ATHENS, GA — Killer bees are back! New sightings have increased in the southeast.

Originally crossbred to improve honeybee health in Brazil, the bee instead became incredibly defensive and was accidentally released in the 1950s. They were first spotted in the US in 1980’s.

Lewis Bartlett, an assistant professor at the University of Georgia says they are very common in South Florida, “but in Alabama and Georgia, Mississippi, and the Carolinas, we’ve done a pretty good job snuffing out the genetics that lead to these very defensive characteristics that we call Africanized or hybrid.”

He says they are watching to make sure the bees don’t come here so that they don’t breed with local bees and creep into honeybees here.