Recently I heard a news report about the decline in bee populations. According to Dr. Koos Biesmeijer of the University of Leeds, “Wild bees and the flowers they pollinate are disappearing together in Britain and the Netherlands…We were shocked by a decline in plants as well as bees. If this pattern is replicated elsewhere, the ‘pollinator services’ we take for granted could be at risk.”

Does this mean that we don’t have to worry about all those African killer bee swarms that were reported to be migrating toward the American Southwest as far back as the mid-seventies? Did they ever reach Texas or Arizona? Why don’t we don’t hear about them anymore? Where did they go? Canada?

Remember how the killer bees were in the news all the time then? Hollywood studios tried to capitalize on the headline story with several lame horror films. Irwin Allen’s big-budget disaster epic, “The Swarm” (1978) WAS a disaster at the boxoffice. And low-budget thrillers like “The Bees” (1978) and the made-for-TV “The Savage Bees” (1976) didn’t generate much interest either. Let’s face it. Bees aren’t scary on the big screen, even if you happen to be allergic to them. Giant man-eating coachroaches – that’s scary. Everyone knew the whole killer bee thing had been overplayed by the media by the time “Saturday Night Live” got around to spoofing the phenomenon with their Bee family sitcom with cast members John Belushi and fellow cast members in big bee costumes.

But was there ever a scary bee movie? “The Deadly Bees” (1967) from Amicus Studios was one of the first and about as frightening as a herd of killer butterflies. You could stir up a heated debate, though, about which of the bee movies is the funniest. Here’s a link to an amusing recap of “The Savage Bees” by New Orleans native Albert Walker – the film is set there - http://www.agonybooth.com/extras/savage_bees/

“The Bees“, however, is hard to beat for sheer absurdity. One of the looney scientists in the film suggests spraying the bees with a formula that will spur the male bees to mate with each other instead of the queen. This gets an outraged response from rival scientist John Carradine (with a thick German accent): “This chemical of yours will turn the bees into homosexuals?”  It’s a valid concern though because the bees do seem to have a thing for John Saxon in this film, especially the scene where they interrupt his lovemaking with Angel Tompkins.

Which brings up back to the unanswered question – where are the killer bees now? Is there a bee expert in the house?