Hello Jim,Bill and All,

In a off Bee-L discussion I am having the Jim Fischer post information below
was brought up as needing further clarification . Jim is correct in his
analysis in my opinion. I will try to clarify a complex  subject with a
simple answer. Many times works but not always. Excellent questions Bill!

Cape bee clones  doom a European hive (six to nine months is the time figure
posted by Barry Seargant in a post of his last spring).

Capensis hives ran by a capensis queen behave like other colonies.

 Jim Fischer posted.
> > "Yet, despite their seeming success in the Darwinian game of outbreeding
the
> > competition, the Cape bee clones are apparently incapable of
establishing
> > self-sustaining hives of their own."

Because Jim used the wording *cape bee CLONES* the above is correct. If the
sentance had only said cape bee or capensis the above would not have been
correct.

Bill wrote:
 If the Cape Bee is not self  sustaining how is there a Cape Bee?
It seems to do fine on the Cape.

Capensis when queenright behaves like all other bees with maybe a small
amount of thelytoky.

Thousands of hives of capensis are kept for honey production in South
Africa.

They are in their pure form not a big honey producer I am told.

Bad blood exists between those beekeepers using scutellata and those keeping
capensis when capensis is brought out of the cape area and used for
pollination. I believe the scut beekeepers have a legitimate right to want
capensis kept out of the area of their hives. The cape bee problem has been
traced back to certain capensis beekeepers pollinating for money without
caring about the scut beekeepers problems.

> Beyond that, there are problems but with mixing with other bees North of
the Cape.

Barry Seargant of our list has posted that a certain percentage of
Scutellata carry capensis genes but the exact amount is unknown. Both could
exist together if not for the pseudoqueen problem which I and other have
described and I am not going to take the time to go over again (please read
my past posts). For those of  you which still do not understand the process
of hive parasitism of all other strains of bees by drifting capensis
workers please read the recent articles of observations by Dr. Mangum made
in the last year in South Africa in the American Bee Journal (August 2002
pg. 571 part 3). The articles cover many aspects of beekeeping in SA and
also  the cape bee and its problems to beekeeping are covered (although as
not in-depth as I would prefer).

Sincerely,
Bob