Bee's attacked our chickens today with dozens of stings each. Help!

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This is not true. Perhaps in AZ it is true, but current information does not indicate that they have spread much beyond the southern areas. The biggest threat to american bees right now is not the africanized bees but colony collapse disorder.

Agree--there are no proven case of Africanized bees in the northern part of the US--above the Mexican/US border. Check this map http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=11059&page=6

A colony of bees is like a living entity with the queen at the center. Sometimes, for no apparent reason some of the bees go nuts--not unlike USPS employees--and attack. Once the smell of the venom gets in the air the rest join in and a frenzy results. What happened in this case may come out in the postmortem and maybe it won't. A couple of years ago I was playing golf on a nice warm September day and got stung 5 times while standing on a tee--up to that time no one even knew there was a bee tree next to the tee and, according to the pro, no one else ever got stung there. Wrong place at the wrong time--luckily I wasn't allergic. BTW, that colony is still there--they just moved the tee.
 
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Are they eating yet? Try mixing some feed with water( so that there's feed at the bottom and the water on the top, not just mush) and let them drink the water from that. The water will have some dissolved feed in it(just a bit, you will be able to see small specks)
 
Quote:
This is not true. Perhaps in AZ it is true, but current information does not indicate that they have spread much beyond the southern areas. The biggest threat to american bees right now is not the africanized bees but colony collapse disorder.

Agree--there are no proven case of Africanized bees in the northern part of the US--above the Mexican/US border. Check this map http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=11059&page=6

A colony of bees is like a living entity with the queen at the center. Sometimes, for no apparent reason some of the bees go nuts--not unlike USPS employees--and attack. Once the smell of the venom gets in the air the rest join in and a frenzy results. What happened in this case may come out in the postmortem and maybe it won't. A couple of years ago I was playing golf on a nice warm September day and got stung 5 times while standing on a tee--up to that time no one even knew there was a bee tree next to the tee and, according to the pro, no one else ever got stung there. Wrong place at the wrong time--luckily I wasn't allergic. BTW, that colony is still there--they just moved the tee.

There are very definitely africanized bees in the US. In the areas where they have migrated, it is thought that there are no wild bees left that have not been interbred. Arizona and southern California have africanized bees, as do a number of other states. Yes, they have not taken over all the states, but they are certainly in hte southern reaches of the country.
 
You're doing a great job caring for your flock.
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Glad that some are pulling through already. How frightening! With the way your husband reacted to one sting I'm soooooooo glad that it was the chickens (sorry
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) that got the brunt of it.
I read ALLFloridaBeeRemoval's blog and was surprised to see that two horses in Menifee died from thousands of bee stings. I never read or heard about it in the news.
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This summer I was going up the Julian from Ramona and saw a car parked on the side of the road. I don't know what the couple driving it were doing, but all of the sudden they started to run like hell towards their car. I couldn't figure out what was chasing them because by the look on their faces they were running for their lives....then I saw them, a giant swarm of bees. I've never seen anything like it!! They hit my windshield like thousands of bee bees being shot from a gun. I could hardly see out of my window and when I got home my grill was full of them. The couple made it to safety by the way.

A lot more bees around than I thought since were always hearing about the drop in the bee population. I had several much smaller swarms pass us on my property. I'll now make sure I get the kids and dogs inside a vehicle or building asap after reading your experience. Again,
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!!
 
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There are very definitely africanized bees in the US. In the areas where they have migrated, it is thought that there are no wild bees left that have not been interbred. Arizona and southern California have africanized bees, as do a number of other states. Yes, they have not taken over all the states, but they are certainly in hte southern reaches of the country.

Note I said "the northern part of the US" the map gives a good idea how they have spread--I count only parts of 10 states which is hardly the whole US--but, interestingly, while they were established in southern FL they don't seem to be spreading north. Also, apparently, as they interbreed with other varieties they lose some of their aggressiveness.

Knock Kneed Hen what you ran into was probably a swarm. If a new queen takes over a colony the old queen will leave with a larger number of worker bees--many times thousands--to start a new colony. It is scary to see one but, since they aren't protecting a hive, they are actually fairly harmless. A year or two ago there was one that landed in the San Diego Padre stadium during the game and had to be removed. When I was keeping bees we'd get two or three swarms a summer, that was the best way to increase the number of hives we were keeping. I seriously doubt that is what happened to the OP since these swarms aren't the least bit aggressive, they just mindlessly follow the queen.
 
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How are the chickens doing today? How are you doing? Did they test the bees when they removed them to tell you whether or not there were africanized bees in the nest? I haven't been able to stop thinking about this post since I read it.
 
Quote:
There are very definitely africanized bees in the US. In the areas where they have migrated, it is thought that there are no wild bees left that have not been interbred. Arizona and southern California have africanized bees, as do a number of other states. Yes, they have not taken over all the states, but they are certainly in hte southern reaches of the country.

Note I said "the northern part of the US" the map gives a good idea how they have spread--I count only parts of 10 states which is hardly the whole US--but, interestingly, while they were established in southern FL they don't seem to be spreading north. Also, apparently, as they interbreed with other varieties they lose some of their aggressiveness.

Knock Kneed Hen what you ran into was probably a swarm. If a new queen takes over a colony the old queen will leave with a larger number of worker bees--many times thousands--to start a new colony. It is scary to see one but, since they aren't protecting a hive, they are actually fairly harmless. A year or two ago there was one that landed in the San Diego Padre stadium during the game and had to be removed. When I was keeping bees we'd get two or three swarms a summer, that was the best way to increase the number of hives we were keeping. I seriously doubt that is what happened to the OP since these swarms aren't the least bit aggressive, they just mindlessly follow the queen.

What you said was "Agree--there are no proven case of Africanized bees in the northern part of the US--above the Mexican/US border." I took that to mean you were saying no africanized bees north of the US border with Mexico. Did you mean something different? The OP is in an area that does have africanized bees.
 
I have had a very sad incident yesterday... I am from South Africa, and my husband is a beekeeper. We recently acquired 28 Silkies and built them a coop close to where the bees are. We've had chickens for 3 years now together with the bees, and never had any trouble. The chickens hang around the bee hives every day and eat some of the drones, but no trouble. The silkies was in quarantine for a few weeks before we let them come out to free range. They've been free ranging since sunday. When I got home yesterday afternoon, the silkies was shattered across the lawn, gasping for breath. When I ran closer to inspect them, I saw that the bees attacked them! It never happened before. 16 out of the 28 are dead so far. 2 of our other chickens also was stung. They also look very bad. I really don't know what to do. They are in terrible pain, and they scream and go into spasms as they die. It is the saddest horror I ever had to witness. I gave them Allergex and put on some detoxifying shrub's leaf sap, but I feel totally helpless and don't know what to do. I can't even stay home to check on them.
 

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