the fate is the same.
This contagious nature eventually threatened the entire South African beekeeping industry.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="25" >4</h1>
Because the cape bees were originally isolated from the East African bees because of geographical isolation such as mountains, they lived a "non-interfering" life, but humans have changed this, breaking the geographical isolation between them, causing this biological invasion phenomenon, making the local original species unable to survive, and making the South African beekeeping industry have catastrophic consequences.
This also enlightens us that we should not introduce alien species to the country at will, and we must not release them at will, after all, ecology is a link, once there is an accident, I am afraid that no one can bear the consequences.