Speaking of "killer bees", everyone should be familiar with this legend since childhood. African wild bees escaped from the laboratory to cross with European bees, and then spread from Brazil to North America, sending out thousands of animals at every turn, almost taking away a life... However, the "killer bee", which is itself a legendary name, should be given different species in different regions, and different legends have been composed.
The most famous "hybrid killer bee" is actually just a more aggressive bee. There are 9 species of apis, and the western bee (Apis mellifera) and the eastern bee (Apis cerana) are the main economic insects that are domesticated and farmed by people. After brazil introduced western honey bees, they found that they were not well adapted to the climate of the rainforest, so they thought of the African bee in the equatorial tropics, which is actually only a subspecies of western bees. But because the African savannahs are full of dangers and the competition for survival is fierce, in the long natural selection, it becomes more rapid and efficient, and the counterattack against the enemy who invades the territory is also more rapid. In contrast, Western bees have undergone a long period of captivity, are docile in nature, and produce higher quality honey. If the advantages of the two can be complemented, it is naturally the best choice. However, after hybridization, scientists have not had time to gradually obtain the target traits in successive generations, and there are under-bred hybrid offspring that have entered the natural environment, causing genetic pollution.
So in the end, this "killer bee" is actually a Kind of Western Bee, but it is "Africanized" and has a more ferocious personality. Hybrid bees also die after each sting, relying on the number of them to attack in groups to kill enemies. Americans who are accustomed to seeing the docile Western bees suddenly encounter hybrid bees with African bee neuroticism, just like the primitive people who drank blood and entered modern society, which is naturally incompatible, and inevitably causes bloody conflicts. However, after hybridization, the original ferocious traits of African bees are still being gradually neutralized, and the survival pressure in the Americas is no better than that of Africa, so the power of this hybrid bee may be no better than that of the original African bees. The legend of the "Killer Bee" did not last long, but it was repeatedly rendered as very dangerous.
The Africanized "killer bee" and the Italian bee, both of which are Western bees
In fact, if you want to talk about dangerous bees, China, as the country with the largest number of bees, also has bees that are not convinced. A group of bees commonly known as "expulsion bees" live in southwest China. The row of bees includes two kinds of large bees (Apis dorsata) and black bees (Apis laboriosa), the former in the southwest mountain forests such as Guangxi, and the latter living on the cliffs of the Himalayas, and are the most hardy and high-altitude bees. The most special thing about row bees is that they do not live in caves and hives like Western bees and Eastern bees, but hang their nests bare on rock walls and plants, and worker bees are also hung neatly on the hives in rows. However, this also makes their survival more stressful, and they themselves face various biological and environmental threats in the rainforest, which are exacerbated by naked hives and worker bees. In order to overcome environmental resistance, the big bees have become extremely efficient, united and fierce, so it is very difficult to tame, and the quality of honey discharged from domestic bees is much higher than that of domestic bees.
The big bee was once known as the most aggressive bee on earth, and the big bee fought back much more violently than the defensive behavior of the eastern bee when it was infested. After the eastern bees were shocked in the experiment, an average of 38 bees attacked, and the average distance of the pursuit was 21.5 meters and the duration was 1.36 minutes; while the large bees put in an average of 500 bees and launched a pursuit that lasted 130 minutes and was as long as 340 meters. Not only that, but the big bees are much larger than other bees, and their worker bees can reach the size of western queen bees, and have a longer abdomen — which means longer stinging needles and more venom. A single large bee can inject more venom, and the scale of the large bee chasing the bee colony is far above that of the domestic bees, which is enough to show that the danger of the big bee is not under the "killing bee".
Several members of the bee genus, the center is the large bee, which is far above the others
The size of the worker bee of the big bee is the same as that of the Western queen bee, and if you change to the queen of the big bee compared to the wasp, the difference in body size will be even greater
However, compared with bees, the sting needles of vespas can be repeatedly stinged, and their personalities are much more grumpy than bees, and the bees that really hurt people and even "kill" are more bees of the vespa family. In temperate regions such as Europe and the United States, the main hazards are species of the genus Vespula and dolichovespula. Because they are more adaptable to human towns, the population occurs for a long time, and can even overwinter en masse, and the size of the population is further expanded. The strength of wasps threatened other pollination insects and nectar-feeding birds, and the beekeeping industry also caused a shock. In Australia and New Zealand, the wasp, as an invasive species, lives on the other side of the comfortable ocean, but makes the local residents "smell the bees and sweat". In the United States, the threat of wasps is equally great, and wasps often choose a "bee water treasure" to leave behind a huge nest that has been passed down from generation to generation. Even more frightening is the Fact that the American white-faced dolichovespula maculata is almost as large as the local Vespa crabro, while other species of wasps are as toxic as some of the most venomous wasps.
However, compared with the "genuine wasps" of the wasp genus, bees and wasps are still small witches. In Asia, the vespa is a veritable "killer bee". Wasps are large, fierce, long stings, high infusion, and highly toxic. The magnitude of the toxicity of a substance is generally expressed in terms of LD50 (half lethal amount), with the LD50 value of Western bees being 3.5 mg/kg, compared with 3.1 mg/kg for vespa sinillima, 2.8 mg/kg for Vespa tropica, and 4.1 mg/kg for Vespa mandarinia. In addition to looking at toxicity, dosage is another important point. Although the toxicity of the golden ring wasp is relatively low, the venom produced in a single time is 4.1 μL, and the golden hoop wasp is strong in toxicity, but only 2 μL is each time. But as a highly social insect, wasps often attack because of swarms. Vespa basalis, known as the most dangerous vespa, is known for its ferocious personality, fierce poison, and large race, commonly known as "Seven Mile Journey". The kihu isp has the largest vespa nest in the world, with more than 40,000 hives in the 15-story hive, which can accommodate more than 7,000 worker bees. The general hive can also have nearly 5,000 worker bees in its heyday, the lethality of the bee colony is 675kg/nest, and the golden ring wasp is 68kg/nest, and the nest can kill people.
Dangerous kihu wasps and their nests
It is widely distributed, from the northeast to Yunnan, from the Qinling Mountains to Taiwan, it can be seen everywhere in the black and red figure. They are also the most injured wasps, and even the stings of a single vespa are much more painful than those of bees, wasps and wasps. The wasp's venom contains a large number of allergens, and it is likely that people will become highly sensitive to the wasp venom after being stung, and will produce more serious allergic reactions the next time they are stung. If the base wasp is widely distributed, it is mainly distributed in the rural countryside, and many people have not seen it. The more common Yellow-footed Vespa velutina is not uncommon in cities. Yellow-footed wasps can contain thousands of worker bees at their peak, and with their adaptability, they may also become "killer bees". In China, because of the checks and balances of other organisms, the yellow-footed wasp is less harmful. However, in recent years, they have invaded the European region, and in the absence of a threat of natural enemies, the local yellow-edged wasps and wasps are not enough to compete with them, so they have also multiplied rapidly and become dangerous local "killer bees".
The most common yellow-footed wasp
Behind these different versions of the story of the "killer bee" is actually because humans continue to destroy the natural habitat of bees and take it uncontrolledly. Killer bees have caused genetic pollution due to human carelessness, and wasps and yellow-footed wasps have invaded because of imported timber and other reasons. The "killer bee" is often just the bitter fruit of human beings eating themselves, and it is also a wake-up call for nature's excessive development and expansion. Of course, those "killer bees" that endanger the safety of human life and health and property should be removed in time, but on the other hand, we humans should also respect nature, reduce the damage to the environment, and leave them a pure land to inhabit.