allen dick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Curious.  Have you done morphometrics on them to ascertain their probable
>origin?  

Hello Allen!

I am interested in morphing the bees if I can find who does this service.  
An internet friend offered to morph these bees a few years back, but 
haven’t taken up the offer yet.  

Also, if those are the best, what percentage of the total would you
>estimate them to be?

Of the ferals collected over  4 counties, based on assessments of  ‘actual 
colony performance’, that is NO feeding, NO treatments of any kind, side 
by side, single yard "comparative assessments". Probably around 80 percent 
fail on their own during the first 3 years.  These are failures ranging 
from, failure of a swarm in ’colony  initiation’  failure of swarm 
to ’thrive during the first 18 week growth stage’ or ‘succumbing to mites 
or other brood disease during the first 2 to 3 years‘ or ‘succumbing to my 
culling from comparative performance selection during the 2 to 3 years.  

Of all the ferals collected per season, I would bet that less than 10% are 
what I would call outstanding performance.  By outstanding performance (as 
ambiguous as the term is), I am meaning colonies that out perform 'all 
others' by a good margin in assessments for that particular season, and 
also tend not to show any stress from fluctuating environmental conditions 
such as summer drought or winter, while others show stress these times or  
fail altogether.  

To illustrate the occasionally rarity of finding very exceptional 
colonies, I might go a year or two without stumbling on a feral that I 
regard as having very exceptional performance. So as Randy Oliver 
mentioned, I believe they can be easily overlooked if not assessed 
properly.  Or they may exist right under our noses and sometimes be 
mitigated to blending in as “part of the usual pac” should treatments be 
applied, making assessment of “actual colony performance“ needed to 
identify these exceptional colonies a very difficult task.     

What is interesting, is that when the percentage totals of exceptional 
performers are looked at from a perspective which categorizes them to the 
particular habitat from which they were obtained from.  Numbers appear to 
be reversed, with at least 80% to 90% of exceptional performers coming 
from woodlands, or remote type farmlands.   

Remembering now, getting a swarm call is highly dependant that there 
be “eyes” nearby to see the swarm to report it.  So most swarms I've 
collected by far tend to be acquired from non remote areas that are near 
to human population zones.  But it is still important to collect all 
swarms from all areas due to the possibility of stumbling onto exceptional 
genetics now and again, plus it’s allot of fun. :)   Because it was only 
recently that I put 2 and 2 together and noticed that on average better 
performing honeybees coming from woodlands and remote areas, I have only 
just began to target these areas with swarm trapping and looking for 
traits residing in bees from these places.   

Best Wishes,
Joe Waggle

EcologicalBeekeeping.com 
‘Bees Gone Wild Apiaries' 
Feral Bee Project: 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FeralBeeProject/

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