ARIZONA | Beekeeper Tyler Wade Alleges ‘Killer Bee Guy’ Reed Booth Sells Outside Honey Under His Brand; Booth Says New Supply Is Coming From Mexico

Author: FFP Ai Bot

BISBEE, Ariz. — A Cochise County beekeeper is publicly questioning where Reed Booth, the bee-removal operator known as the “Killer Bee Guy,” gets the honey he sells under his Killer Bee Honey brand. In a recent video of his own, Booth said his honey had run out and that his next supply would come from a commercial beekeeper in Mexico.

No government agency, court or other news outlet has found that Booth or his company did anything wrong. Honey from Mexico is legal to sell in the United States when its origin is labeled as the law requires.

Who’s involved

Booth has removed honey bee colonies in southeastern Arizona for decades and sells honey, honey butters and honey mustards through Killer Bee Honey LLC, which has shops in Bisbee and Tombstone. Arizona Corporation Commission records list Booth as the company’s member and statutory agent. In an Arizona Highways business profile, Booth described collecting honeycomb from the hives he removes: “In a normal year, we get over 3 tons of honey, on average. We take it back to my commercial kitchen and make gourmet honey, honey butters and honey mustard.”

Tyler Wade is an Arizona beekeeper and bee-removal content creator who posts videos under the banner “Anti-Killer Bee Nation,” many of them criticizing Booth’s claims about bees. Earlier Free Press coverage described him as a Cochise County beekeeper, which makes him local to Booth, not to Fostoria.

What Wade alleges

In a Facebook video in late September, Wade said he had a 15-minute phone call with a Cochise County health inspector on Monday, Sept. 21. Wade said the inspector told him Booth’s kitchen is “always top tier, immaculate, pristine,” but that Booth “is only authorized to sell approved vendor honey.”

From that, Wade argues that Booth is “buying honey from some company and shipping it in, jarring it, putting a sticker on it and selling it as if it was his honey.” He also said that would mean Booth is “not authorized to sell honey he takes from these exterminations and removals from the wild.”

The Free Press has not independently confirmed what the inspector told Wade, or what Booth’s county permits allow him to sell. The Free Press has not independently confirmed that account with the Cochise County Health and Social Services Department.

What Booth said

In a short video circulated on Facebook, in which he introduces himself as “Reed Booth, Killer Bee Guy,” Booth told viewers that his honey had run out. He said the bees he has been removing this year have mostly produced brood comb, and that “we’ve been having to poison all the honey we’ve been getting” because the bees were so aggressive.

“Over the years, I’ve developed relationships with many beekeepers in the area, in the region,” Booth said. “And I got a good friend down in Mexico who is a very large beekeeper,” with “a huge commercial kitchen, and he has the best mesquite honey I’ve ever seen.”

Booth said customers should expect to be “back in business with the honey” by around the second week of October, “with a beautiful mesquite honey.” Of his friend, he said, “he’s got beautiful killer bee honey. That’s all they have down there, the commercial guys.”

In a reaction video, Wade called the timing “super convenient” and said Booth was “covering [his] tracks” by restocking with honey from Mexico. He also asked: “Is this the same approved vendor that the Cochise County health inspector is aware of or is this a new one?”

Booth’s video does not say how the new honey will be labeled, and it does not address Wade’s claims about past sales. The product listings on Booth’s website do not state a country of origin. The Free Press has not examined a current jar label.

The Free Press is seeking comment from Booth. This story will be updated with any response.

What the labeling rules say

Federal food law does not, on its own, require a country of origin on food labels, according to the FDA’s compliance guidance. That requirement comes from the Tariff Act, which is enforced by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Under U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s country-of-origin marking rules, imported goods must be marked with their country of origin for the “ultimate purchaser,” and imported goods that are repacked in the U.S. for retail sale generally must carry that marking on the new container.

The FDA says any statement about where a food comes from must not be false or misleading, and that simply repacking an imported product does not make it a U.S. product. Whether a particular product needs an origin statement can depend on how it was imported and whether it was turned into something new, such as a honey butter.

In short, selling Mexican honey is legal. Selling it as Arizona honey, or without a required origin marking, would not be. The Free Press has seen no evidence of either.

What “killer bee honey” means

“Killer bees” are Africanized honey bees, a hybrid of the same species as the European honey bees that beekeepers keep. According to the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, “all wild honey bees in Arizona are considered to be ‘Africanized’ to some extent,” and only genetic testing can show a colony’s exact lineage.

