On 16/05/2012 10:14 AM, Peter L Borst wrote:


 >In Joe's case, I am not clear what the issue is. He states that there 
is a separate distinct feral population that can be readily 
distinguished from run-of-the-mill >commercial stock but he doesn't say 
how,

Here in Australia Dr Ben Oldroyd did some work on this matter.  In the 
study area at least, he came to the conclusion that the feral population 
was a self sustaining population.

There may be a few reasons for this.  Australia has a notoriously 
variable climate from year to year.  In a given year at a given spot 
there may be now honey flow at all.  So there will be strong selection 
for hives to cope with this.

Also, in most of the natural environment we use, we only move to it 
after spring build, when most if not all the swarming will have 
happened.  So these places would only rarely have swarms issue from 
managed hives.

Geoff Manning

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