4 ms·

Good question, increasingly we can judge for ourselves. Go to BOLD (COI barcoding) [0]. Search for "Apidae". That's just one family of bees, in this case the o

by xipho 6y ago

Good question, increasingly we can judge for ourselves. Go to BOLD (COI barcoding) [0]. Search for "Apidae". That's just one family of bees, in this case the one that includes 27+ (IIRC, probably way off) subspecies of what we know as the honeybee. The important bit is the count in "BINS", e.g. hypothesis of speciation typically based on a single gene, COI. That's only the specimens that have been sequenced and archived at BOLD. That doesn't include the various other bee families, notably Halictidae, Colletidae, Melittidae, and others roughly all the "sister groups" in the Apoidea [1]. An example of why is this important? The Africanized honeybee, known perhaps from bad horror movies, is characterized (identified) as a hybrid of two species. It can be more or less aggressive (to the point of killing you if you don't GTFO) depending on then nature of its DNA. Hybridization has blurred the limits of the species in many areas, including in the US. Sequencing specimens is the only way to confidently determine which of the species you have, A (friendly bee honey), AB (grumpy bee honey), or B (deadly bee honey) (gross simplification here, not Mendelian). [0](http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BINSearch http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BINSearch). [1](here: https://www.catalogueoflife.org/?taxonKey=625GP https://www.catalogueoflife.org/?taxonKey=625GP)

throwanem 6y ago
> The Africanized honeybee, known perhaps from bad horror movies You're talking about The Swarm (1978), which is absolutely so-bad-it's-good. Fans of Michael Caine will I think in particular find it rewarding, and I was especially impressed with its frankly prescient treatment of the drawbacks inherent in mass insecticide application given that the ongoing research increasingly points to exactly that as the culprit for pollinators disappearing.
- artificial 6y ago
  Sounds similar to Jaws starting a shark panic.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    Well, you're considerably more likely to run into a wild colony of "Africanized" hybrids than you are a great white shark, for one thing. For another, while I wasn't around at the time, I understand the movie was more made in response to sensationalistic reporting than a cause of it - I might be wrong about that part, though. That said, my understanding is that A. m. scutellata x A. mellifera hybrids aren't unusually aggressive in nest defense by the standards of social hymenopterans generally, but only by the standard of the European honeybee (A. mellifera). I can't claim close familiarity with the relevant literature on bee hybrids, but from what I have seen, their nest defense behavior seems roughly comparable in aggressiveness to that of many yellowjacket (Vespula, Dolichovespula) species. On the other hand, a wild bee colony is likely to be one or two orders of magnitude greater in size than a wild yellowjacket colony, which means that a comparable level of aggression in nest defense could pose a significantly greater hazard. Using the figures from the Wikipedia article [1] and its relevant source [2], it looks like A. m. scutellata x A. mellifera are responsible for an average of around 15 human deaths per year since the introduction of A. m. scutellata into Brazil in 1956. So I don't really see that there's very much to worry over here, in any case. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee [2] https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/killbee https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/killbee
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      > Well, you're considerably more likely to run into a wild colony of "Africanized" hybrids than you are a great white shark Are you? They attack rarely (although are thought to have done so fatally a few weeks ago here in NZ) and aren’t even seen usually, but they are close to popular beaches. https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/123902863/four-reported-great-white-shark-sightings-in-waih-area-before-christmas https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/123902863/four-reported-great...
      - throwanem 6y ago
        Well, according to UFL's International Shark Attack File [1] and the CDC [2] respectively, on average 4.3 humans die worldwide per year of shark attacks, vs. an average 62 humans in the US per year of stings from hymenopterans excluding ants. Given that the shark attack stats cover a period 25 times as long as that for the bees, wasps, and hornets, I do feel like "considerably" is a fair choice of adjective here. [1] https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/maps/world/ https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/maps/world/ [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/pdfs/mm6829a5-H.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/pdfs/mm6829a5-H.pdf

by xipho 6y ago

throwanem 6y ago

> The Africanized honeybee, known perhaps from bad horror movies You're talking about The Swarm (1978), which is absolutely so-bad-it's-good. Fans of Michael Caine will I think in particular find it rewarding, and I was especially impressed with its frankly prescient treatment of the drawbacks inherent in mass insecticide application given that the ongoing research increasingly points to exactly that as the culprit for pollinators disappearing.

artificial 6y ago
Sounds similar to Jaws starting a shark panic.
- throwanem 6y ago
  Well, you're considerably more likely to run into a wild colony of "Africanized" hybrids than you are a great white shark, for one thing. For another, while I wasn't around at the time, I understand the movie was more made in response to sensationalistic reporting than a cause of it - I might be wrong about that part, though. That said, my understanding is that A. m. scutellata x A. mellifera hybrids aren't unusually aggressive in nest defense by the standards of social hymenopterans generally, but only by the standard of the European honeybee (A. mellifera). I can't claim close familiarity with the relevant literature on bee hybrids, but from what I have seen, their nest defense behavior seems roughly comparable in aggressiveness to that of many yellowjacket (Vespula, Dolichovespula) species. On the other hand, a wild bee colony is likely to be one or two orders of magnitude greater in size than a wild yellowjacket colony, which means that a comparable level of aggression in nest defense could pose a significantly greater hazard. Using the figures from the Wikipedia article [1] and its relevant source [2], it looks like A. m. scutellata x A. mellifera are responsible for an average of around 15 human deaths per year since the introduction of A. m. scutellata into Brazil in 1956. So I don't really see that there's very much to worry over here, in any case. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee [2] https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/killbee https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/killbee
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    > Well, you're considerably more likely to run into a wild colony of "Africanized" hybrids than you are a great white shark Are you? They attack rarely (although are thought to have done so fatally a few weeks ago here in NZ) and aren’t even seen usually, but they are close to popular beaches. https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/123902863/four-reported-great-white-shark-sightings-in-waih-area-before-christmas https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/123902863/four-reported-great...
    - throwanem 6y ago
      Well, according to UFL's International Shark Attack File [1] and the CDC [2] respectively, on average 4.3 humans die worldwide per year of shark attacks, vs. an average 62 humans in the US per year of stings from hymenopterans excluding ants. Given that the shark attack stats cover a period 25 times as long as that for the bees, wasps, and hornets, I do feel like "considerably" is a fair choice of adjective here. [1] https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/maps/world/ https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/maps/world/ [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/pdfs/mm6829a5-H.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/pdfs/mm6829a5-H.pdf