Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

Africanized bees in Glasscock County
July 20, 2005

“I’m getting a mite nervous, Ernie.” Ernie Showalter, my guide for the day, stood underneath fifty bees on a wall. He did not pay the bees “any mind at all.” We were at the headquarters to a ranch that must remain nameless for this story. No one lived had lived on the ranch for years, and the grazing rights were leased out to someone who visited a couple times a week to check on the livestock.

The bees were “oozing” out of a crack between the veranda roof and the wall, not moving much, but slowly increasing in number. “Any bees in the wild are Africanized, Ernie.” Ernie shrugged and said it would be okay, and opened the door below the bees. I took another look at them, and slowly sidled in, as well. The building was an old bunkhouse, a big room that had been divided by curtains for each bed. A big fireplace was on the north wall, and beyond a cooking area on the east end was an indoor restroom.

“Isn’t this great construction? Look at these 3 by 12s for the rafters. And the old brick – it is like brick seen in streets. Doesn’t this place give you a good image of life on a ranch before World War II? I can see this room full of cowboys getting ready in the morning to go out and put fly dope on injured cattle, or sitting around at night hoo-rawing the youngest hand. The wide verandah on the north side would have had chairs…” Ernie kept glancing around, his imagination working overtime.

“What is all of this on the floor?” Ernie pointed at what looked like an old tattered carpet on the floor, covering 600 square feet or more. He knelt down and scooped up a handful of the material. “This is nothing but dead bees!” We looked around, and there were other parts of the floor covered with more dead bees. “There must be a million dead bees in here!” .I heard bees buzzing, and they were beginning to buzz louder. “I am sorry, Ernie, but I gotta get out of here, I’m spooked.” I bolted, only slowing as I passed under the bees at the door. Thirty feet away, I stopped and waited for Ernie, watching the bees, praying they did not swarm him.

Ernie is a retired field engineer. I have known him since the early 1980’s when some friends and I formed a group to promote the Sibley Nature Center. The Sibley building was not a reality yet, so the group met at Midland College and showed the Chihuahua Desert Research Institute’s trilogy of films and invited other speakers. Ernie had traveled the world working for GE, Sargent Industries, and Weatherford ALS, among others. He’d also spent years roaming the oil fields of West Texas, too. Nowadays he volunteers for the Children’s Clinic and is a member of with the Comanche Trails Woodturners.

“I don’t buy finished wood. I like the stories of wood I find – the type of plant and its story of survival in the desert. It is such interesting wood because of how the climate, insects, and age all affect it. Most desert wood is close grained, too. Anything you make shows you a little about the history of the wood, too.” When he had picked me up for our adventure, he had given the Sibley Center several walking sticks made from the flower stalks of the sotol plants in its parking lot.

Ernie knows the owner of the ranch, and had received permission to gather some wood for some of his projects. Knowing that I like to roam ranch land and am interested in history, he had invited me out to investigate the site. The trip was planned as an adventure of interpretation. We tried to determine what different artifacts and buildings were used for, and when the buildings were made.

Ernie was lucky. The bees did not swarm. There was a light rain falling, which probably kept them pacified. As he joined me, I told him about the horse being killed by Africanized bees in Greenwood this spring, and all of the reports of “killer bee” attacks over west Texas recently. “A fellow died in Big Spring last year, Ernie. We just did something crazy. And this is the second time for me this year. Deborah and I investigated an abandoned house earlier this year, and when bees came boiling out of it, we left.”

On a Discovery Channel program I had learned that the first bees of a colony often headbutt any mammalian intruders when they get too near the nest. If a person walks away after a headbutt, the bees probably do not attack, but if an intruder persists, killer bees aggressively attack. Africanized bees, after entering the United States in the early 1990’s, have taken over much of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California. If a person sees a wild swarm of bees throughout this region, they are “more than likely” to be Africanized.

Like rattlesnakes, Africanized bees are a fact of life in the region where we live. There is no way to ever get rid of all of them – there is too much open country with the right habitat requirements of a dab of water and a place to construct a hive. The hives can be in abandoned houses, abandoned water wells, in cavities of trees, in caves on cliffs, and even in old badger or coyote dens.

Ernie and I roamed around the structures of the old headquarters; barns, ranch dump, corrals, foreman’s house, owner’s house, silo, and more for over two hours. We did not see another bee. But when we returned to the truck, a bee headbutted me. (We were parked 75 feet from the old bunkhouse.)

When we pulled away, I looked back at the door where we had first noticed the bees. Several hundred bees were whirling in the air between the truck and the structure. Africanized bees are easily annoyed by the sound of small engines such as lawnmowers and leafblowers, but are also often agitated by car and truck engines. Africanized bees have been recorded following an intruder up to a half-mile from the hive. I prayed they did not follow us to the gate.