thank you for that peter...i hadn't seen that report before.

am i reading correctly that these were collected feral colonies?  that might explain the swarminess...as in managed apiaries the beekeeper takes over the role of making sure the hive reproduces itself (a really good hive is split many times and never has to swarm)...and swarminess is generally selected against.  i would imagine that ferals would have some good deal of evolutionary pressure to reproduce, and i can imagine that such a contrast is stark when comparing the two.

deknow

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