On insular bees --
One curiosity is Santa Catalina island  (the  California channel island off the coast of Long Beach) has high representation of A. m. m.  (the now largely obsolete Black Bee) compared to the genotypes on mainland Southern California (largely now A. m. scutellata) and Northern California (the "Italian" types).

The report that established the observation that Santa Catalina had "A m. m." trending genotypes described this  as an accidental refugia due to introduction to the island before the wave of "Italian bees" swept American beekeeping and isolation from the "Africanized" types that now dominate Southern California.

Before honeybees were successfully extirpated from Santa Cruz island (off the coast of Santa Barbara), Tom Glenn was reported as working with the folks leading the extirpation effort to secure Santa Cruz island bees for breeding.     My impression is Santa Cruz was managed agriculturally more intensively, and the "Italian wave" likely innundated that closer to the coast island.

I don't know if the Santa Cruz (now extirpated) bees were preserved for future DNA sampling.

The Mediterranean island of Malta has a distinctive bee which may be under "dilution" threat from mainland types.

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