Hello Mike and All,
Mike A. wrote:
 This collaboration stems from the Africanized bee
> conference in Tucson in 2000, and from the USDA believing that our
> (South African) experience with the Capensis Problem might help in
> understanding what is happening in Arizona. But rest assured, it is a
> USDA initiative, including the funding side of things.

Thanks for the information Mike. I withdraw my comment about the USDA being
*asleep at the wheel*. Apparently Dr. Hoffman has been planning for some
time to get to the core of the problem!

I think Mikes  *WHAT IS HAPPENING IN ARIZONA* above explains  my concern.

BEE-L is small  and only represents about a fourth of one percent by my
estimate of the beekeepers in the U.S. but I believe enough interest has
been raised on BEE-L judging from the private emails I have received that
the whole issue is going to be looked at.

 I do not want  to cause problems for the Lusbys and the Lusbys have said
visitors are welcome. I believe visitors will be arriving soon. For the good
of U.S. beekeeping let us take a close look at those bees in Arizona with
capensis traits.

Let me reinforce again about capensis from the things I have learned if
applied to the Lusby outfit if the bees of the Lusbys were found to carry
capensis traits.

Capensis would thrive in the desert of Arizona. Reason why depopulating
hives most likely would not work to solve the capensis trait problem. .
Capensis is used for honey production in South Africa and most certainly
could in Arizona. Although capensis typically is not a great honey producer
capensis might even out produce other strains in an Arizona desert setting.
. They are gentle to work with. They are black  and not gray which is more
typical of caucs  than the black color. The long body hairs Allen speaks of
is typical of caucs. I raised caucs for years and most were gray with long
body hairs and only on rare occasions black but never shinny black.

Drop one copper penny in the salt water reef tank at your local fish store
and the whole tank dies unless the copper penny if found and removed.

Drop one capensis worker in a hive of European bees and the whole hive can
dwindle and die (Mike A. post). Each generation of capensis laying workers
from the first start laying capensis eggs and the the European bees  will
eventually kill their own queen.

One part of this discussion has been over *IF* the bees in Arizona  are
indeed capensis (raised by Allen Dick).  The focus should be on getting rid
of those bees which are showing the capensis  pseudo queen traits whether
capensis or not.

I believe in the end capensis genes will be found to be the  problem but
only my hypothesis and certainly not proven yet or at least the information
has not been released by the USDA yet.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison