Hello All,
In the early days of the *African Bee* it was named Apis mellifera
adansonii.
*The Hive and the Honey Bee* says adansonii covers the whole continent of
Africa between the Sahara and the Kalahari. This was accepted truth at the
time of the original release(1956).
To quote the *hive and Honey Bee:(pg.26 copy 1975)
"In 1956 a few adansonii queens were imported from South Africa to Brazil to
improve local stock,originally imported from Europe(Kerr 1957)."
All text of the period say adansonii were what Dr Kerr imported.
Quote from pg. 38 of *Hive and Honey Bee* (copy 1992)
"The African group includes not only includes the LARGEST NUMBER OF
geographic RACES, BUT SOME OF THE BEST KNOWN".
adansonii comprised 12 races (Ruttner 1975)
After 1975 the story began to change. Ruttner (1981) had changed the name
adansonii to A. mellifera scutellata.
In short AFTER the release(1956) the AHB was given a hard look and the books
changed greatly from the 1975 book to the later additions. My point (if you
haven't deleted yet) is that we really don't know *exactly* what the
morphological charactor was of the bees Dr. Kerr imported. If there is a
researcher out in Bee-L land which has a different *provable* opinion I
would like to hear from you.
*Something to think about*. We at this time to not have the *Cape Bee* in
the U.S. but we may in the future. From Hive and Honey Bee (1992):
The non-Linnean classification of honey bees by DuPraw is based on 15
characters of the worker forewing.  *Ruttner (1975) was UNABLE to delimit A
mellifera adansonii (Latreille 1804) and A. mellifera capensis(Escholtz
1822) on the basis of wing characters.  In my opinion the cape bee might be
like *Looking for a needle in a hay stack in commercial hives*
I could go on but will stop and see if a few of our researchers lurking will
comment on any of my comments,add to, or disagree with. I am by no means a
expert on Aricanized bees or A. MELLIFERA FOR THAT MATTER!
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
Odessa, Missouri