> Generalizing, Italian types are more likely to make use of them, while Carniolian varieties won't.

I am sorry but the above makes no sense in light of research that shows that American bees simply are not Italians, Carniolans, nor anything else. They are a hodgepodge (1) that varies according to the preferences of the customers. This has been known for decades:

> Of all the subspecies in the DFA [discriminant function analysis] of 16 OTUs [operational taxonomic units], the European OTUs in the Americas were closest to A m ligustica, a relation to be expected by its favored status among beekeepers. However, *no sample* of California hive or feral bees was close enough to known samples of that subspecies to be *classified as a member of that subspecies* on the basis of morphometrics.(2)

and:

> A. m. ligustica bees across the entire Italian Peninsula were considered to be quite similar to the Austrian and Yugoslavian A. m. carnica from which they differ essentially by the yellow colour of their abdominal terga. In A. m. ligustica populations, most of the genetic studies … showed hybridization between A. m. ligustica and A. m. mellifera along the Alpine arc and the Ligurian coast.(3)

(1) hodgepodge = melange, mess, mishmash, confusion, clutter, farrago; informal: mash-up; rare: gallimaufry, olio, olla podrida, salmagundi.

(2) Daly, H. V., Hoelmer, K., & Gambino, P. (1991). Clinal geographic variation in feral honey bees in California, USA. Apidologie, 22(6), 591-609.

(3) Franck, P., Garnery, L., Celebrano, G., Solignac, M., & Cornuet, J. M. (2000). Hybrid origins of honeybees from Italy (Apis mellifera ligustica) and Sicily (A. m. sicula). Molecular Ecology, 9(7), 907-921.

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