Perhaps a better question is what specific traits or adaptations are you
interested in?
The Africanized bees in Southern California are definitely locally adapted,
but few beekeepers like keeping them.
All honey bees in North America are mongrels, with a mixture of nuclear and
mitochondrial genetics.
The genetic pot is continually brewing in any area, since beekeepers
continually bring in different bloodlines that contribute to the gene pool.
And as Russ points out, local feral populations can maintain their own
genetic integrity independent of managed stock.

On a commercial scale, I have not brought in any outside stock in at least
15 years, and largely control my matings by flooding our mating yards with
our drones.
Yet we still see considerable phenotypic and behavioral differences between
our queens and colonies each year.
Our queens run from black to yellow, with any number of patterns,
indicating that there is still genetic variation, even after years of
selectively breeding off of only about 2% of our queens each year.
So our stock could well be considered local, but selectively chosen for
performance in an operation that makes its income mostly from almond
pollination and nuc sales, rather than austerity or winter survival without
supplementary feeding of pollen sub in autumn.

Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
530 277 4450
ScientificBeekeeping.com

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