Hi All
 
A while back I read a disturbing reference to the fact that a well
known european beekeeping centre had for at least one year kept a
colony of cape bees.
 
Now for those who do not know how cape bees work (or don't work) here
is a brief summary:
 
The Cape bee unlike any other race of Apis melifera is able to
develop workers with ovaries able to lay a diploid (worker) egg.
Other bees of the world just lay drones. A cape bee also has a very
strong queen like scent and should she end up in a non cape bee hive
will end up laying eggs there as she can develop ovaries even if a
queen is present there. Only another cape queen can stop her
developing ovaries.
 
Now if such bees have been kept on mainland europe some will have
been adopted into hives. This may have happened near winter. The hive
would overwinter with a cape laying worker and a normal queen and in
summer would become a cape colony when the bees raise a new queen
from the cape workers eggs. Then the colony would be a normal cape
bee hive and would die in the winter if it gets too cold. Cape bees
are not as aggressive as their cousins the AHB so many would not
notice the difference, resulting in a slow and quiet infection of the
european and american populations with these bees. The only symptom
would be an increase in winter deaths and theoretically if the cape
bee is more varroa tolerent some hives that seem to be resistant to
varroa??
 
Just a thought.
 
Keep well
 
Garth
 
 
---
Garth Cambray       Kamdini Apiaries
15 Park Road        Apis melifera capensis
Grahamstown         800mm annual precipitation
6139
Eastern Cape
South Africa               Phone 27-0461-311663
 
3rd year Biochemistry/Microbiology    Rhodes University
 
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post in no way
reflect those of Rhodes University.