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Killer bees charge business as usual year for RB firefighters
While the millenium bug is destined to go down in history as the scourge that never was, at least one insect pest was making a buzz during the year 2000 in Redondo Beach. Reported bee swarms more than doubled in the city over the last year.
Redondo Beach Fire Marshall Bill Kerr said the increased activity could be the result of Africanized honeybees that have moved into Redondo Beach and are interbreeding with the local bee population. The so-called "killer bees" are much more aggressive than their relatively benign cousins the European honey bee, and tend to swarm more often. They’ve been responsible for a number of deaths throughout the Southwest, including that of a Long Beach man in September 1999.
"Some of the responses we’ve had have turned out to be unfounded, the firefighters show up and the bees aren’t there anymore. We’re not expecting it to be a problem. Most of the swarms we’ve found haven’t been aggressive," Kerr said
Robert Saviskas, executive director of the Los Angeles West Vector Control District, which tracks and handles bee swarms in the area, said that the population of Africanized honeybees has doubled in the South Bay over the past year.
"Last year at this time, about 30 percent of the swarms we were seeing were Africanized. This year, it’s about 60 percent," Saviskas said.
Those numbers are expected to increase over the next two years and then level off until Africanized bees push out all the European bees, Saviskas said. He cautioned that while the Africanized bees are most dangerous when they’re in a hive, they can attack if disturbed while in a swarm. As the "killer" bees are virtually indistinguishable from their domesticated cousins, anyone encountering a beehive or swarm is encouraged to call vector control at (310) 915-7370.
On the waterfront
Y2K also saw more than a 25 percent jump in "mayday" requests for aid from Redondo’s Harbor Patrol. Those calls include everything from boaters who forgot to fill up their fuel tanks before leaving for the day, to boats that became stranded on rocks, in heavy surf or that started to sink.
"We handle everything in the city of Redondo Beach to three miles out. And we have a mutual aid agreement with Baywatch that has us helping cover the coastline from Point Vicente to El Segundo," said Lt. John Pitzer of the Redondo Beach Harbor Patrol.
The "biggest" call they received last year was from an 80-foot yacht called the "Mojo" that had developed engine trouble. They towed it back into the harbor with firefighting harbor patrol boats.
Two boaters whose vessels caught fire in the harbor needed the assistance of those boats. And Harbor patrol responded to a lobster fishing boat that exploded after leaving the fuel docks early one September morning.
Harbor patrol also comes to the aid of individual swimmers in distress. Last year they performed seven full water rescues, including plucking from the brine two boaters whose vessels had sunk. As the year came to a close, they received a rescue request they couldn’t complete, a teenage bodyboarder was missing in heavy surf on Christmas Day. His body was found weeks later, drowned, off Torrance Beach.
The demand for their services, said Kerr, is seasonal and depends on the weather.
"It usually goes up and down based on how much activity is in the harbor. In 1999 we were still dealing with a lot of the El Nino effect. It was a colder and wetter year. But 2000 was gorgeous, so you would think more people using their boats would generate more distress calls," Kerr said. ER