Tom said: For some time, years ago, I suggested that heavy selective breeding should be done with the AHB. I would not attempt such a program simply because the AHB in the southern U.S. is a mixed mongrel bag unlike what Barry Seargant has been working with in SA. I do not see any benefit from mongrel bees at all. All the talk of feral hives being so wonderful does not impress me. THEY DO NOT BREED TRUE FOR THE MOST PART & YOU CAN GET ALL KIND OF F1 bees! To breed an improved bee you need to know some of the lineage. Color is no indicator with AHB in the southwest. Brother Adam realized this and when searching for a bee to incorporate into his breeding program and searched for the most true to the *Ruttner classification* he could find. He never learned wing venation in the early years and only went to instrumental insemination in later years but I still admire Brother Adam and consider him one of the worlds most knowledgeable queen breeders of his era! Example from his video "Monk and the Honey Bee": He went into the mountains looking for the pure monticola. Brother Adam kept telling the others of the Ruttner description of the monticola bee. Finally the group found a bee with all the Ruttner described traits. Today we would have simply done a wing venation or DNA but now is not then. Once genetics get as mixed up as in the case of our U.S. AHB then heavy selective breeding might create a workable bee but then what does the supercede bee become. When the honey bee genome becomes available and each queen can be mapped then a serious breeder might be able to tame the AHB through instrumental insemination. Trying to open mate your program AHB queens in an area of AHB could certainly cause undesirable results. The wrong mix of genetics could let you end up with a queen which produced bees which run on frames, swarmed constantly and were very aggressive! In my opinion taming the AHB at this point in time is simply a pipe dream! Bob -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---