Warwick Estevam Kerr

Warwick Estevam Kerr was a Brazilian agricultural engineer, geneticist, entomologist, professor and scientific leader, notable for his discoveries in the genetics and sex determination of bees. The Africanized bee in the western hemisphere is directly descended from 26 Tanzanian queen bees accidentally released by one of his assistant bee-keepers. When reassembling a hive, the assistant forgot to install the queen excluder. This occurred in 1957 in Rio Claro, São Paulo in the southeast of Brazil from hives operated by Kerr, who had interbred honey bees from Europe and southern Africa.