Dee,

>>...who could it hurt, for certainly good commercial beekeepers would certainly know how to react and keep their bees okay from becoming
same?

I have no doubt commercial beekeepers in AHB territory strive to requeen ABH-behavior out when they see it in their hives.  However, you do get reports up north about hot hives after they were requeened with queens from Texas.  So nothing is 100%.

I simply marvel at the speed ABH has spread in the feral populations in the Americas in recent decades and wonder why the same has not happened - as far as I know - in North Africa and southern Europe or even in central Asia.  You'd think people and bees migrate a lot in those areas, too.

>>And the politics of the time back then as it spread, if I remember, did it help or hinder?

You'll get proponets and opponents on this issue.  But like you said, bees in nature are what they are regardless what labels people attach to them.

If it were not for the spectacular, although argueably few, deaths of people from stings of overly defensive bees, politics would not enter into the equation.  Politicians have to 'do something' when disasters strike.  It strikes a sensitive cord in the population when it's reported that the 1st victim of AHB in California was a beekeeper.  If ABH killed a rep of the group that best knows how to handle bees, what is an elderly lady in a wheelchair to do?

It does sound like a situation out of control.  It's hard to blame the general population which knows little about bees for taking extreme measures to protect themselves.  I'd never keep bees with AHB behavior near population centers.  You can't educate everyone and the invalid, the elderly and children will fall victim.  Because if its deadly potential, AHB has to be taken very seriously in populated areas.

Waldemar

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