This is an old question. I got hung up trying to answer it when asked by a
student friend. I got started, but ...Help!
> One thing I was hoping to get some insight on right now is surrounding the
> idea of domestication. Since humans have had an interest in bees for such
> a long time, can these bees be considered domesticated? I'm thinking about
> this in terms of artificial homes, bee husbandry, selection and genetics,
> which would suggest that they absolutely are. What are your thoughts?
Domesticated? That is a real question. I think most beekeepers consider
bees to be semi-domesticated, but our hives and management are largely
designed to accommodate the bees needs, and to keep them around. After all,
they are not fenced, not chained, not hobbled (although some beekeepers clip
a bit off the queen's wing to prevent flight), and could abscond or swarm
any time, or fail to thrive.
As for breeding, there are strains that have been selected or bred and
maintained for specific purposes, however many or most of them are not very
stable and would revert quickly to a mongrel type in the absence of human
management. As well,special hybrid queens are raised and sold. These
queens are excellent, as are the colonies they produce, but their daughter
queens and their progeny may be undesirable. The concept used to be quite
popular, but seems to have passed out of fashion.
All that having been said, honey bees do escape regularly and become
established in nature quite comfortably in many areas, and are considered
feral when they do so, somewhat like wild horses. Previous to the recent
arrival of the killer mites, feral bees were well established in many areas
of the US and parts of Canada. Some say that the ferals escaped destruction
by the mites in some areas, others say that the ferals these days are all
recently escaped 'domestic' (managed) bees.
Of course North America is a small part of the world, and honey bees of one
sort or another are found almost everywhere there is agriculture worldwide.
The degree and type of management varies from very sophisticated to simple
robbing of wild nests.
So, this is not a simple question.
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