http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_11683327
From "The Salt Lake Tribune" 2/11/09
State and local officials have been anticipating the bees' arrival since they showed up in Mesquite, Nevada in 1999, just a few miles from the Utah line.
Although Africanized bees look like European honey bees, they tend to get irritated faster, respond with more firepower and stay mad longer than other bees. Their stings aren't more powerful but they're just more aggressive.
The bees are the result of interbreeding between European honey bees and bees from Africa. They were "inadvertently released" in Brazil in the 1950s. They were first spotted in Texas in 1990 and have since been found in several other states, including California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada.
They are widely feared by the public but since their introduction to the US in 1990, only 14 deaths have been reported over a period of several years, which makes them less hazardous than venomous snakes.
So far, we don't have any reports of Africanized bees in North Carolina.
