At 2/3/02 06:50 PM, you wrote:
>Just what are the bees of the Americas????

I wrote:
>In the continental United States scientists have found approximately 3,500 species of bees. The desert regions of northern Mexico and southern Arizona have the richest diversity of bees found anywhere in the world. Although there is no exact count, a bee scientist at the USDA Carl Hayden Bee Research Center says there are between 1,000 and 1,200 species of bees within 100 miles of Tucson!

If you are saying there were other bees besides the Meliponini, that's right. If you are saying that before the Spanish settlers arrived there were any varieties or even species of Apis mellifera, Apis cerana, or the rest, you are mistaken. As I said, there was a well developed beekeeping culture in America before the Europeans arrived. If Apis had been present they most certainly would have used it. People everywhere have exploited whatever bees they found for maybe a million years.

The works on the subject show that Apis mellifera probably originated in Mesopotamia and split into the three main branches (North European, Mediterranean, and African varieties) *after* South America separated from Africa. These types were isolated from each other by geographic barriers for tens of thousands of years, hence they are very different, and although they are considered the same species (Apis mellifera) as Blane pointed out, it may be that the European and African types are enough different that they will have to be separated into two different species.

The stingless bees like Melipona and Trigona exist on all continents so they probably arose at a time when all the land masses were connected. 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. All of this is in any basic textbook on insects. If you are going to say that the *honey bee* Apis mellifera was here before the arrival of the European settlers, you have to say why you think so. There was mention of cave paintings earlier. Those cave paintings, where ever they are, could be depicting the Native Americans and one of the hundreds of species of "stingless" bees. (They do have vestigial (non-functional) stingers).

Incidentally, I grew up in San Diego and I know that Southern California and perhaps Arizona as well, was at one time much more humid so the native bees could have lived quite comfortably throughout the region. Traditional beekeeping has been found in the Sonoran desert, not far from there. But these bees are far distant relations to any Apis honey bees. As a final note, about ten years ago, Erickson said that there *might* bee feral colonies of Apis mellifera iberica (the bee the Spanish brought with them) living in the mountains of the southwest. I wonder if any of these were ever found.

pb