>  Island biota often possess characteristics that increase their fitness, including size shift (gigantism or dwarfism); reduced defensive behaviour; tameness; reduced clutch size, among others.

I thought this was pretty interesting. The Gotland Island bees have reduced brood (clutch size) and reduced colony size. The Puerto Rico bees, reduced defensive behaviour, and tameness.

There is also the "founder's effect," whereby a given population is based on a small number of founders. From what I read, there is evidence the PR bees may be derived from hybrid bees from Texas.

Of course, folks want to get mite resistant bees from PR or Cuba, but I think that should be ruled out by the possibility that the specific behaviors may be induced by environment or management and might not even carry over if imported into different environments or managed differently.

Further, we can't predict what would happen when these "hybrid" bees are crossed with the bees we already have, etc.

PLB

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