>
> >Here in Los Angeles many newbies keep AHB’s and boast about  their
> hardiness and productivity. Unfortunately none of them do any kind of mite
> counting so these kinds of claims are hard to substantiate or quantify.


I observe them to be a very robust bee, very well adapted to their
environment.  But I also observe a wide variation in mite counts, as well
as degree of defensiveness.
Interestingly, when I first kept bees in SoCal long before the invasion of
the Africans, the feral stock there was quite defensive.  I have no idea as
to how much of their genetics were incorporated into the current feral
population.

There is genetic diffusion between any adjacent bee populations, so we can
expect certain African alleles to make their way northward.  That said, I
much prefer to work with the more gentle European-derived stocks, and think
it to be unwise to intentionally transport African stock northward.


-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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