There is no reason to expect that some of the nuclear genome of Africanized
bees won't introgress into the northern population of bees.  If a trait
exhibited from an allele is adaptive, it will tend to increase in frequency
in the population.

Pete made the trait of extreme defensiveness non adaptive to that colony.
Other beekeepers will likely do the same (I sure do).

Varroa selects for traits that are adaptive for the bees against the mite.
Thus, I'd expect to see some of those traits of the Africans move into the
feral populations of North America.

The Africans tend to swarm a great deal--this may be non adaptive where
winter nectar dearths are long.

My point is that Africanization will not necessarily move in as a package,
but parts of it likely will.

Think also of this: initially, the invasion of the Africans into southern
North American benefited from varroa, which had recently cleared the
competing feral European bee stocks out of nest cavities--leaving those
cavities open, to the benefit of the Africans.

As European feral populations gain greater mite resistance, they may be
able to outcompete the Africans at the northern limits of the African's
range, and push the Africans further south.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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