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ARS Home Pacific West Area Tucson, Arizona Carl Hayden Bee Research Center Docs Africanized Honey Bees





- Africanized Honey Bee Overview
- Firefighters and Rescue Personnel
- Safety Precautions for Schools
- Africanized Bee Identification

SAFETY PRECAUTIONS FOR SCHOOLS **Safety Precautions for Schools:** *Africanized honey bees are present in Arizona.**Schools may want to take a few safety precautions to help protect their students. The**following are guidelines to plan for Africanized honey bee safety on and around**campus.* **1. Designate a school monitor to walk around school grounds during high****swarming season (spring - summer) to look for honey bee colonies or swarms.**The monitor should be trained to recognize honey bees and wear proper protectionsuch as a bee veil. They should look for sites that may be attractive to bees for nesting(hollows in block walls, overturned flower pots, utility boxes, water or irrigation valveboxes, playground equipment, and drainage pipes) and request that maintenanceremove, cover or repair them. Private property around the school may need to beexamined as well, particularly lots or vacant buildings in the school’s immediate vicinity.To prevent honey bees from nesting, keep holes in the ground filled and cover watervalve boxes, rain spouts, etc. with #7 mesh or finer screen. Fill or caulk holes that maygive bees access to an internal cavity. Bees may enter a hole as small as a pencileraser (3/16" in diameter).**2. If the monitor finds a honey bee swarm or colony, he or she should notify all****teachers to keep everyone away from the area.** Arrange to have swarms or colonies removed and/or destroyed immediately, even if they haven't been a problem in the past.A list of local Southern Arizona resources for removal may be found here Otherwise, contact your local beekeeping club or university extension office.**Do not** allow anyone to try to remove an established colony or swarm unless they are alicensed professional pest control operator or beekeeper. Do not allow untrainedindividuals to spray the colony with pesticides, dump kerosene, or spray water on thebees. This will agitate the bees and make them defensive.**3. Plan to use noisy equipment, such as lawn mowers, when students are indoors****or away from campus.**Bees are alarmed by vibrations or loud noises produced by equipment such as weedeaters, chainsaws, or electric generators. Honey bees may also be disturbed by strongodors, such as the odor of newly-mown grass. Accordingly, bees are often agitatedduring landscape maintenance operations.**4. Establish a plan of action for a stinging incident.**Teach students to leave bees alone. In absolutely no circumstances shall they throwrocks at or otherwise disturb a hive or swarm. If students accidentally arouse a honeybee colony while at school, they should know what to do.Encourage the students to cover their face and run indoors if stung. A few bees mayfollow them indoors. However, if they run to a well-lit area, the bees will tend to becomeconfused and fly to windows.Designate an area away from classrooms (preferably a large, well-lit room with highceilings, such as the cafeteria or gym) where students should go. Have a trained personavailable there or nearby with a vacuum cleaner hose on hand to immediately removeany bees that remain. If no hose is available, bees may be killed with soap and watersolution (3% to 6% soap) in a spray bottle.Both the school nurse and teachers should be trained in the proper method of removingstingers. Honey bees leave their stinger in the skin when they sting. This kills the honeybee, so it can't sting again, but it also means that venom continues to be pumped intothe wound for a short time. Do not pull stingers out with tweezers or fingers, because itwill squeeze more venom into the wound. Instead, scrape them out using a fingernail,the edge of a credit card, a dull knife blade or other straight-edge object.**5. Make sure the school nurse is ready.**The school nurse should know the proper way to remove bee stingers and train others.He or she should also know the signs of allergic reactions, because even one bee stingmay be fatal if the victim is allergic. If possible have an anaphylactic kit, bee suit andbee veil available for emergencies.**6. Educate the students and faculty about what is being done,** and reassure themthat most people will never encounter Africanized honey bees and those that do arerarely seriously injured. Have "bee drills" so students know where to go and what to do.**7. Call 911 or local emergency service personnel.** They have been trained torespond to Africanized honey bee emergencies.


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