>To the best of my knowledge, they have no pests that we do not already
have.

I'm not sure that we can define "pests" at the species level, if we take
into consideration strains of viruses or other pathogens or parasites.  For
example, the Japan strain of Varroa destructor is not considered to be a
serious pest, but the Korean strain certainly is.

Ditto with the viruses.  Dr Stephen Martin recently demonstrated that only
one strain of DWV turned out to be a "pest" in Hawaii.

And certainly the importation of strains of A.m. scutellata were not
intended to be imports of "pests," and Nosema ceranae was not considered to
be a "pest" of A. mellifera.

What we humans are doing is to homogenize the various and sundry strains of
pests, parasites, and pathogens that were previously endemic to only
certain species and subspecies of honey bees in various parts of the world.
 Parasites are constantly evolving into new strains.  The more
human-assisted transfer of those strains from one part of the world to
another, the more we create one shared worldwide pool of insect parasites
for honey bees.

I would no more want to take the chance of sending my best queens to Juanse
than I'd want to receive queens from anywhere else in the world, or even
the U.S.  My queens are largely adapted to my local strains of plants and
parasites and I like to keep it that way.
-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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