In this discussion two ideas have been presented: breeding "better" bees,
which of course we have been doing for millenia, and the idea of feral, or
wild bees being better suited for survival. Obviously, mankind may have erred
repeatedly when breeding for certain characteristics and losing others.
Equally obvious is the idea that for most crops and livestock, we would not
want to go back to the original, thousands of years ago. The original corn
cob was about an inch long, the original dog was not something you want in
your house, etc. The question is whether to move forward or back. I am sorry
to spell it this way, but I don't see a way around it. In a recent Apidologie
they describe the situation thusly:

[It] could be that European and US commercial honey bee populations (those
that have been protected by man from dying from V. destructor) arose from
human selection over centuries. Factors selected include low defensiveness,
low level of nestmate discrimination and, maybe as a side effect, lower
resistance against parasitism. Thus, we hypothesize here that the bees
usually classified as European (including those tested in our experiments,
introduced from the Old World during the XXth century after selection by man)
are mainly derived from anthropogenical selection. They are actually gentle,
but also form compatible associations with parasites like V. destructor. On
the contrary, feral bees, when they still exist (AHB [African Honey Bees]
that we tested can be considered as such), though less gentle, would still
have intact resistance abilities.

pb