I was thinking about my post on aggression and how my inbred bees are not
showing the aggression I was told they would demonstrate. Why don't they
when it seems the experience of others proves otherwise?
My guess is we are in a new era of beekeeping or at least an anomaly in the
normal practice of beekeeping and all because of varroa. So some of the
urban legends have no validity.
The best scientific studies require controls over variables, which are kept
at a minimum or at least identified. Temperature, pressure, volume, etc.
are controlled. Impurities are excluded.
Prior to varroa, beekeeping had many variables because of feral colonies
and George Imire's Beehavers, who kept bees but did not manage them. Swarms
were introduced into the apiary without regard to source. In essence, any
apiary not isolated on an island, was confounded by variables effecting the
bees.
If I grew my own under those conditions, I would be flooded by a drone gene
pool that could easily have undesirable traits like aggression. Now, with
varroa's removal of the feral bee population and most of the keepers vrs.
managers of bees, the drone pool is from managed hives. Since managed hives
by definition would exclude aggressive bees, the gene pool is conducive to
my continued success with my bees.

When varroa comes under control and the feral colonies are reestablished,
maybe the urban legend of aggressive bees will be a valid observation. It
is also interesting, if we are living through an anaomoly in beekeeping, if
all the studies which are being conducted will be valid to the practicing
beekeeper when the feral colonies and all the variables they introduce are
reestablished.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, ME