I do not have access to the paper so am going from what I know.  I suspect I know what the paper is about having been involved in this discussion previously.

> I also suspect that a number of Australian beekeepers may weigh in on the clear differences between preferred domestic stocks, as compared to the dark ferals.

Yes we do notice a big difference between the feral and our domestic stock.  Feral stock seem to be still strongly aligned to the A.m.m. bees.  Leave a "spotter" hive in the bush and if the queen supercedes then you end up with dark bees that tend to be a little cranky.  Also swarms we find in the bush tend to be small and dark bees.  Also a little cranky.

>Also of considerable interest is why the African lines did not predominate in the feral population of Australia, which to my eye, appears to be highly favorable for Africanized bees.  Perhaps the Africans simply could not out compete the closely-related A.m.m's.

The African bees, I believe, would be the Punic bee, Apis intermissa.  These could be totally different to what we call the Africanised bees i.e. scutellata of which we have no record of being introduced to Australia.  Why the Punic bee seemed to have not prevailed could be because there were not a lot of them produced.  There are records of them being sold here and debate on whether they were suitable for our conditions.  Records show they were mated with Italian drones.

Trevor Weatherhead
Australia

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