From time to time, we have heard the idea that North American bee problems could be solved by importing bees from Mexico. Frequently it is suggested that African or unselected bees are inherently "healthier" than European or heavily selected bees. In this context, I would offer the following observations:

> Evaluating the health of honey bees in Latin America is a difficult task for two reasons. First, this region is large and highly diverse, with beekeeping being practiced over a wide range of climates (from tropical to temperate) and altitudes (from sea level to around 2000 m altitude), by very different beekeepers (who have from 15 colonies each in Mesoamerica up to 15,000 in northern Mexico. Africanized honey bees (AHB) have been successfully established throughout most of tropical LA. Relatively little effort has been made to select these bees, so that there has been little or no reduction in AHB genetic diversity. Hence they can still be considered as mainly unselected bees.  -- Remy Vandame, María Alejandra Palacio. Apidologie 41 (2010) 243–255

> Unfortunately, most colonies of Africanized bees have a personality that most beekeepers don’t like: they are highly defensive. They are notorious for their ability to stage an impressive stinging attack when their nest is disturbed, making them impossible to keep in public areas and on farms where there are animals. They are not amenable to being transported en masse by truck for pollination, and so even if they are resistant to Varroa mites, they are *not a viable alternative* to our gentle European-derived honey bees.  -- Marla Spivak, in: Managing Alternative Pollinators. SARE Handbook 11.

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