Well, you're considerably more likely to run into a wild colony of "Africanized" hybrids than you are a great white shark, for one thing. For another, while I wasn't around at the time, I understand the movie was more made in response to sensationalistic reporting than a cause of it - I might be wrong about that part, though.
That said, my understanding is that A. m. scutellata x A. mellifera hybrids aren't unusually aggressive in nest defense by the standards of social hymenopterans generally, but only by the standard of the European honeybee (A. mellifera). I can't claim close familiarity with the relevant literature on bee hybrids, but from what I have seen, their nest defense behavior seems roughly comparable in aggressiveness to that of many yellowjacket (Vespula, Dolichovespula) species. On the other hand, a wild bee colony is likely to be one or two orders of magnitude greater in size than a wild yellowjacket colony, which means that a comparable level of aggression in nest defense could pose a significantly greater hazard.
Using the figures from the Wikipedia article [1] and its relevant source [2], it looks like A. m. scutellata x A. mellifera are responsible for an average of around 15 human deaths per year since the introduction of A. m. scutellata into Brazil in 1956. So I don't really see that there's very much to worry over here, in any case.
> Well, you're considerably more likely to run into a wild colony of "Africanized" hybrids than you are a great white shark
Are you? They attack rarely (although are thought to have done so fatally a few weeks ago here in NZ) and aren’t even seen usually, but they are close to popular beaches.
Well, according to UFL's International Shark Attack File [1] and the CDC [2] respectively, on average 4.3 humans die worldwide per year of shark attacks, vs. an average 62 humans in the US per year of stings from hymenopterans excluding ants.
Given that the shark attack stats cover a period 25 times as long as that for the bees, wasps, and hornets, I do feel like "considerably" is a fair choice of adjective here.
You’re measuring attacks, I’m talking of being in close proximity.
Probably people die of bee stings more than sharks attacks here in NZ, but those bees certainly aren’t africanised. I suspect most US deaths aren’t all from africanised bees either but that’s going to be hard to prove.
That said, my understanding is that A. m. scutellata x A. mellifera hybrids aren't unusually aggressive in nest defense by the standards of social hymenopterans generally, but only by the standard of the European honeybee (A. mellifera). I can't claim close familiarity with the relevant literature on bee hybrids, but from what I have seen, their nest defense behavior seems roughly comparable in aggressiveness to that of many yellowjacket (Vespula, Dolichovespula) species. On the other hand, a wild bee colony is likely to be one or two orders of magnitude greater in size than a wild yellowjacket colony, which means that a comparable level of aggression in nest defense could pose a significantly greater hazard.
Using the figures from the Wikipedia article [1] and its relevant source [2], it looks like A. m. scutellata x A. mellifera are responsible for an average of around 15 human deaths per year since the introduction of A. m. scutellata into Brazil in 1956. So I don't really see that there's very much to worry over here, in any case.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee
[2] https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/killbee