To my knowledge the first importation of Caucasian stock in recent times was at WSU a few years ago. Steve Shepard, Sue Coby, and Brandon Hopkins collected semen only and by II and back crossing developed the line. It has been released to select breeders to incorporate into their stocks. They also cryopreserved semen for future development. I would question any claims of a breeder using open mating as selling "pure" Caucasians. That said I got 25 cells from their program and mated them with my mutts here in eastern WA. What I saw with careful observation was a noticeable increase in propolus but to me nothing else stood out as far as colony performance. This was in no way a scientific study!! In the ensuing 3 years I have lost track.

I tend to agree with Pete that bees are adaptable rather then that select strains have inherent behavior that suits them to particular environments to the exclusion of others. The great melting pot of North America I believe will defeat any attempt to maintain pure lines. Different behaviors do show up in individual queens and even broadly in popular "races" but with such variation that it is of questionable use in judging one race over another. Or even if there are genetically definable races here. 

What I do expect will be a marketing effort on the part of some breeders to sell the latest new thing. A lot of us, me included, like to try to improve our stock. But that is a slow process of selection and culling based on individual performance and not on race or location.

I am not an expert on any of this and welcome discussion and decent from those more knowledgeable then I.

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

             ***********************************************
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