> It appears to me that some are getting too hung up on nomenclature. "Italian type" typically refers to the colony's behavior--Mediterranean type:  gentle, large winter cluster, broodrearing all summer, less cool-weather foraging, not as responsive to pollen flows as carnica, low use of propolis, etc. "Italian" these days in North America may be better defined by the traits that one selects for, rather than genetics.

I said at the beginning of this discussion that terms like Italian, Russian, etc. are just "brand names" and don't necessarily refer to true geographic subspecies. On the other hand, any traits that you select and successfully propagate must have a genetic basis in order to be heritable and which should be identifiable via genetic markers. Presumably they come from the original types which were imported for the very characters you describe.

PLB

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