Hi all
I have in the past cast doubt on the notion that there are valid races of bees in the USA. It's possible that large number of so-called races, subspecies, local populations, &c. have any actual basis in reality, unless separated by significant physical barriers and sufficient elapse of time. Certainly color, or even aggression, cannot be used to classify honey bee colonies according to some scheme of racial attributes. Anyway, this was discussed at length by Alpatov, in a 58 page article. A brief excerpt follows:

BIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES OF BEE RACES 
> It is beyond the plan of the present paper to bring together the tremendous of observations scattered through the beekeeping literature of every country the world concerning the racial differences in the behavior and productiveness of the honey bee. The most important defect in all such results is that they are usually based on the observation of a comparatively restricted number of cases. We have shown that a bee colony can be very easily described by a number physical characteristics. The same is true in respect to the biological characteristics. This fact is known to everybody who has occasion to handle bees. This highly developed individuality of bee colonies prevents us from drawing conclusions about racial differences unless a large number of colonies of races under comparison are examined. As a rule this is rarely fulfilled. In many cases of racial description we are doubtful as to whether the observed differences are to be considered as real differences between the races under comparison, or as chance deviations of a few colonies with imported queens from the colonies with native bees. The second point is that the racial differences in biological characteristics as well as in morphological ones are usually of a quantitative character, the variation being transgressive. 
 
Author(s): W. W. Alpatov
Source: The Quarterly Review of Biology , Mar., 1929, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 1-58

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