a couple of questions from Ruth Askren followed by my comments... 
What does "scutellata as only a minor part of the
genome" mean with regard to aggressivity, swarming, parasitizing etc?

>first assumption... all hives that are aggressive are not africanized. 

>as I stated before... for a long period of time I did cutout or removals and had all of these tested (fabris or the genetic test) and perhaps 5% came back as africanized hybrids.  As far as managed hives by experienced beekeeper ALL know how to deal with this problem in their apiary.  With the new interest in beekeeping folks cutting out and doing removals do pose a problem largely due to their inexperience but even they learn pretty quickly which bees they want to keep or not.  Often overlooked culling is a powerful tool to manipulate populations.

With no disparagement intended, I have also heard the words
"Weaver" and "hot" mentioned together a couple of times.
What do you make of this?  If it's not the Africanization, then what is it?
I ask because I'm keenly interested in the success of
forward-thinking enterprises like yours, but need help in
understanding your position on these important matters.

>again as I stated before... there are now at least two Weaver families in Navasota (Lynn Grove) who operate side by side.  They are not the same operation and for a long time sold queens with similar marketing names. Quite often I would hear known folks (so called gurus in the world of virtual beekeepers) think the two were the same and address them as if they were.  For a long time both operation sold various hybrids including Buckfast and Russians and some of these could be pretty spicy.  Even at this level of defensiveness these for me were not that difficult to deal with since I have a long history in dealing with hot bees.  Inbreeding, bred improperly, starvation are all good reasons for a hive to be excessively defensive.  About the hottest bees I have ever encountered were what appear to be Italian bees on the Mississippi flood plain in Northern Louisiana in about 1983.  You could not move these and keep them in a box.... which may well be another quality of africanized hybrids and why their usefulness in terms of beekeeping may be quite limited.

Gene in Central Texas.....   

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