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From:
Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 28 Dec 2013 11:24:01 -0500
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I submit that this discussion is founded on outdated information. Newer info follows:

"Killer bees" arrived in the United States in the year 1990. Questions have arisen regarding low levels of Africanization in regions bordering the locations with established, Africanized bees. Honey bees were collected and examined using three methods of testing to determine levels of Africanization. With morphometrics, mitochondrial DNA, and nuclear DNA tested with the use of microsatellites we found that the known Africanized bees collected by the Florida Department of Agriculture did *not* exhibit Africanization other than in the preliminary, morphometric test performed by the Department of Agriculture.   

Morphometrically, the data shows that there is an American bee, an amalgam that is distinctive from the originating, European subspecies. Morphometric study further distinguishes between Africanized bees from Arizona and those from Africa and Brazil. Interestingly, the samples from Florida/Alabama/Georgia which were originally diagnosed as Africanized by the USDA-ID technique were found to have European ancestry using mtDNA markers, European morphology based on GWV and grouped with managed and unmanaged honey bee colonies in a population structure analysis using microsatellite markers. Essentially, our study indicates that bees on the east coast are not in distinct populations as would be surmised based on collection latitude. Northern bees were *not* differentiated from southern bees.  

The unmanaged, managed, and Africanized bees from Florida/Alabama/Georgia shared enough alleles to be considered one population. These low levels of introgression can be seen in the Africanized samples collected from Florida/Alabama/Georgia from the known African and Africanized populations from Arizona, Belize and Brazil. However, the Africanized samples from Florida/Alabama/Georgia still grouped with unmanaged and managed samples collected along the east coast. 

This could be due to the very recent Africanization of Florida (2010) or could be due to an incomplete Africanization of the entire east coast as supplanted by the migratory queen rearing and caged bee trade.  Our data shows bees from Florida had low levels of Africanization ; the Africanized bees from Arizona, one of the earliest states declared Africanized, were determined to be Africanized based on morphometrics, mitochondrial DNA, *and* when tested with microsatellites. 

Genetics should also not be used alone diagnostically. Our data shows that the Africanized bees from Florida/Alabama/Georgia were morphometrically Africanized only using USDA-ID not the GWV technique, and not necessarily genetically similar enough to the African bee to be considered an Africanized bee. 

Darger, K. (2013). Determining low levels of Africanization in unmanaged honey bee colonies using three diagnostic techniques (Doctoral dissertation, University of Delaware).

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