> Funny you talking doing back in 1956 and yet USDA did same bringing bees
here for looking at and doings!!!!<
<You know what, it was NOT the same.> P.B.
I don't want to get in the middle of this, I've seen Africanized bees in
S.America, TX.
However, my FIRST introduction to them, and they were every bit as nasty
as those in S. America and TX, was in the mid-1970s in a holding yard near
Colstrip, Montana.
Two colonies in old hives were WAY off to the side. When you pulled up
to the gate to the field 1/4 mile from the yard, you got hit by guard bees
as soon as you stepped out of the truck. Beekeeper told me that he would
work all the other hives, then screw up his nerve, and work the two ratty
hives. They were the only survivors from the 'new line' of bees distributed
to MT, Dakotas, Wyoming courtesy of USDA in the 70s.
The beekeeper put up with these NASTY colonies because they were good
producers in that semi-arid rangeland setting.
Bill Wilson almost ended his career over these bees that were provided by
Baton Rouge and the breeders working with them. Bill had nothing to do
with the introduction. He blew the whistle on this failed experiment - which
coincided with the first major waves of disappearing disease. In our
northern states, those first introductions failed to make the winter - empty
boxes in the spring were the norm. Those two near Colstrip were the only
ones that I ever found still alive in eastern MT, western N.D. May have been
a few others hidden around,
Bill's reward for tracing the origins of these failing colonies back to
Baton Rouge was to have the Wyoming lab shut down, and he was transferred to
the new lab in Weslaco, TX.
Jerry
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