Miami ? During the past year, bees – specifically the super-aggressive Africanized insects – have posed a growing public safety hazard in Florida. Dubbed “killer bees” in B-movies and tabloids, these small but fierce insects were transported from Africa to Brazil in the 1950s in a failed attempt to boost honey production. Since then, they have spread throughout South and Central America, into the American southwest and recently, to Florida – mostly by hitching rides on international freighters.

Africanized bees can be hard to distinguish from Florida’s gentle, managed honeybees that pollinate citrus groves and flower gardens – except for their behavior. Africanized bees aggressively defend their nest to the death.