Hi all,
As I said, genetic analysis ultimately fails to indicate whether bees are "African" or not. Bob is sort of right, that bees in the US are hybrids. Strictly speaking, a hybrid is an inter species cross, not an intra species cross, but popular usage has blurred this distinction. Even the term species, and the identification of species, changes all the time. 

Take the dog and the wolf, once regarded as different species, both now considered to be sub-species of Canis lupus. Just the same with species and subspecies of Apis mellifera. Some suggested that African bees should be regarded as a separate species, other say race or subspecies. It's a can of worms, let's just say.

In terms of African DNA, if honey bees evolved in Africa, one would expect to find most of the DNA is the same, and some areas will be different according to how long ago they left Africa, and how isolated they were. Hence, we have bees that are closely and distantly related to the original African Ancestors. Having a few segments of African DNA does not make African bees, any more than having a few segments of African DNA makes somebody an African American. Supposedly, the human race originate in Africa as well. So be it.

> The most comprehensive genetic study to date, based on 1136 nuclear single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) is typed in 341 individuals from 14 geographical subspecies of A. mellifera and three outgroups (A. cerana, A. florea, A. dorsata) argued in favor of this hypothesis (Whitfield et al. 2006). This analysis supported the classifications into four lineages (A, C, M, O) based on previous morphological and genetic analyses. The M (W Europe) and C (E Europe) lineages were found to be highly divergent, with the M lineage grouping with A (Africa) and the C lineage with O (Middle East). 

Fan Han, Andreas Wallberg & Matthew T. Webster
From where did the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera) originate?
Ecology and Evolution 2012; 2(8): 1949–1957

see also

Whitfield, C. W., S. K. Behura, S. H. Berlocher, A. G. Clark, J. S. Johnston, and W. S. Sheppard, et al. 2006. 
Thrice out of Africa: ancient and recent expansions of the honey bee, Apis mellifera. 
Science 314:642–645.

submitted by PLB

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