>The take-away message is "...93.79 percent of U.S. honey bees belonged to the North Mediterranean C lineage."
This might be better understood as 94% of the managed US honey bee population.
As Dr. Delaney observed in her doctoral thesis when reviewing all the available genetic data:
Representatives of the C mtDNA haplotypes, characterizing A. m. carnica (C1), A. m. ligustica (C2), and A. m. caucasica (C3) , were found in 96% of the breeder colonies. These results differed significantly from those found in the feral population where M lineage haplotypes persisted. The low frequency of A. m. mellifera mtDNA haplotypes in the commercial managed population supported the hypothesis of restricted maternal contributions from the feral into the managed populations (Schiff and Sheppard, 1995). Analysis of malate dehydrogenase allele frequencies also suggested that managed populations were more homogeneous than the feral population. The similarity of the findings from both mtDNA and the allozyme studies suggest that commercial and feral populations have experienced some barriers to gene flow.
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