I received this email off list:

> The study was performed mostly with commercially available either local or so-called "near native" bees. In many countries like Greece for example, there are no true native bees anymore from many many years. In Bulgaria, the commercially sold local bees are not even close to the native. 

So, the correct term I guess should be "local" bees. The study compared "local bees" to bees from other parts of Europe. This was the point, in any case, that locally adapted bees fared better than bees from other regions. 

Here in the USA there are no native honey bees, never have been (excepting Apis nearctica, but that was eons ago). All of the bees in Europe are native from my point of view. 

Whether a given subspecies is native to a given region, depends on how far back you go, and your criteria. Some of this is significant, some of it is pure nit-picking.

PLB

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