Why the term Africanized bees is problematic in a racist society

Several key words used in beekeeping are racially charged: in order to make beekeeping and ecology more inclusive, we need to replace them.

Several words used to describe honey bees directly reference the traumatic history of slavery in the United States. It is important to consider alternatives to these loaded and painful terms to make careers in the bee world more welcoming to people of color and to reach a broader audience as we communicate ideas about ecology and beekeeping. We borrow the concept of social reflection from the field of Environmental Sociology to explain how terms that humans use to describe nature often reflect the implicitly racist society in which they were developed (in the United States). This begins to explain how ecologists and beekeepers may use words that reinforce white supremacy without harboring racist intentions. We focused on one: calling hybrids of the sub-species Apis m. scutellata “Africanized”. Scholars and the general public describe Africanized "killer bees" as “more violent” than European bees, and beekeepers “worry” that these Africanized bees will mate with their European queens. This description is dangerously similar to stereotypes against African Americans that white people have long used to justify racial oppression. We need to replace the terms “African” and “Africanized” in favor of more biologically-accurate words like “Equatorial” or "scutellata." Recognizing how scientific discourse is constructed opens the space to imagine alternatives to critical terms that are rooted in the United States’ history of slavery. These terms reinforce damaging racial stereotypes. Shifting our language, and selecting our words with care is a practical and powerful step we can take towards making bee science and beekeeping a more socially just practice.

This talk was given at the international beekeeping conference Apimondia, in Montreal in September 2019.