Lethal Swarms Episode 103: Killer Bees

Since escaping from a Brazilian breeding program fifty years ago, Killer Bees have managed to live up to their deadly reputation: they’ve already claimed one thousand lives in the Americas and show no sign of stopping. In this hour documentary we’ll hear dramatic first hand accounts of Killer Bee attacks as we chart their expansion and track their moving path through the Southern most portion of the United States. One of the most dramatic recent incidents took place last year in Las Vegas, Nevada. 77-year old Toha Bergerub was walking home from a shopping trip when she came under siege by a swarm of Killer Bees. She was stung more than five hundred times, mostly around the head and neck, yet lived to tell her story. We hear from the victim herself in a bedside interview conducted just hours after the attack as well as from Tim Samansky, the firefighter who came to her rescue and Dr. John McCourt, the emergency room physician who saved her life. Our cameras go out on the front lines with those fighting the Killer Bee war as we walk the trap-lines in Texas with State Entomologist Paul Jackson and in Mexico witness daring experiments in Killer Bee behavior with Ernesto Guzman who heads up the Mexican equivalent of the USDA. According to geneticist Greg Hunt of Purdue University, who helped isolate a Killer Bee “mean gene” the Africanized Bee has a genetic advantage over its European cousins and seems destined to take over the Feral Bee population wherever it goes. In Southern Arizona, which is almost 98% colonized by the aggressive strain, we ride shot-gun with Bee Removal Specialist Tom Martin as he attempts to diffuse a dangerous situation. No longer the stuff of horror movies – Killer Bees are moving into our cities and neighborhoods at an alarming rate. Urban entomologist Kirk Visscher will force a swarm for our cameras and explore a house looking for potential nesting sites. We learn the right way to bee-proof our homes in order to protect ourselves, our families and our pets, because when it comes to the Killer Bees, what you don’t know can kill you. We must all learn to live with these relentless insects or face the potentially deadly consequences.