Asserted:
>> Where bees are left to their own devices, populations will stabilize 
>> and adapt to localities, with specific genetics in each region,

Responded:
> breeders would have none of the trouble that they do when they attempt

> to breed bees with specific traits that persist over several 
> generations.

The response simply is not so.  The assertion was if left alone bees
would adapt to local conditions.  The response points out that breeders
must keep up selective pressure to keep traits for which they select.
The assertion and response are actually in agreement.

Truthfully, in this day and age there is no "natural" honey bee
population.  All other traits aside, for over a century the industry has
selected for a queen who can be shoved into a cage, given to a populaton
of unrelated bees and shipped off to a hive hundreds of miles away.
Face it folks, that ain't natural!  This was my eureka moment at the
National bee meeting in Sacramento last January.  My thanks to Dr.
Gloria DeGrande-Hoffman.

The assertion that "populations will stabilize and adapt" is correct,
but because breeders continually attempt to breed bees with specific
traits that persist over several generations, the former will never
happen.  It would take a long time for a stable, regional bee to
develop.  Look at the efforts to reestablish A.m.m. in GB.  A concerted
national effort is making headway, but is continually thwarted by those
who exercise their right to pollute the gene pool.  Such is the state of
affairs in the US.  The regional pools that would/could/should develop
never will because there are simply too many beekeepers, stationary and
transient, adding to the gene pool soup that exists in virtually all
beekeeping areas in the US.  And this is precisely why breeders
continually have trouble keeping the traits for which they select.

So, is the US in need of new genetics from abroad?  Perhaps more genes
in the pool will expand the range of possibility, but I am assured that
the pool is already quite diverse.

Aaron Morris - thinking it's nice to see Allen and Jim in agreement!

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