Re: AHB in USA, and PLB's comments about genetics:

Long denied, Bill Wilson confirmed to me what's only been more recently acknowledged - AHB sperm was imported from Brazil into the USA, used to produce breeder queens, and introduced into the US bee populations via hybrid queens which were first distributed to breeders in the south, then shipped to states like MT, Dakotas, and Wyoming in the 1970s.  The next spring, many of our northern state beekeepers found empty colonies.  This coincides with the first reports of Disappearing Disease on a large scale, eventually encompassing almost as many states as the 2006 reports.  

Bill confirmed to me in Billings, MT, over breakfast a year after his retirement, what many of us had long suspected.  He had traced the winter disappearances back to the 'new' lines being distributed to mainly commercial beekeepers.  Shortly after his discovery, the Wyoming lab was closed, and Bill sent to 'study' mites at Weslaco.  

For many of us old timers, we viewed this transfer as the equivalent of Bill being sent to Siberia.  Bill said that morning that if he had continued to push the issue, he would probably have terminated his career.  He also confirmed to me that he thought CCD, aka Disappearing Disease, was a genetic defect introduced to the US by these hybrid queens.

I've often wondered whether it was a genetic issue (such as these hybrids swarming out in the fall as it got cold, or a general problem with adapting to long winters, or  insufficient food stores to make a long winter) OR was it something passed along from the sperm and then through the queens like a pathogen?

So, no; PLB is probably correct, AHB from Africa wasn't introduced decades ago, but two well-known names in bee research apparently gifted us with AHB sperm and AHB hybrid queens, and then introduced whatever was in it to the bees in the USA - in the 70s.  

When I first came on the scene, this introduction was rumored by vigorously denied.  Later, there were short communications  acknowledging it.   But, I had the experience of encountering two survivor colonies near Colstrip, MT in the late 70s - really nasty colonies. 

Bill never confirmed any of this to  me before he retired, but he brought it up at that breakfast when I mentioned encountering aggressive bees in TX in places where AHB at the time hadn't been reported; and then commented that the AHB that I'd seen in S. America and in TX weren't any worse, or even as bad tempered, as a couple of colonies  that I encountered near Colstrip, MT in the 70s.  That's when the story came out.

A good investigative reporter or historian should obtain Bill's full story before it's lost to time.

Jerry
 


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