> Pete, perhaps you could explain how you drew that conclusion from the snippet that you posted.

Well, the onus is on those who claim bees have adapted to specific geographic or climatic regions. The null hypothesis is that they haven't. There is no clear evidence that I have seen that there are local populations in the US that possess any tangible advantages.

In fact, a further hypothesis could be developed that honey bees are flexible in their behaviors and can react appropriately to different seasons, different climes, and periods of abundance and adversity. They have survived for millions of years, and have thrived on all continents but Antarctica. 

The authors refer to the study from Europe (Büchler, R. et al. 2014. The influence of genetic origin and its interaction with environmental effects on the survival of Apis mellifera L. colonies in Europ. J. Apic. Res. 53: 205–214.) In it, they wrote

> The results of our study show that it is not merely an ecological issue, but also a commercial one: the use of local honey bee populations provides a higher chance of colony survival, and the use of maladapted bees attributes to high colony losses, as recently observed in many regions. Thus, local breeding activities should be promoted and encouraged throughout the native range of Apis mellifera.

But even so, their study is fraught with weaknesses, which they list:

>Due to the high number of genotypes and test locations, we could not realize a balanced distribution suitable for a complete analysis of genotype - environment interactions in our study. One specific factor which may have contributed to the higher survival of the local stocks is the adaptation of the apiary and colony management to the local strains, which may have provided them with an advantage.

PLB

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