Hi Peter

You wrote:
> some insects can produce females without
> mating. This occurs in many different insects such as aphids, but very
> rarely in honey bees. It is a trait of the African bee called "capensis".

While Thelytoky is exhibited strongly in Capensis, it does occur in all 
races of Apis Mellifera, but in all except Capensis, it is very rare.

At Capensis levels it is destructive, but at levels of one in a million 
it is unlikely to do much harm and on the rare occasion that the gene 
pool is impoverished, it can maintain genes that might be otherwise lost.

It would be wrong to consider it an important issue, but studying the 
causes and effects gives us a little more insight into the feedback that 
helps to regulate natural selection. It exists and is stable at it's 
current levels, hopefully whatever keeps it that way will counteract any 
selection that may be done by humans that may try to increase it.


Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
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