>However, region with the most different species is tropical America, where
>they never had to compete with Apis mellifera until Warwick Kerr brought the
>tropical honey bee from Africa and everything changed.

>There were populations of Apis mellifera of European descent present in
>South America long before Kerr brought over his colonies of African A.
>mellifera. Kerr's intention was to improve the breeding stock of the honey
>bees already present by crossing the local bees with bees better adapted to
>tropical conditions.

Of course, the Europeans brought them (possibly as early as 1560) . My point was they were never any *competition* for the native bees, because they did so poorly in the tropics, being temperate climate bees. That is *why* Kerr brought scutellata to Brazil. He didn't know they would explode into this ecosystem as an invasive species. (I am letting him off easy here)

And the hope has always been that they will do as poorly in the temperate regions as the European bees do in the tropics. We'll see.

pb