> With all due, respect, have you read any books on bee breeding or
> talked with anyone involved in breeding?

I don't know if Dee will answer this or not.  At any rate, yes, she has.
She has literally tons of material and she can find an article on any topic
in a second.

> You still haven't defined
> your terminology. What do you mean by these words? It is hard enough
> to communicate using the *same* words, let alone a unique jargon no
> one understands. Just because you can confuse us, doesn't mean you
> are on to something.

This is a problem.  I too sometimes have had with reading what Dee writes .
Nonetheless, she is consistent in what she is saying, and apparently trying
to describe things that other writers have not dealt with often or well.
She does tend to use terms that sound strange, but I think it is worth the
effort to try to understand.

> What you call a "complex mongrel" is just the regular bee that
> everybody uses. It is a mix of the various races that have been used:
> Italian, Carniolan, etc. This sort is marketed as the "All-American"
> by Weavers of Texas. One thing about it, it is vigorous and not
> in-bred. It is not a true hybrid.

Exactly.  Do we have a term for it?  If not, why not 'complex mongrel'.
Say it a enough times, and you'll find you get used to it.  It even starts
to make sense.

> When you say *retrogressive breeding" I take it to mean that you are
> trying to revert to some "previous type". This was studied heavily by
> Ruttner in connection with trying to restore the original European
> black bee (Apis mellifera mellifera) which had been heavily crossed
> with Carniolans.

Well, I took this up with Dee and found that she has been fed that term by
the scientists that were working with her on one of her Apiacta articles.
I did not like it, but, again say it enough times, and it starts to sound
familiar and reasonable, and once the context is explained, it makes sense.

> But with this program, there was a particular goal in mind, a
> particular type. What is the particular type you are after?   How will
> you know if you have it?

I'm hoping Dee will answer this one, but after Moser's recent articles and
the rediscovery of some of the old USDA papers, the idea of isolating some
unique non-AHB feral types in pockets in the southern US is finding more
support..

> I would expect feral bees of Arizona to be a
> mix of African and American stock. From this, you are trying to
> separate out some particular type, using open mating?

That is what I first thought, and Dee did not initially rebut that very
well.  Moreover she has a wide range of ideas on this, ranging from
conventional to imaginative.  She has expressed many of them, but
unfortunately the most off-the-wall ideas are the ones people pick up,
debate, and remember.

The middle of the road belief she has, and which I find very credible is
that there are strains of small feral bees in her area that have been
around a very long time, and which are not fully miscible with the various
introduced bees.  Mating naturally, they tend to separate like sand and
gravel layers in a river or oil and water shaken, then allowed to settle in
a jar.

The mechanism of this separation is each strain's natural mating times,
seasons, locales, altitudes, and patterns.  Pheromones and behaviours in
the hive reinforce this separation over time, and if man does not
interfere, she believes that a local ecotype. (I am not sure this is
exactly the correct word, see
http://www.iowaprairienetwork.org/org/ecotype-position.htm ) will arise in
each microclimate area, assuming that there is some separation by distance
or obstacles.

>  From what you have stated in the past, you apparently believe that
> there was some type of bee in Arizona before the arrival of the white
> man, and that you can somehow, through the miracle of bee breeding,
> restore it to its rightful place in the Southwest.

Let's not be distracted by this idea.  It is at the extreme end of a bundle
of ideas that Dee is working on.  Not being a scientist, or associated with
any institution, she does not have to be careful what she says, and she
throws ideas out to see what comes back.  I know this is a foreign way for
the scientific community, but it's Dee's way.  For those of us used to more
conservative ways and more careful use of words, it is easy to get
distracted by minuteae and miss the gems.

> How will you know
> if you have it? Has anyone ever seen this bee? What would it be like?

I think I have seen it, not that there is only one unique strain.  It is
small, quick and dark with long wings.  We looked through a lot of Dee and
Ed's hives. (see Bee Culture for June 2002) and I was impressed.

> These are not difficult questions, but ones you have neglected to
> answer. It appears to me that you are doing what everyone else is
> doing, trying to breed a particular bee that suits you. This is
> perfectly reasonable, but in an area saturated by African bees, I
> don't see how you will end up with anything but an African cross of
> some sort.

Neither did I, but Dee has friends all over the world, and the more I look
into this African question, the less I find it credible and the better
Dee's somewhat strange sounding ideas sound.  Sure, every passing wave of
colonization by imported stock does leave its mark, but perhaps, and I am
saying perhaps, after it is all over, given a chance and maybe some
encouragement, the strains separate back out, just like oil and water
shaken in a jar.

allen
http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/