----- Original Message -----
From: "Aaron Morris" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 1:34 AM
Subject: Africanized hybrids (Was: I need the scientific name for the kill
er bee quick!!)


> I was also aware of the cape bee vs. scutellata, almost quoted the article
> but did not as the BEE-L guidelines frown on excessive quotes of
previously
> posted material.  The point I was making is that Gloria DeGrandi-Hofman
> asserted that scutellata exhibits thelytoky as it migrates northward and
> this may be a possible explanation for the majority of bees in a
"colonized"
> area showing AHB DNA.
>
> Getting back to the original point, AHB and European bees have not shown
> hybridization in the natural laboratory.  There has not been documented
Apis
> meliffera meliffellata of Apis meliffera scuteliffera or whatever one
would
> call the hybrid.  Nor has there been a definitive explanation why.  As
it's
> played out in the natural settings, when scutellata colonizes an area, the
> Europeans disappear.

As I understand it, hybridization has occurred. Both morphometric and DNA
analysis support this conclusion. It would be unreasonable to believe that,
over the last 44 years or so, matings have occurred only among reproductives
from the original 26 swarms of scutellata and among their descendents.
Apparently, hybrids that do not exhibit the highly defensive behavior
characteristic of scutellata are less able to survive and tend to die out,
leaving those colonies known as Africanized honey bees. Although there is
some evidence that the frequency of European genes in Africanized
populations may decline over time, these bees cannot be considered to belong
to the scutellata race. Let's just call them Apis mellifera and leave it at
that. Subspecies is such a nebulous concept, anyway. The category is merely
a taxonomic convenience, and has no biological validity.


Tom Culliney, Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture, Division of Plant Industry, 1428
South King St., Honolulu, HI 96814 U.S.A.
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Telephone: 808-973-9528
Fax: 808-973-9533

"To a rough approximation and setting aside vertebrate chauvinism, it can be
said that essentially all organisms are insects."--R.M. May (1988)