So honey from wild colonies in Arizona, or, as Booth says, from commercial colonies in Mexico, can fairly be described as coming from Africanized bees. But “killer bee honey” is a brand name, not an official food category. The Free Press found no research showing that honey from Africanized bees differs in a meaningful way from other honey. KJZZ reported in 2025 that an Arizona State University bee researcher considers “killer bee” a misnomer. “If you encounter an Africanized bee out foraging in a patch of flowers, it will not behave differently than a European bee,” researcher Adrian Fisher told the station. The difference shows up in how they defend the hive.

Honey adulteration in context

The FDA says honey “continues to be a commodity susceptible to economically motivated adulteration,” such as cutting it with cheaper syrups. In FDA testing, 10% of imported honey samples were violative in 2021–22, 3% in 2022–23 (from the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Yemen), and 4% of domestic and imported samples combined in fiscal 2025. Those tests looked for added sweeteners. No one has alleged that Booth’s honey is adulterated.

Industry programs such as True Source Certified use third-party audits and testing to verify where honey comes from.

The Free Press previously posted two items about this dispute, on Sept. 27 and Oct. 8, featuring Wade’s videos and Booth’s video.

Disclosure: The owner of The Fostoria Free Press runs a beekeeping business, Mindful Beekeeper LLC.

#Beekeeping #Arizona #Honey

Sources

• Reed Booth, Facebook reel announcing new honey supply from Mexico (about late Sept. 2026) – https://www.facebook.com/reel/28486703330993388/
• Tyler Wade, Facebook reel about call with Cochise County health inspector (about late Sept. 2026) – https://www.facebook.com/reel/1562778965607906/
• Tyler Wade, Facebook reel reacting to Booth’s video (about early Oct. 2026) – https://www.facebook.com/reel/2368315983924180/
• Killer Bee Guy website: The Guy, The Stores and Store pages (accessed Oct. 16, 2026) – https://killerbeeguy.com/the-stores/
• Arizona Corporation Commission record for Killer Bee Honey LLC, entity L11328016 (via OpenCorpData mirror) – https://opencorpdata.com/us-az/L11328016
• Arizona Highways: Killer Bee Honey – https://www.arizonahighways.com/business/killer-bee-honey
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection: Marking of Country of Origin on U.S. Imports – https://www.cbp.gov/trade/rulings/informed-compliance-publications/marking-country-origin-us-imports
• eCFR: 19 CFR 134.26, Imported articles repacked or manipulated – https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-19/chapter-I/part-134
• FDA Compliance Policy Guide Sec. 560.200, Country of Origin Labeling – https://www.fda.gov/media/71994/download
• eCFR: 21 CFR 101.18, Misbranding of food – https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-101/subpart-A/section-101.18
• University of Arizona Cooperative Extension: Wild Honey Bees in Community Environments (AZ1846) – https://extension.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/2024-08/az1846-2020.pdf
• KJZZ: Q&AZ: Do the ‘killer bees’ in Arizona live up to their name? (May 30, 2025) – https://www.kjzz.org/qaz/2025-05-30/q-az-do-the-killer-bees-in-arizona-live-up-to-their-name
• FDA: FY22/23 Sample Collection and Analysis of Imported Honey for Economically Motivated Adulteration – https://www.fda.gov/food/economically-motivated-adulteration-food-fraud/fy2223-sample-collection-and-analysis-imported-honey-economically-motivated-adulteration
• FDA: FY25 Sample Collection and Analysis of Domestically Produced and Imported Honey for Economically Motivated Adulteration – https://www.fda.gov/food/economically-motivated-adulteration-food-fraud/fy25-sample-collection-and-analysis-domestically-produced-and-imported-honey-economically-motivated
• True Source Honey: True Source Certified Standards – https://www.truesourcehoney.com/true-source-certified-standards
• The Fostoria Free Press, Sept. 27, 2026 post – https://thefostoriafreepress.com/local-honey-fraud-exposed-in-arizona-killer-bee-guy-imports-sells-honey-as-his-own/
• The Fostoria Free Press, Oct. 8, 2026 post – https://thefostoriafreepress.com/killer-bee-honey-exposed-by-beekeepers-reed-booth-admits-to-long-history-of-mexican-honey-farm-relationships/