WARD COUNTY QUARANTINED FOR AFRICANIZED BEES

Contact: Paul Jackson, (979) 845-9721

Writer: Kathleen Davis Phillips, (979) 845-2872, ka-phillips@tamu.edu
GRAPHIC

COLLEGE STATION -- Ward County in West Texas on Tuesday became the 77th county added to a state quarantine restricting the movement of commercial bee operations following the detection of Africanized honey bees there.

The bees were found in mid-March inside a wall at a residence on the east side of Monahans, reported Terry King, a city animal control officer. King was called to the home after a neighbor out washing his car was stung four times by bees and a little girl who lived in the neighborhood was stung once.

King killed the bees and sent samples for identification to a laboratory at Texas A&M University.

Paul Jackson, chief inspector for the Texas Apiary Inspection Service, a unit of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, said Tuesday this is the first new find of Africanized bees in a Texas county this spring.

Nectar and pollen from flowers are most plentiful in the spring, and this time when food is in abundance encourages bees to begin moving to new nesting sites. Within the last week, Jackson said, inspectors have noticed more honey bee activity while checking traps maintained by Texas A&M to monitor the spread of Africanized bees northward. The main trapline runs across the state from Beaumont west to Brenham, Temple, San Angelo, Big Spring, Lamesa and Seminole.

The last two counties added to the quarantine list were Dawson and Reagan, where finds of Africanized bees were made in October. The Africanized bee was first detected in the United States near Brownsville in October 1990. Since then, the bee has spread through the southern half of the state, along a line roughly from south of Houston to Temple to San Angelo and El Paso. Africanized honey bees also have been found in Arizona, California and New Mexico.

The quarantine allows beekeepers to move bee hives 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.

Editor's Note: Here is the complete list of the 77 Texas counties under quarantine because of Africanized bee finds: Aransas, Atascosa, Austin, Bandera, Bastrop, Bee, Bell, Bexar, Brewster, Brooks, Caldwell, Calhoun, Cameron, Colorado, Comal, Crane, Culberson, Dawson, De Witt, Dimmit, Duval, Ector, Edwards, El Paso, Falls, Fayette, Fort Bend, Frio, Glasscock, Goliad, Gonzales, Guadalupe, Hays, Hidalgo, Hudspeth, Jackson, Jeff Davis, Jim Hogg, Jim Wells, Karnes, Kenedy, Kerr, Kinney, Kleberg, La Salle, Lavaca, Live Oak, Maverick, Matagorda, McMullen, Medina, Menard, Midland, Nueces, Pecos, Presidio, Reagan, Real, Refugio, San Patricio, Starr, Terrell, Tom Green, Travis, Upton, Uvalde, Val Verde, Victoria, Ward, Washington, Webb, Wharton, Willacy, Williamson, Wilson, Zapata and Zavala.

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