Hi Randy

Enjoy it while you can - the bees are calling and there will soon be little 
time for playing with computers!  So far this year I have managed to sit on 
my hands and resist lifting roofs (lids?), instead enjoying watching the 
colonies working so well in the pleasant weather that we have had over the 
past week or two.  Hefting hives had shown that most had more than adequate 
stores and they clearly needed no interference from me that would stop them 
bringing in early pollen and some nectar.  However, the question of space 
has now reared its head, so today we started putting on supers.  We are 
perhaps a week or two late in doing it this year, which is not surprising 
given the winter, but I was pleasantly surprised by the strength of most 
colonies and most needed the extra room.

But I digress.  Your mention feral bees:
> I would expect the same to hold true for A.m.m. anywhere in its natural
> range that it is well adapted for the environment, and that the influx of
> outside genetics is not overwhelming.

A.m.m. has done this very well and we have have found very pure colonies in 
areas where there has been considerable introgression.  However, the arrival 
of varroa - another consequence of importing bees - there  are so few feral 
colonies left, at least in this area.  So while A.m.m. would have had a 
fighting chance in the past, it now struggles when large numbers of exotic 
bees arrive.  It is no longer a level playing field.

> Those following this thread would do well to read:
> Varying degrees of Apis mellifera ligustica introgression in protected
> populations of the black honeybee, Apis mellifera mellifera, in northwest
> Europe http://www.gbbg.net/pdf/ligustica_incursion.pdf

I have to confess that I have not seen this paper before, but skimming 
through it (a more thorough read will have to wait) suggests that it may 
already be out-of-date, at least for the UK, as large numbers of queens have 
been imported since it was written.  It also deals on with introgression 
from A.m.l. - which in my view is now just a small part of the problem.  I 
picked up these points:
'The reductions that gave rise to the present scattered distribution of 
remnant populations has mostly taken place in just a single century by 
importation of and replacement by queens of other Apis subspecies.'  Yes, 
just one century.
'The extant genetic diversity of A. m. mellifera throughout Europe therefore 
implies that this subspecies is a highly valuable gene pool for controlled 
breeding programs selecting for resistance against honeybee diseases.'
'It has been suggested that the native British A. m. mellifera bees went 
extinct resulting from the act of the Isle of Wight disease (Brother [Adam] 
1974), but others have argued that remnants of these original populations 
still exist (Cooper 1986; Ruttner et al. 1989). The relative distinctness of 
the British populations in our comparative study supports the latter 
argument and would justify and increase support of the British authorities 
for the conservation of British A. m. mellifera.'
'The populations from the British Isles were generally more closely related 
to each other than to the Scandinavian population. Interestingly, the 
beekeepers that provided bees from these populations, except for the 
Scottish one, are all members of Bee Improvers and Bee Breeders' 
Association, BIBBA, so that the most obvious explanation is that queens had 
been shared between members.'  This should read 'Bee Imrovement...', but the 
suggestion that that queens had been shared seems to me to be a little 
unlikely: BIBBA policy is that members should breed from their local bees, 
although this policy is now perhaps breaking down due the the large influx 
of exotic races requiring members in some areas to 'import' stock from other 
parts of the UK to redress the balance.

> Each of those populations is an evolutionary "baby," since most or all of
 A.m.m.'s "range" was buried by glaciers not long ago.

I suspect that the same applies to a considerable amount of life on earth - 
but that is not a good reason to denigrate a race that has developed and 
adapted over many thousands of years.

>However, as the authors suggest, it would be wise to maintain genetically 
>isolated
> populations of A.m.m. as future breeding stock.

Yes.

> I suspect that had he not been caught up in the "sexiness" of importing
> exotic stocks, that he could have bred an excellent bee from the native
> survivors.

I am sure that you are right.  Perhaps he just enjoyed travelling the world! 
Better than sitting in a cell in a monastery in my book.

Best wishes

Peter

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