>One would fly queens from which he wanted his packages produced.

Jerry, did they also send drones and set up controlled mating yards? If not it is hard for me to understand how a selected behavior could possibly become established in that stock. Quite the contrary. If they were importing half of their genetic stock from CA each season how could they maintain a line?

Put me in the camp that thinks bees are adaptable far more then adapted in North America. We have a lot of empirical evidence discussed here over many threads that show that colony performance and survival depend on beekeeper skill. I don't recall mush to show locally adapted stocks being established and out performing imported stock by the same beekeeper in the same place. Is my memory correct that the Penn State study a few years back failed to show a survival difference between northern and southern bred queens? Etienne has shown that with expert management bees can have good success in the Yukon. Hats off!

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

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