Britt,
You are still missing the point about AMM in the UK.  It does get colder in the Mid US than in the UK - but you are almost certain to get a good summer - right?  And when summer does come along you have large areas with plants that produce nectar for the bees to forage on -right?  A decent summer is not guaranteed in the UK.  In a poor summer US Italians will need feeding in order to stay alive whilst AMM may actually make some surplus.  AMM is well adapted the British climate and is able to survive without much input from the beekeeper, US Italians and NZ Italians are not.  Italians also need too much feeding even in this part of the world (eastern Mediterranean and Middle East)  I have spoken to many beekeepers in Lebanon, Jordan, Greece and Israel - the comments are always the same - lots of brood and lots of input in the form of food from the beekeeper.  The Italians in the US have been bred and selected mainly for pollination and the package bee industry.  That is the production of large amounts of live bees to make packages with and get pollination done early in the year. 
In independent tests our own bees (Superbee Cyprus) out-performed US Italians in both honey production and resistance to Acarapis woodi.  Three years ago we exported some queens to Finland and they wintered better than the Finnish local bees and Buckfast in central Finland where the temperature reached -40c during the middle of winter, something that seemed impossible for a bee from southern Europe to do.  Personally I wouldn't use Italians in my own colonies.
Best regards
Roger White
Cyprus.

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