>As European feral populations gain greater mite resistance, they may be
able to outcompete the Africans at the northern limits of the African's
range, and push the Africans further south.

All that I have heard about European feral recovery is that they are adopting behavior, or inherently had it all along, that mimics African's. Small colonies and frequent swarming with wider dispersal. Are these adaptations independent of each other or a common trait to both that is adaptive? Just asking, I sure don't know. In any event they are not desirable traits for managed colonies for commercial use. Is there hope that we will be able to select for these mite tolerant traits yet maintain what we want in commercial bees, large colonies, stable, and gentle. A mite tolerant European bee that acts like a mite tolerant African bee is of little commercial use seems to me.

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html