<I pondered the "adapted term" a bit.   I still disagree strongly with the
concept are bees are adapting to any climate issues.>

I think the issue here is use of the word adapt with respect to evolution.
 I think what you need to do is look at a population rather than an
individual bee or colony for that matter.  You're right on the point that
individuals do not adapt, but populations do.  Locally adapted bees
(whether they exist or not), would be in essence survivor stock, whether
they come from the area originally or not.  Ignoring epigenetics and
plasticity individuals do not evolve/adapt, populations do.  This might be
why you are looking at bees and saying they are "kind of" adapted.

As with everything in nature though adapted is a relative term.  You might
say that cattails are well adapted to North American wetlands, ditches and
the like... but on average purple loosestrife seems to be better adapted
even though it is an invasive import.  So what would locally adapted bees
look like?  At the very least they should survive in the climate, but
ideally they should survive better than any others.  If you want to sell
locally adapted stock I'd compare survival rates, of course that's heavily
influenced by management.

On a side-note something else occurred to me a while back that relates to
locally adapted and treatment free.  If someone is selling treatment-free
bees, how much might possibly be attributed to frequent splitting and
associated brood breaks and rapid turnover rather than any actual mite
resistance.  Just thinking back to some past failures of purchased bees
that seems to be a common theme many generally now attribute to location.

Jeremy
West Michigan

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