My  question is how long does it take for an escaped swarm to be considered "feral"? All bees in North America are descended from stock imported from the 17th to 19th century. That is an incredibly short time on evolutionary scales. Is a colony feral after surviving unmanaged for 5 years, 15 years, 25 years, 100 years? Of course no colony survives even 5 years when defined as a queen and her offspring. So with certainty there is a lot of mixing going on constantly. The reality of the bee industry in North America considering continental transport of both commercial stock and queen and package distribution leaves very very little area for a population to exist without contact with recently "managed" stock. 

How would bees intentionally stocked in known locations and left unmanaged for say 20 years differ from the ones now being tracked and captured for breeding? We have been looking for varroa resistant ferals for 35 years now not to mention the multitude of TF beeks in all parts of the country.  Seems a lot easier and the result more scientifically sound to stock these locations and track them then to depend on the chance of finding them in the isolated locations mentioned. 

Paul

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