Thanks P-O! I had seen those pictures before. Barry used to post but now
only does on rare occasions. I tried awhile back to contact Barry and
finally got a response Barry was in the bush country.

As to the pictures you can see the true (and somewhat famous) "Scut"
coloration. unmistakable  once noted. The queen in the picture does not
resemble the scut queens in color I have seen and wonder if not a hybrid.

I find it most interesting that the bees Barry ends up with prefer to draw a
5.2mm. comb size instead of the 4.9mm. the feral scuts use.

Barry says in SA that the color is a good indicator if the hive is capensis
or scut. Capensis is a big problem for Barry. Capensis is a small black bee
and the scut is of the color of the workers in Barry's excellent pictures.
The yellow is a different yellow than our Italian in my opinion. What does
the list think?

Bob

Maybe Barry will surprise us with an update on his work and do a post..

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