According to Cecilia Costa
> Honey Bee Populations Are Adapted to Their Environment of Origin
> the COLOSS COST Action, between 2009 and 2012, involved 16 European honey bee lines belonging to the subspecies A. m. carnica, A. m. ligustica, A. m. macedonica, A. m. mellifera, and A. m. siciliana. 

According to Friedrich Ruttner
> The three major European races A. m. mellifera, ligustica and carnica were confined for climatic reasons to the three South-European islands during the last glaciation. In the postglacial warm period (Atlanticum, 6000 years B.P.), A. m. mellifera spread through West and Central Europe as far as Scandinavia and the Urals (Fig. 7); A. m. ligustica remained  stuck on the Apenninian Peninsula by the Alps, while A. m. carnica expanded to the Danube valley, the Carpathians and to the Ukrainian plains.

These are subspecies that were produced by thousands of years of natural selection in a state of geographic isolation. This degree of "adaptation" cannot be claimed for bees that Mr. W has had in his bee-yards since 1999. 

PLB

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