My wife and I were talking today about a recent exchange with a person 
at the end of a meeting we convened of all the beekeepers we know in 
our small town in the San Luis Valley of Colorado.  The idea was to 
share experiences about what to do for bears, varroa mites, cold 
winters, short growing season.  It is a difficult beekeeping 
environment and the area right now is a net importer of bees, for both 
hobbyists who do not migrate and for commercials who do not overwinter 
here.  Curiously few seem to be very cued into the damaging effects of 
varroa.  This person was fairly assertive that Africanized bees are 
very strong bees and that we need some of that genetics.  Since we have 
experience with AHB colonies we were a bit taken aback by this 
statement.  So it got us wondering from where does this fairly 
generalized idea arise?  Are we dealing with solid information, backed 
by experiments and experience, or is it largely founded on myths and 
beliefs perpetuated in the information age?  Clearly Africanized bees 
are successful feral bees, but that is different from having documented 
defenses against varroa.  

 

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