>IMHO, your statement is not logical. Feral bees are not just escapees from
>domestic situations, and also vary greatly in their distance (in time) from
>civilization. As a parallel, wild horses and dogs do exist, and vary
>greatly
>from domesticated ones.

I thought it was logical, maybe not 100% on the mark though. what other
livestock is kept that has total freedom to come and go at will and also
mate, divide and increase at will? sure there was a time when feral and
domesticed had equal numbers and a time when feral were all the bees, but
times have changed and neither one of us can prove just what the breakdown
is between the two. I was meerly going on the account by many others that
little to no feral hives are found anymore, and with the mites and diseases,
few would survive. there are pockets where more feral bees would be found
like your tucson area, but that is not the norm. as long as there are
managed hives around there will always be escapes' to the 'wild' and then we
must ask what is feral.

wild horses and dogs have a physical appearance and nature about them that
make it easy to distinguish them from domesticated ones. what percent of
horses today are wild compared to domesticated ones? 5% even? I'll bet if
our domesticated horses where allowed to run free, they would not hesitated
to mate with wild horses if given the chance. bees do it all the time
without us even knowing about it. I didn't know one could tell the
difference between 'wild' and domesticated honeybees. how is this done?

mark

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