Coming back to the question of Darwinian Beekeeping, Dr. Seeley describes the ethos of the approach as follows:
'This process of adaptation by natural selection produced the differences in worker bee color, morphology, and behavior that distinguish the 27 subspecies of Apis mellifera (e.g., A.m. mellifera, A. m. ligustica, and A. m. scutellata) that live within the species' original range of Europe, western Asia, and Africa (Ruttner 1988). The colonies in each subspecies are precisely adapted to the climate, seasons, flora, predators, and diseases in their region of the world.'
https://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org/darwinian-beekeeping
So while it is my opinion that the question of whether natural selection is purposeful or not is ultimately a question of origin, I am not certain this question is even germane to the question of whether 'Darwinian Beekeeping' is a sound approach.
What does seem plain to me is that what Dr. Seeley is advocating for does not rely upon purpose as much as upon observable differences in traits between honey bee colonies when allowed to adapt to their local environmental conditions.
He goes on: 'Moreover, within the geographical range of each subspecies natural selection produced ecotypes, which are fine-tuned, locally adapted populations. For example, one ecotype of the subspecies Apis mellifera mellifera evolved in the Landes region of southwest France, with its biology tightly linked to the massive bloom of heather (Calluna vulgaris L.) in August and September. Colonies native to this region have a second strong peak of brood rearing in August that helps them exploit this heather bloom. Experiments have shown that the curious annual brood cycle of colonies in the Landes region is an adaptive, genetically based trait (Louveaux 1973, Strange et al. 2007).'
This idea comports well with the COLOSS GEI cluster of experiments which have been discussed at some length here on the pages of Bee-L:
https://coloss.org/gei-experiment/
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