Killer Bees

These were created accidentally when a breeding experiment went disastrously wrong. But why would a species of bee suddenly change nature?

European honey bees are generally very passive. But African bees have evolved to sting and attack large predators who raid their nests. Nonetheless they produce substantial quantities of honey where good quality flowers are rare.

In the 1950s, honey production in Brazil was failing so African queens were introduced to try and breed a bee that combined the passive nature of the European bee with the higher productivity of the African variety.

However, 26 of the queens escaped into the wild and the aggressive Africanized bees swept their way through South America into North America. They started to attack people with little provocation and sometimes fatal results.