> but I would still guess the implication that there 
> are likely genes that could be tweaked or adapted.

What part of the term "mitochondrial DNA" was unclear?  :)

Peter explained very clearly, so I don't need to rephrase:

>> they use mitochondrial DNA to trace the lineage.
>> This material is not recombined in sexual reproduction 
>> so it remains relatively unchanged for thousands of years. 
>> Hence, it would not be expected to contain any information 
>> that reflected local adaptations such as one would see in 
>> specific geographic races like scutellata. 

Maybe we need to add "Genetics" to the presentation and 
workshop schedules at all regional bee meetings from now on. 

If nothing else, it would avoid the embarrassing sort of
basic errors like the one above, and the ones made by the
authors of the paper in the journal "Science" that resulted
in IAPV being accused, tried, and convicted as having
anything at all to do with CCD based upon such a limited 
number of samples.  (The irony here is that the older samples 
analyzed by Evans and Chen that showed IAPV in US bees as 
early as 2002 were likely stored in the same exact freezer 
where the more recent "CCD" samples were stored.)

When Langstorth came along, beekeepers had to learn woodworking.
When mites came along, beekeepers had to learn pest control.
When HPLC/Mass Spec came along, beekeepers had to learn statistics.
Now that genetics seems to be trendy, we need to learn that, too.

Beekeepers may end up being he last "Renaissance Men", merely
as a survival skill set.

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