> Has anyone had experience with the African Bee or its hybrid which is
> currently moving through Texas and New Mexico?
 
I've been attacked by them three times (while in Panama), but I
wouldn't suspect that's the sort of "experience" you're looking for -
I might point out, however - and this refers a bit to Danilo Fonseca's
comments - that the bees *at* the "swarm front" advancing into Texas
presently have only the slightest trace of hybridization, and seem to
be much more African than otherwise; for some reason, the bees that
are traveling the most appear to be almost clean of European genes,
and only after they've been in an area for a long time (like Brazil
and Central America) do they appear to hybridize. The suggestion I've
heard is that, given that the *old* queen is the one that leaves with
a swarm, a queen which has produced dissimilar daughters to herself
will not be able to travel with her daughters very well - the idea
being that African genes code for long-distance, fast flight, and so
an African queen with hybrid daughters will outfly them (and cause
difficulties in coordination of the swarm), while a European queen
with hybrid daughters will be left behind. The combination that will
work the best is an African queen with African daughters, and they'll
go the longest distance; the result is that the edge of the population
that advances the fastest should be composed almost exclusively of
swarms that are almost pure African. Could be a "just-so" story, but
the genetics (work of Smith, Taylor for example) would seem to support
it, and it *is* pretty logical if the mechanism is valid.
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Doug "Speaker-To-Insects" Yanega      "UT!"       Bitnet: KUENTO@UKANVAX
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