A new study refutes the idea that domesticated honey bees are highly inbred and lacking in genetic diversity. In fact, native European populations are less diverse than commercially managed bees in both Europe and the Americas. The authors refer to mongrel populations with high levels of diversity, resulting from a combination of factors including the mating behavior of bees as well as the mixing of many genetic sources in the field.

> Domestication is associated with a reduction in genetic diversity, but we have shown the opposite in honey bees. Higher genetic diversity in managed populations is probably caused by the honey bee’s promiscuous mating biology combined with human mediated dispersal. Management by beekeepers has allowed for honey bees to admix and produce 'mongrel' populations of greater diversity than that of their progenitors, and indeed more than other viable domesticated animals . This finding is rather remarkable; while chickens, rabbits and silk moths have lost 50–60% of the genetic variation of their progenitors, managed honey bees have 71% more variation owing to admixture. Our results demonstrate that honey bees do not suffer from reduced genetic diversity caused by management and, consequently, that reduced genetic diversity is probably not contributing to declines of managed Apis mellifera populations.

Management increases genetic diversity of honey bees via admixture
BROCK A. HARPUR, SHERMINEH MINAEI , CLEMENT F. KENT and AMRO ZAYED
Molecular Ecology (2012)

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