This cache is hidden out in the open and is visible from the
highway. Texas muggles should pass right by never giving it a
second thought, but a Texas Geocacher should spot it a mile away!
The cache swag is a bunch of parachute men.
Bee traps monitor northward
movement of killer bees
By J.T. SMITH/Abilene Reporter-News
http://www.texnews.com/local97/bees050797.html
ALBANY - Those blue boxes dangling from mesquite
trees along State Highway 351 and State Highway 6 just west of here
may look like a hat box out on a limb. They're actually bee traps
aimed at determining whether Africanized or so-called "killer bees"
are moving farther northward.
During the first week of March, a vicious group of
bees swarmed a house at Baird - killing a dog and causing a family
to flee their home. Texas A&M inspectors went to Baird the
final week of March to examine the situation in Callahan
County.
The line of bee traps that many motorists may see
while traveling the Albany Highway between Abilene and Albany in
Shackelford County are part of a precautionary effort to determine
if some Africanized bees have moved farther northward than earlier
thought.
Africanized bees were first detected in the United
States near Brownsville in October 1990. Since then, the bees had
been thought to have spread through roughly the southern half of
Texas. Africanized bees look just like regular honey bees, but they
are highly aggressive. The Texas Apiary Inspection Service
keeps a close tab on the bees. The Texas A&M Honey Bee
Identification Lab in College Station determines if bees are
Africanized.
State bee inspectors continue to monitor a series
of bee traplines that extend across the state - including the ones
north of Abilene. The bee trap boxes each have a printed
message: "Caution - Bee Trap."
http://www.insecta-inspecta.com/bees/killer/
Entomologists in Texas are working hard to track
the northward spread of Africanized bees. The bees are tracked with
traps. Usually these traps are nothing more than cardboard boxes
covered with blue protective plastic, hung in trees. The traps are
baited with a liquid similar to the pheromone that directs a swarm
looking for a home. In Texas, more than 1,200 bee traps have been
set along hundreds of miles of roadway.
http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=1221
Beewatch: The vigilant Utah
Department of Agriculture is deploying 100 blue boxes along the
state’s southern border with Arizona, trying to trap any dreaded
killer bees that might be flying that far north. Killer bees,
invaders from Africa via South America, crossed the U.S. border in
1990 and now occupy portions of New Mexico, Texas, California and
Arizona - where a concentration south of Phoenix contains a
whopping 88 hives.
http://www.stingshield.com/2002news.htm
State bee inspectors continue to monitor a series
of bee traplines that extend across the state from Louisiana to New
Mexico. The Africanized bee was first detected in the United States
near Brownsville in October 1990. Since then, the bee has spread
through much of the state, along a line roughly from Houston to
Lubbock to El Paso. Africanized honey bees also have been found in
Arizona, California, Nevada and New Mexico. (Kathleen Phillips,
Texas A&M Agriculture News, 9/3/02).
http://agnews.tamu.edu/graphics/newsgraph/ENTO/BEETRAP.HTML
Africanized Honey bee Trap Lines: Trap lines are
maintained across the state by Texas A&M University to track
the northward migration of Africanized honey bees. The traps
consist of blue cardboard boxes hung in trees. Bees nest in the
boxes, which are checked regularly for Africanized colonies. A
small trap line on the border is also maintained for research
purposes by USDA's Agricultural Research Service.