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Subject:
From:
Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:22:56 -0400
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> I am referring to the breeding population.  I suppose about 80 square miles.

I simply don't see how one can define a discreet breeding population in this way. Presumably most of the colonies in the US (and most other countries with high densities) would simply have no barriers to breeding with any other local population, hence there is only one population for a given geographical area or region. 

This is why the Russian bees were sequestered on an offshore island before being brought into Louisiana. Quite simply, once a strain of bees is introduced there is nothing stopping it from being spread throughout the US (or Europe, or Australia, for example). 

The only thing that has slowed the African bee in the US has been its dislike for regions that are too cold for its tastes. Be that as it may, it has no doubt been moved into almost every state by migratory beekeepers. There is plenty of evidence that African genes are widespread:

Before the introduction of Africanized honey bees in the United States,
feral honey bees were a mix of the ancestors from Eurasia which were mostly
of the C lineage and also had a mixture of the ‘M’ and ‘O’ lineage. After
Africanization, feral bees were mostly of the African race based on morphology
with a mixture of the M and C lineage but exhibited less of the O lineage

Genetic Evidence for Honey Bees (Apis mellifera L.) of Middle Eastern Lineage in the United States
by Roxane Magnus & Allen L. Szalanski 2010

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