GUELPH, Ont. – As if truckers aren’t blamed for enough, they’ve now been targeted as a source of African killer bees.

Medhat Nasr, a biologist with the University of Guelph, believes the bees are hitching rides from the southern U.S. on both trucks and ships, and will colonize Canada within the next five years. In the U.S., the pests have swarmed and killed at least five people.

The trucked-in bees have been found in Vancouver, while ships have brought them as far north as Nova Scotia in the last three years, Nasr told the National Post.

African queen bees were brought to Brazil in 1956, when 26 aggressive colonies were accidentally released, spreading throughout South and Central America and Mexico, killing 1,000 people. They reached the U.S. about 10 years ago.

“We know a man was attacked in West Virginia after bees hitched a ride on a truck. When they were discovered in Vancouver and Nova Scotia, inspectors killed them right away,” Nasr said. n