aided and abetted by pesticides, climate change, and genetically modified crops?

I wouldn't be surprised. The greedy profit mongers believe that they will escape the consequences when they've managed to destroy Earth's capacity to support all of life.

so afraid of bees, hornets, and wasps that the minute they see any of them they spray poison everywhere. Here in Texas I assume all wild honeybees are Africanized and yet I have worked in my yard while they buzz around and have never been stung. Same thing has happened with yellow-jackets and paper wasps.

I do know that their stings are painful and for some life-threatening but the rush to exterminate them is just wrong.

We do not use any pesticides or herbicides on our property largely because we are a designated wildlife habitat but it is just not in my nature to kill just because an insect has an ugh factor. (The only exception is mosquitoes.)

I forgot about those African Bees though , not being in that part of the country.
A friend had a lot of wasp bites but he made a repair move on his house without checking for them first.
He is OK and lesson learned

The llargest bubmble bee in the world is being wiped out by a suspect imported parasite!
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/09/plight-of-the-bumblebee.html

extra info. I have been stung by both bees and wasps. Well actually I stepped on a bee that was foraging in clover when I was bare foot. Hurt badly but the bee was worse - it was dead.

We had a swarm of bees in one of our cedar trees a couple of years ago and it scared me but a bee-keeper said that they would move on within 24 hours. Which they did. As I said in my first post I assume all wild bees are Africanized here and still they gave no offense to us watching them from a distance of 20 feet. They are all about protecting the queen and in a swarm are their most unpredictable.

We must re-connect with the natural world and enjoy what it can teach us. Our brains help us understand it and also to protect us from its dangers when we remain alert and aware.

and fear, which generates a rush of adrenaline, can be smelled by stinging insects.

The best thing to do is remain calm. Getting freaked out increases the chance that you will be stung.

The only exception I know of to this is yellow jackets. Sometimes determined aggression (as in, I will smash you if you start bothering me) is the only way to get them to leave you alone. That, and check carefully for their nests: do not step in or disturb, because then they will attack.

Honeybees and bumble bees are usually gentle and non-aggressive. Leave them alone, and they will leave you alone.

I have tried talking to them (a la the advice of Rolling Thunder, a Cherokee medicine man, living with the Shoshone tribe in Nevada. If you promise to leave some plants for them to use for nectar/food, they will not harm you, even if the plants are covered with bees. I know it sounds nutty...but it works.

Regarding the stinging insects reacting to smell information...I first learned that from a bee keeper who came to talk to us at summer camp, back when I was a Bluebird.

We need to look at this situation very seriously and explore all avenues before its too late if its not too late already.

Wish I wasn't so afraid of bees, especially those big ol' bumble mothers. They really are beautiful.

What really scares me are the big black ones, I think they call them carpenter bees. One flew in the house once and I almost lost ten years off my life.