Bob Harrison wrote:

>You can't *knowingly* keep African bees in Missouri but who is looking. AHB
>genetics are widespread in the U.S.

I don't know what the basis is for this claim. If you are referring to spot
imports, it is simply not the same thing as the mass invasion at the
southern border. This was a wall of bees. Some of your statements don't
agree with the work done on the actual Africanized bee invasion. For
example, when bees were analyzed before AHB arrival in Arizona, there was no
evidence of African DNA except from Egypt

quoted material:

We monitored a feral population in southern Arizona (Oracle Junction)from
1992 through 1999. This Sonoran desert habitat was well populated by EHB
before Africanization, with a high of over 220 colonies in 1991. We sampled
the population twice per year, by locating all observable colonies and
checking all known sites where colonies had been located previously.

Our data indicated a high percentage of A. m. mellifera mitotype (over 70%)
(Loper and others 1999). A small percentage of colonies were also identified
as A. m. lamarckii, the Egyptian honeybee, which was likely brought in over
a century ago and has not been used in any appreciable level for beekeeping. 

African mtDNA first appeared in the feral Arizonan population in 1995, with
the percentage of colonies exhibiting African mtDNA rising to 74% by 1999.
The data suggest that African mitochondrial frequencies were still rising
but approaching an equilibrium level. Consistent with this interpretation, a
study in 2005 at another site in the Sonoran desert of Arizona reported
African mtDNA in 86% of colonies.

AHB colonies can fail during winter without running out of honey, so
inadequate longevity rather than starvation may be responsible for the
reduced ability of AHB to survive dearth. AHB have shorter lifespans than
EHB in both summer and winter. EHB have much higher hemolymph vitellogenin
levels than AHB, especially in winter. High levels of vitellogenin protect
honeybees from oxidative stress and thus may be a key physiological trait
necessary for extending lifespan sufficiently to survive long, flowerless
periods.  

Throughout most of South America and Central America, the range of AHB
expanded by 160–500 km per year. Waggle dances indicate that AHB
reproductive swarms selected nest sites averaging 5 km from their nest
entrance, 2 to 10 times greater than typically shown by EHB. AHB also
exhibit an absconding behavior in response to short-term disturbance, and
long-term migratory behavior in response to deteriorating food conditions,
both of which are rare in EHB. Waggle dances prior to absconding communicate
distances of up to 20 km from the hive, suggesting that this is the primary
mechanism of range expansion for the AHB. 

-- Environmental physiology of the invasion of the Americas by Africanized
honeybees (2006)  Jon F. Harrison, et al

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