>And yet people are keen on seeing a large population of wild or feral bees build up in a region where they aren't even native. What's wrong with this picture?
In my humble view, the subject is a bit more nuanced than that. To whit:
1. We've thoroughly explored the fact that Western honey bees are not native to the Americas - so at least on this score there is parity between managed and feral stocks.
2. There's the question of whether honey bees can be classified as domesticated. Typically when employing this term one is talking about avian or mammalian species that are maintained as a breed in a closed breeding population.
3. It could be argued that any diseases common in feral bees are also ubiquitous in managed bees such that the disease threat within the flight range of one's apiary is similar regardless whether these outside colonies are feral or managed.
The biggest threat often argued to be in favor of elimination of feral colonies is AFB, and there appears to be little scientific support that feral colonies serve as significant reservoirs:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03014223.1994.9517996https://www.researchgate.net/publication/14540789_Bacillus_larvae_carrier_status_of_swarms_and_feral_colonies_of_honeybees_Apis_mellifera_in_Australia
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