July 3, 2003

SPRINGTOWN -- Parker County was added today to the state quarantine, restricting the movement of commercial bee operations following the detection of Africanized honey bees.

The addition makes 148 counties in Texas now quarantined for Africanized honey bees, according to the Texas Apiary Inspection Service, a unit of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station.

A sample from a colony of bees in a tree at 1361 Thomas Rd., northeast of Springtown, was sent to the Texas Honey Bee Identification Lab in College Station, after two men bulldozing in the vicinity were stung, according to Paul Jackson, chief apiary inspector. All of the bees were destroyed.

Both men sought medical attention and records indicated a total of about 150 stings, Jackson said, but both recovered from the incident. All of the bees in the hive were killed, he said.

The quarantine allows beekeepers to move beehives within, but not out of, the zone in an effort to prevent assisting the spread. Africanized honey bees look just like regular domestic honey bees but are more defensive in protecting their hives, according to Jackson.

State bee inspectors continue to monitor a series of bee traplines that extend across the state from Louisiana to New Mexico. The Africanized bee was first detected in the United States near Brownsville in October 1990. Since then, the bee has spread through much of the state, along a line roughly from Houston to Lubbock to El Paso. Africanized honey bees also have been found in Arizona, California, Nevada and New Mexico.

Counties included in the quarantine are: Aransas, Atascosa, Austin, Bandera, Bastrop, Bee, Bell, Bexar, Blanco, Borden, Bosque, Brazoria, Brazos, Brewster, Brooks, Brown, Burleson, Burnet, Caldwell, Calhoun, Callahan, Cameron, Cochran, Coleman, Colorado, Comanche, Concho, Coryell, Comal, Cottle, Crane, Crockett, Crosby, Culberson, Dallas, Dawson, De Witt, Dimmit, Duval, Eastland, Ector, Edwards, Ellis, El Paso, Erath, Falls, Fayette, Fisher, Fort Bend, Frio, Gaines, Gillespie, Glasscock, Goliad, Gonzales, Gregg, Guadalupe, Hamilton, Harris, Harrison, Haskell, Hays, Henderson, Hidalgo, Hill, Hockley, Hood, Hudspeth, Irion, Jackson, Jeff Davis, Jim Hogg, Jim Wells, Johnson, Jones, Karnes, Kaufman, Kendall, Kenedy, Kerr, Kimble, King, Kinney, Kleberg, Knox, Lampasas, La Salle, Lavaca, Lee, Liberty, Limestone, Live Oak, Lubbock, Martin, Mason, Matagorda, Maverick, McCulloch, McLennan, McMullen, Medina, Menard, Midland, Milam, Montgomery, Navarro, Nolan, Nueces, Parker, Pecos, Presidio, Reagan, Real, Refugio, Reeves, Robertson, Runnels, San Patricio, Scurry, Schleicher, Shackelford, Somervell, Starr, Stephens, Sterling, Sutton, Tarrant, Taylor, Terrell, Throckmorton, Tom Green, Travis, Upton, Uvalde, Val Verde, Victoria, Walker, Waller, Ward, Washington, Webb, Wharton, Willacy, Williamson, Wilson, Young, Zapata and Zavala.

For information about Africanized honey bees on the Web, try http://agnews.tamu.edu/bees.