Bee swarm invades campus

By Michelle L. Young
Daily Forty-Niner

A swarm of bees nesting inside a wooden desk alarmed students in the courtyard outside Design Room 125 last week.

The bees were destroyed; however, Jason Ivey, an industrial design senior said he still found 30 or more bees coming in through the air vents in the ceiling. Ivey said they flew out when he opened the door.

"We were told to assume they were Africanized honey bees just to be safe," said Carolyn Sandusky, administrative coordinator for the design department.

Robert Quirk, director of facilities management verified that safety and risk management determined that the bees were not Africanized honey bees, which are also known as killer bees.

To ensure safety, all reports on this campus of bee colonies or swarming bees are being treated as if the bees are Africanized honey bees, said Richard Johnson, associate director of safety and risk management.

"We don't bet here," said Johnson. "We always assume the bees are Africanized."

Safety and risk management has constructed an agenda to educate faculty and students of planned strategies for a safe coexistence with the Africanized honey bee on campus.

Cal State Long Beach has received reports of bee sightings that were determined to be the Africanized honey bee by the Long Beach Vector Control.

The Africanized honey bee, which has a fuzzy body and stinger, looks exactly like the European honey bee that is common throughout North America. The Africanized bee is slightly smaller in size and has less venom than the European honey bee, Johnson said.

In 1999, one of the children's programs at CSULB was found to be in the same location as an active hive. As a safety precaution, the camp was moved and Long Beach Vector Control destroyed the hive. The bees were the Africanized honey bees, Johnson said.

The Isabel Patterson Child Development Center also had a colony of Africanized honey bees that were destroyed immediately.

"We don't want to eradicate the bees," Johnson said. Africanized and European bees are central to the United States' economy and the national agricultural industry, including essential to the economy of California, Johnson said.   If the presence of bees ­ Africanized or otherwise ­ does not greatly affect the campus population and does not endanger children, the bees will remain.

If an attack takes place, Johnson said, the victim should run ­ Africanized honey bees are known to continue an attack and chase victims for up to a mile.

Africanized honey bees often sting the mouth and nose area, as they are attracted to carbon dioxide.

Those who are allergic should wear a medic alert bracelet and carry an auto-injector of epinephrine, Johnson said. Only about one percent of a population is allergic to bee venom.

Crushing an Africanized honey bee will releases pheromones from its body which will incite its colony to attack even more aggressively, Johnson said. Swatting the bee will also increase the intensity of the attack.

Andres Cardenas/Daily Forty-Niner

Some of the bees found on campus.