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Date: | Tue, 3 Apr 2018 12:22:39 -0600 |
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As Randy has suggested, there are roughly three groups of honey bees in
the U.S. with different degrees of separation depending on the
circumstances: feral, commercial, and hobbyist. The lines separating
them can get pretty blurry and probably have become more in the last
decade. The sharing of genes and pests, and the constant
genetic influx from the commercial to the hobbyist and then to the
ferals makes the appearance of any local adaptation essentially
impossible in most places.
Even with some local isolation, it may take many years for any kind of
adaptation to local conditions to emerge because it depends on soft
selection- a slight advantage in terms of reproduction for those
colonies with a beneficial trait, while those who do not have the trait
still survive and can reproduce to a degree. Also, it could be that
many honey bee "genotypes" are fairly plastic in responding to local
conditions, making a genetically based characteristic less likely to
emerge. On the other hand, the pressure of varroa may produce a
different time frame for "adaptation" in that it is strong selection,
killing almost all colonies not adapted. But colonies resistant to
varroa may be just that, and not have any other special attribute for a
region.
So yes, right now, in the U.S., spotting a locally adapted colony may
need to start with a blessing from some bee guru.
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