When mites first arrived in North America, I heard a few voices in the
beekeeping community mention maybe there was a small silver lining in
the cloud after all. Since mites had virtually wiped out the existing
feral population those wild bees would no longer able to interfere with
our breeding programs it was said. Beekeepers would finally be able to
breed a bee to their own liking.

Now feral bees are being proclaimed as the salvation of beekeeping
(and, who knows, maybe rightly so---or not).

Regards
Dick Allen

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