"we conclude that muchof the natural diversity of European honey bees can still be considered
extant"
I do not doubt the reported honey bee results for a minute. Exactly this same kind of genetic analysis has been done on both a wide variety of domestic US pigeons and ferals in Europe and the US to allow construction of a family tree. The only difference from the honey bee work was the pigeon work was far more robust as a far higher number of SNPs were used. There is not a biologist alive that would claim the more or less 100 breeds analyzed are subspecies yet they differ in many aspects far more than honey bees differ. Size ranges from six ounces to three pounds. Ability to fly for 18 hours continuous and remain close enough to home to be seen once every fifteen minutes to unable to fly a foot off the floor. Birds that will do backwards somersaults in a continuous roll 50 times in a row while flying. Breeds unable to home from more than a half a mile up to breeds that will home from 1000 miles. Clean legged up to feathered legs with six inch long feathers. Number of tail feathers ranging from 12 (normal) to over 40. And on and on. And all of these breeds have been crossed to a whole variety of other breeds over the last 100 years for a whole variety of reasons. Often to transfer a new color or pied pattern into some other breed.
There is nothing in that honey bee study that gives me the slightest hint about honey bees having sub species versus simply being different breeds or cultivars. I have personally kept Italians from several sources, Minnesota hygienics from three sources and Carnis from two sources. In my hands the MH queens gave hives that were only fair at making honey and did not deal with mites even a slight bit better than any other bee I have kept. I could not tell the difference between the Italians and Carnies in any respect other than color. Now according to one submitter I can only conclude I have never had real Carnies. Or perhaps he had Carnis that have been selected carefully for a particular behavior and differ simply due to such breeding selection?
Dick
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