including the World Trade Center bombing of
1993, the Khobar Towers bombing, and the at-
tacks of September 11, 2001.
Gantzel, Klaus Jurgen, and Torsten Schwingham-
mer.Warfare Since the Second World War. New Bruns-
wick, N.J.: Transaction, 2000. Analysis of the
changing nature of war, from interstate to inter-
nal conflicts.
Lesser, Ian O.Countering the New Terrorism. Santa
Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1999. In-depth analysis of
trends in terrorism.
Wayne Shirey
See also Clinton, Bill; Cohen, William S.; Defense
budget cuts; Foreign policy of the United States;
Gulf War; Middle East and North America; Okla-
homa City bombing; Olympic Park bombing; Ter-
rorism; Unabomber capture; U.S. embassy bomb-
ings in Africa; World Trade Center bombing.
Killer bees
Definition Africanized honeybees
Place Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California,
and Nevada
Africanized honeybees—dubbed “killer bees” because of
their aggressive nature—spread into the southwestern
United States, frightening people and disrupting bee-
keepers’ activities.
Honeybees were introduced into the New World
from Europe in the seventeenth century, but be-
cause European bees produce poorly in the tropics,
Brazilian scientists began crossing them with more
productive (but also more aggressive) African bees
in the 1940’s. During the following decade, however,
African queen bees escaped into the wild. By 1989,
swarms of hybrid, or Africanized honeybees, which
had inherited the aggressive nature of the African
strain, reached northern Mexico. They had now es-
tablished a pattern of interbreeding with and dis-
placing ordinary honeybees.
Anticipating the bees’ arrival, American officials
distributed baited traps along the border, and they
caught the first specimens near Hidalgo, Texas, in
October, 1990. By the end of the year, the bees had
been identified in eight of the state’s southernmost
counties. They attacked a man the following year in
Brownsville, Texas, and a fatality—the first in the na-
tion—was reported near Harlingen, Texas, in Au-
gust, 1993. The victim was eighty-two-year-old Lino
Lopez, who had been attempting to remove a swarm
from the wall of a building on his ranch.
Within a few years, killer bees entered the other
states sharing a border with Mexico. They were first
identified in Arizona and New Mexico in 1993, al-
though scientists suspect that the insects may have
entered the former state in 1992. The bees reached
California in 1994 but did not claim a human victim
there until 1999.
Although the news media carried sensational sto-
ries about the invading insects, scientists generally
rejected the term “killer bees,” pointing out that the
insects’ stings are no more venomous than those of
ordinary honeybees. Because the bees are more ag-
gressive, attack in larger swarms, pursue their vic-
tims further, and remain agitated longer, scientists
did warn that they pose a greater threat. Domestic
animals such as dogs and horses that might disturb
the bees’ colonies were also identified as being in
danger.
By the mid-1990’s, killer bees appeared to be
spreading more slowly and did not reach southern
Nevada until 1998. During the following decade,
however, they were reported in Louisiana and
Florida, having possibly entered as swarms aboard
ships, as well as in Arkansas and Virginia.Impact Killer bees were a media sensation during
the early 1990’s, but by the end of the decade, only a484 Killer bees The Nineties in America
An Africanized honeybee.(U.S. Department of Agriculture)