> Do you think these tests will stand up to legal scrunity if used to enforce quarantines of africanized bees? Jim Smith Northern California 

In 2014, Darger wrote: "Currently, Africanized bees are officially diagnosed through morphometric methods only. The genetics of a honey bee are not often utilized in official determinations of Africanization." The method is called "Universal System for Detecting Africanization Identification (USDA-ID)" and was developed in 1991. 

The regulators may think these methods are adequate, but they will not be able to prevent African bees from entering new areas. I have encountered colonies in NYS that exhibited all the characteristics of Africanization but they were diagnosed "European" by the lab in Tucson. I put the bees down, as they were a menace.

PLB

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html