>I'm hoping to find some research showing that the
ability to thrive in certain climates is inheritable (or not).

Hopefully, this study will at least get you started on one aspect of the biological processes involved in arriving at climatized ecotypes. 

In the US this is complicated by our domestic subspecies that we casually refer to as having ancestral heritage. We basically have bee stock (nothing wrong with them) but the gene line is blended between European subspecies so when folks tell me they purchased "carniolans"  I often wonder, with some degree of skepticism, what they actually got.  


>Through proteome profiling of adult honey bee midgut from geographically dispersed, domesticated populations combined with multiple parallel statistical treatments, the data presented here suggest some of the major cellular processes involved in adapting to different climates. These findings provide insight into the molecular underpinnings that may confer an advantage to honey bee populations. Significantly, the major energy-producing pathways of the mitochondria, the organelle most closely involved in heat production, were consistently higher in bees that had adapted to colder climates. In opposition, up-regulation of protein metabolism capacity, from biosynthesis to degradation, had been selected for in bees from warmer climates.

Ecological Adaptation of Diverse Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Populations
Robert Parker, Andony P. Melathopoulos, Rick White, Stephen F. Pernal, M. Marta Guarna, Leonard J. Foster

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0011096


Bill Hesbach
Northeast USA

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