Posted on January 29, 2008 - by Justin Hartman

The Avusa Killer Bees

Unless you work at The Times, or more specifically smoke with me outdoors at our offices, you won’t know that lately we’ve been pestered by some very aggressive bees.

Now if you speak to Vincent he’ll tell you I attract bees (which is true) but this has gotten out of hand and I decided to take some action. Here is a copy of the letter I faxed to our office manager, Bongi, this afternoon.

FROM THE DESK OF JUSTIN HARTMAN

January 28, 2008
Bongisiwe Khumalo
Office Administrator
The Times
4 Biermann Avenue
Rosebank, Johannesburg
South Africa, 2196
Right Fax: 011 *** ****

Dear Recipient,

I am writing to you as a concerned employee of Avusa. I am not sure if you are aware but we have a very serious African Bee issue (not B.E.E.) in the smoking court outside the offices of The Times.

Due to the apparent lack of cleaning at said smoking court each and every smoker is now at grave risk of being stung by these killer African Bees. These deadly pests are drinking left over coffee in the dustbin and as a result are intoxicated with caffeine and sugar making them more aggressive and prone to attack.

These African Bees are a serious issue specifically because they:

1. Tend to swarm more frequently.
2. Have greater defensiveness when in a resting swarm.
3. Guard their hive aggressively, with a larger alarm zone around the hive.
4. Have a higher proportion of “guard” bees within the hive.
5. Deploy in greater numbers for defense and pursues perceived threats over much longer distances from the hive.

Research has shown that African Bees closely resemble domestic bees in appearance, and the principal constituents of their venoms are identical. However, it has been shown that the African Bee venom has slightly more phos-pholipase A2 (the principal allergenic component of bee venom).

It is also shown that African Bees contain approximately 15 percent less venom per bee, and the toxicity of their venom in mice is virtually identical to that of domestic bee venom. In other studies it showed that domestic bees deliver the entire contents of their venom sacs within 2 minutes. These results suggest that the sting of an individual African Bee has a lower potential for toxicity than that of domestic bees, and the risk from African Bees is their tendency to sting in large numbers during colony defense.

There is complete immunologic cross reactivity between the venoms of African and domestic bees, indicating that patients allergic to domestic bee stings will have allergic reactions to African Bee stings. It is possible that mild allergic reactions to a single sting can become much more serious when a large number of stings are sustained.

I trust that you can see just how serious this Bee issue is and I look forward to receiving feedback and solutions from your department.

Sincerely yours,
Justin Hartman

I’m still not sure why I haven’t had an official response yet?