Pete, I remember colonies of Europeans in Calif that would start hitting
our helmets as soon as we stepped out of the truck, with the hives at a
distance.

Some years ago I had a hive go hot in Northern Calif, long before AHB in
SoCal, that I had to cancel a bee class.  I remember having a red cloth
that the bees covered in stings clear across the yard without any
provocation.

From my personal experience, some EHB can be quite hot.  Luckily, I haven't
seen any like this in some years.  Any really hot ones that I've seen I
have reason to suspect Africanization.

>mtDNA is useful for tracking the matriline

So wouldn't that answer your question about DNA testing?  My understanding
is that AHB predominately exhibit A matrilineage.  Is that not so?

>While it seems pretty clear there are genomic regions which govern
behavior, it's far less clear which ones are important and how they perform
theses functions.

As you know, we've discussed this off list.  I'm curious as to why some
matrilines appear to survive better than others when forced to live without
human assistance.

>
> > We will need stock from which to breed....They may be surviving
> entirely due to environmental conditions, rendering them useless as
> breeding stock.
>

Or maybe they aren't.  Natural selection for parasite resistance has worked
pretty well for a billion years.  Don't know why you've suddenly given up
faith in it.

>The so-called races were isolated by geographic boundaries for many
thousands of years.

How many thousands?  Europe was under ice not that many thousands of years
ago.  And are you saying that the feral colonies in Moab aren't isolated?

>
> > I'd be careful about what you publicly presume : )
> I am pretty comfortable discussing things openly here on Bee-l.


I'm hardly interested in insulting my friends.  What I was referring to was
that you might not presume that all the Utah bees were Africanized until
you asked Jerry whether that was indeed the case (it isn't).

>It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if bees in the
Southwest are surviving without varroa treatment, it's probably due to
African genes. It's true in Calif, Arizona, and Texas, why would it be
different in Utah?

C'mon Pete, rocket science has nothing to do with this.  It's about
biology.  Natural selection in the feral (and to some extent in the
managed) honey bee populations hasn't stopped.  Bees today are more
resistant to varroa than when varroa first arrived (and far more resistant
to tracheal mite).  I've visited plenty of apiaries that are founded with
non African feral stock that have acceptable loss rates.  We are watching
an evolutionary process.  It's not just Africanization.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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