BH24-The Cape bee (Apis capensis) from South Africa could destroy local bee colonies and threaten the livelihood of an estimated 50 000 small scale honey farmers if nothing is done to strengthen monitoring mechanism in the country, an environmentalist has warned.
Environment Africa country director Barney Mawire said the Cape bee could paralyse the local bee population and affect the country’s small but important beekeeping industry.
“Zimbabwe’s bee population is now under threat from Cape bees from South Africa,” he said. “We fear that if they come they might take over local bee colonies. We need to strengthen our local reporting and monitoring mechanism to ensure the survival of our local bees.
“The Cape bees kill local bee varieties and threaten local bee populations.”
Apiculturalists say the Cape bee tends to be a more docile bee than the African bee.
They say it can be distinguished from the African bee by a darker abdomen and is sometimes referred to as “black bees.”
It has a unique characteristic in that the worker bees (females) have the ability to produce both male and female offspring and thus able to re-queen a colony which has become queenless.
The downside of this characteristic, according to apiculturalists, is that it has the ability to parasitise scutellata (African honey bee) colonies.
Capensis laying workers invade and subsequently begin to lay their own eggs, challenging the scutellata queen’s ability to control the colony.
“The original colony becomes overtaken by Cape bees and will collapse,” said Mawire.