The Loose Cannon: Killer bees, and a Charlie’s Angel, in Yountville

From a reliable source, I have been told that:

• In the center of Yountville exists the largest group of known bee colonies in the entire Napa Valley.
• The bee colonies are in the wall cavity of a landmark old building.
• Each colony has its own queen bee.
• The colonies overall measure about 7 ft. wide and 9 ft. tall.
• The colonies are so large, they spawn several queens each year.
• The colonies are estimated to be home to around a million bees.

There are plans to cut the building open in several phases and relocate the bees, but that will have to wait until the cooler months when the bees are more settled. That will be a future column, and I’ll tell you more when that project gets underway and share the location.

And they are not killer bees, they are just honeybees, but it got you reading this.

So, what do “killer bees” have to do with Yountville?  I’m getting to that.

Just like the creation of Sutter Home White Zinfandel, the creation of killer bees was an accident. It seems there was a Brazilian scientist who attempted to develop a superior honeybee strain by breeding African bees with Italian and other European bees.

Things were going well until a hired beekeeper allowed the different strains to mix outside of the safety control measures, creating the more productive, but more defensive and more aggressive so-called Africanized killer bees in 1957.

As they spread to South America, Central America and the US, the stories caused hysteria. It didn’t help when low-budget, low-quality killer bee movies came along. And that’s where Yountville comes in.

There were several killer bee movies made, but the first was the 1974 movie filmed in Yountville.

Yountville was named Rambeau Junction In the 1960 movie “This Earth is Mine” with Rock Hudson, but in this movie, Yountville was called Van Bohlen. Be sure to make a note of that for your Yountville trivia night.

I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for old movies that offer glimpses of Napa Valley towns and landscapes from years past.

Remember Kate Jackson of Charlie’s Angels fame? Well, before she was Sabrina Duncan, she was Victoria Wells in Killer Bees.

Here, you can view a 45-second sequence that shows Kate and Edward Albert driving into Yountville from the South.

Did you see what the Ad-Hoc building looked like in 1974?

And at the top of those signs is the Greyhound Bus Depot sign.

That short video stops in front of “Tuckers Cafe” (the current Hill Family tasting room) and across the street is a used car lot (the current post office location).

I couldn’t remember a used car lot there, so I asked several Yountville old-timers if they could remember one there. Most of them did not, but once again, I hit paydirt with a response from George Rothwell. Remember George? He shared the following about the Mexicali Rose (which I covered in the Yountville Sun years ago).

George’s response: “I was there during the shooting of Killer Bees. You can see the movie on YouTube. Across the street is the old oak BEE TREE where hundreds of de-stinger bees from UC Davis were placed. A car speeding down Washington Street goes through the stop sign in front of what they called in the movie, Tucker’s Cafe. It crashes in the lot where the post office was, into a movie set of a used car lot. The car in flames becomes covered in bees. Lots of footage of the inside of what was Mexicali Rose, which would become the Antique Fair.  Al Robles of Claude’s Bar (now Bistro Jeanty) purchased the property and leased it to us just before the filming and Al handled the movie company. I named the Bee Tree.”

This is a still shot of Kate crossing Washington to get to Tucker’s Cafe. And that is the Bee Tree that George is referring to.

Notice the open spaces and lack of buildings/development?

Here is a short video showing a wider expanse of that openness:

And this is the current Bee Tree from a slightly different angle:

So, when I wrote the column on the Mexicali Rose, I was curious what the interior of such a wild place looked like. At the 6-minute mark in the movie, we see the interior of that building and it doesn’t live down to my expectations. I was expecting, or at least hoping it would look more like the interior of the old Pancha’s.

One online review of the movie includes, “And at the height of the Killer Bee phenomenon, Killer Bees offers a unique and engaging horror experience that is both amusing and suspenseful.”

I think that was a kind and generous review, and I was surprised by the number of positive comments in the reviews. The special effects should make you chuckle. I suggest that you make some popcorn, settle in and watch the movie with an open mind. Even some of the naysayer reviewers enjoyed the twist at the end.

Here is a YouTube link to the whole movie: Killer Bees (1974). 

Did I mention it’s free?  If you watch it, I’d love to hear your reviews.

There were lots of killer bees movies and films, but Yountville’s was the first. When the movie was made, Gloria Swanson was the named and featured big star, and Kate Jackson was an unknown.

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