...i've been doing a little reading up (and thinking) on africanized bees, and a few questions come to mind, and i'd love some input.

1.  i read from roger morse (the illustrated encyclopedia of beekeeping, p230, under "killer bees"), that 

"It is known that sperm from Africanized bees was introduced into the United States and was used to inseminate local queens in the 1960's without apparent adverse effect, and it is likely tht queens were earlier introduced from Africa to North America, again without problems".

there is also an article from the Arizona Repbulic online from 1991 that says, 

" Government documents released to The Arizona Republic by the Arizona Beekeepers Association confirm that Africanized bee semen was shipped from 1959 to 1961 by Kerr in Brazil to Stephen Tabor of the USDA bee lab in Baton Rouge.
"It was part of an ongoing program to breed superior honey-producing bees, just like Dr. Kerr's experiments in South America," Lusby said."

and some other documents that say largely the same thing (I'd love to see the article on this subject in "Bee World" 1973, Vol 54 if anyone has a copy).  are the bees that migrated north on their own from brazil different from these other introductions?  do the morphometric and dna databases that are used to identify "africanized" bees discriminate between these different introductions?

2.  the reactions i've been getting to videos of dee's bees is interesting and varied.  i showed the video to a farmer where we have many of our bees.  when i told him that a ny bee inspector thought they looked "africanized", his reaction was, "who cares when they are healthy and strong like that".  from others, i've heard (from one single source) that they are not strong, yet they are probably africanized.  at our local beeclub, i showed the videos, and most people were fascinated...people asked if we saw africanized bees while we were in arizona, they didn't say "oh, those videos look like africanized bees".

what i'm most curious about is this:

can anyone show pictures/videos of hives that are as strong as the ones in the videos that they think are gentle?  what i see online, in the books, and in the journals are hives much smaller than this...1 or 2 boxes for the broodnest, bees just sitting on the combs (not out working), and likely fed and medicated.

we spent 2 weeks going through virtually all of dee's hives with her (about 600 after we made splits, averaging 5 deeps each).  it was different than what i'm used to, but not scary.

what we hear from the media, researchers and other beekeepers is that bees are dying.  these bees are almost universally medicated (one would hope with approved treatments used according to the label).  why would anyone interested in the long term health of the honeybees not want to look at a population of bees that is strong, healthy, and bigger than most research samples, and that are not treated?

i've heard members of the ccd working group speak, and it seems to me they are only looking at sick bees (ccd or not, the commercial stock does not seem to be healthy)...why aren't they looking at a demonstrably healthy population to compare the sick bees with?  "africanized" or not...these are healthy, managed bees that have not been treated....is there a better "control" to compare the treated commercial stock with?  if so, can you name it?  do any of the bee labs keep hives as strong as these?  who can demonstrate healthy bees like these?

imho, this country has a great resource in dees bees.  those interested in improving the health of our bees in general should look to this as a model, not a threat.

i look forward to feedback on these issues.

deknow

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