Actually the feral honeybees here in Central Arizona are not all AHB as the media would lead one to believe and naturally one of my first questions of the local beekeepers in my area. There are on occassion episodes with agressive bees, but even EHB can get really mad when someone disturbs a hive at the wrong time so now all bee attacks here are labled as AHB and just not true. I have captured feral bees here from in water boxes and the latest in April from a truck tire and both colonies that stayed are very gentle and just plain old honeybees. Down South however it is a bit different and they are showing up much more often. We get some temps down into the high 20 F degree range here in winter for several days at a time and the locals say they do not care for the cold. I do know they must be tested at a lab and 75 percent from the State are said to be negative.
Hopefully I will never run into any and all the feral colonies I have come across in the desert could care less about me being near them showing no agression as I google eye them and snap pictures. There are allot of beekeepers in my area at around 2000 ft above sea level as are there in the hundreds of citrus groves, almond groves, pistassio, and huge fields of vegitables and cotton in the Phoenix Valley area and rarely is there an incident. Most of what is reported in the news is in the city and has to do with a hive being disturbed and the resulting attack. I am guessing with so many commercial beekeepers here the population of feral bees is largly from their swarms as well....
No doubt some are AHB, but not as many as reported because regular honeybee attacks don't sell news....
