When we lived in Arizona there were often reports of people being attacked by killer bees. Weve all heard stories about the northward movement of fire ants.

I do want to preserve wildlife but Im against these invasive species.

Other invasive species are soy bean rust and bird flu. All of the above are smaller than a bread box.

The United States Department of Agriculture has a web site devoted to invasive species. Find it at http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/. The government has an executive order that defines invasive species (Executive Order 13112).

It has to be from out-of-town and destructive.

Here are their words:

1) non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration and

2) whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.

Isnt that what I said?

The government guesses that invasive species cost our economy over one billion dollars annually. I guess they are cheaper than war.

One example is the glassy-winged sharpshooter, an invasive insect recently detected in California, carries with it the plant bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, a disease that has caused nearly $40 million in losses of California grapes (ibid).

Ibid means the same reference as before. That would be http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/.

Fire Ants

You can read a history of fire ants in the United States at http://www.msstate.edu/Entomology/ants/history.htm.

They entered after World War I perhaps through the port of Mobile, Alabama. They were identified as fire ants some 8 years later. There were two species, one black and the other red.

They quickly spread in the South East. Now they are found as far west as Texas and Oklahoma with some infestation in New Mexico and spotty infestations in Southern California.

The above article says that the spreading of the ants is often due to man. I assume that entomologist with ants in their pants spread the critters. (Just kidding!)

Efforts to kill the ants are successful but they must be repeated every year. The ants just wont go home any more than would other immigrants to the United States. Why would they want to?

Read about the destructive nature of fire ants at http://ipmworld.umn.edu/chapters/lockley.htm. Fire ants will eat anything plant or animal. They destroy ecosystems. Their large mounds disrupt agricultural efforts. Many types of agricultural crops are affected.

In urban communities, the ants act as a evil pest, biting pets and kids, and destroying plant life. And nobody wants one of those ant mounds in the rose garden. Nothing is safe. Homes, cars, air conditioners, under sidewalks, anything is likely to be a home for the fire ants.

The bites are extremely painful. An ant will continually bite even after it has delivered all of its poison. They attack in mass if the mound is threatened. Automobile accident victims have been attacked (ibid).

Fire ants are just no good! Read the full article at http://ipmworld.umn.edu/chapters/lockley.htm.

Killer Bees

As I said, in Arizona we often had reports of killer bees. These attacks occur in Tucson and Phoenix and other large cities. People are attacked in shopping malls.

There are no bees indigenous to the United States. That means they didnt live here until after we got here. All of our bees were imported from Europe. The European critter is generally harmless to man, is very beneficial to agriculture, and adapts well in the United States.

The killer bee is an Africanized European bee. Brazil is to blame for the infestation of killer bees to the United States. They hybridized the bees with an African strain to develop a breed of bee more suitable for Brazil. What they got was one mean son-of-a-gun.

Read about the killer bee and its history at http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/ento/facts/afrbee.htm.

Killer bees are less likely to engage in mass stinging than fire ants. Im sure that is no comfort to those in Arizona and other areas that were victims of mass attack. The thing to do if attacked is to move out of the area the bees are defending.

If you are allergic to bee stings and are stung you must obtain immediate medical care.

We need lots of bees here in Idaho to pollinate our crops. Lets keep the killer bees out.

You should always report the infestation by invasive species to your county agent. If you dont know who that is ask someone or go to http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/index.html.

John T Jones, Ph.D.

Jones was a vice president of a Fortune 500 company subsidiary having the major responsibility for research and development and certain engineering functions. After he retired, he became editor of an international trade magazine. Jones is Executive Representative of IWS, sellers of Tyler Hicks wealth-success books and kits. He is a direct mail and mail order marketer and operates a dozen websites.

He has written three technical books, four novels (Bull, Revenge on the Mogollon Rim, Bone China, and In No Way Guilty), and many published papers on business, marketing, engineering and other topics. Details on many of these topics can be found at his personal web site.

Jones is a hack poet and amateur landscape painter. He lives in Idaho with his wife of 52 years. He has five children, three in medicine, a lawyer, and a portrait artist. The Jones’ have thirty-two talented grandchildren (many with special musical talent and skills), and one great grand child.

Jones is a prolific writer which started when he was an engineering professor at Iowa State University (Go Cyclones!). He doesn’t know how to stop.