True, no worse individually than any honey bee. But it’s the crazy “defend the hive at all costs, banzai!” attitude that they have that makes them dangerous. Get swarmed by 10,000 of them. No place to go. I don’t want to know what that feels like.
I was watching a program on them recently and common wisdom was that an attacking swarm of them would pursue you 1/2 mile to a mile after initiating the attack. Two guys (in suits) intentionally disturbed a hive of them and those bees chased those guys in excess of 5 miles while attacking them. Imagine that, 5 miles worth of hundreds or thousands of bees attacking you.
Unreal.
“Two guys (in suits) intentionally disturbed a hive of them and those bees chased those guys in excess of 5 miles while attacking them. Imagine that, 5 miles worth of hundreds or thousands of bees attacking you.”
Yeah, that’s the difference between them and the European bees. The European bees will usually break off the attack at about 10-20 feet. But there are exceptions. You can get a hot hive.
All in all, keeping them is fun. Assuming of course that you have a warped sense of fun.