Hi All
 
The drone brood etc thread is interesting me and I thought I would
share my views on urban areas as a source of less tinkered with
genetic diversity.
 
In africa we are fortunate to have very high feral loadings of bees -
higher than would ever have been found for any race of european bee.
Areas of central africa are reported to have feral densities of over
500 colonies per square kilometer!! A lot further south in my town,
withing a distance of 100meters of this computer I know of well over
30 colonies, one of which is directly outside a window in the roof
next door to me.
 
Within a capensis bee colony one can normally count over 20 different
looking bees - namely balck, black with an orange stripe at the
Nasanov gland, grey with black stripes and so on through to orange
with no stripes (rare) and yellow like italians (common). A good hive
has more than that. All the hives contain at this time of year at
least 500 drones, unless they are nucs, in which case they have maybe
100 or less. At midday there are more drones than bees flying as the
heat shuts down most flowers for a few hours.
 
 I know where one Drone congregation area is in my area, and suspect
I have located another - both above sports fields - they are easily
locatable by looking for the presence of a bird called the fork
tailed dronga which sits on tall trees near these and flies straight
up and comes down. I shot one such bird and it's gut contained mainly
drones leading me to suspect the area is a DCA - if it is it must be
drawing from a feral population in the high hundreds - which is why
my town bred queens are always better than rural ones where there is
less genetic diversity.
 
As far as I can tell my bees are always healthy, not affected badly
by the hive beetle and of moderate personality at most times of year.
 
 As far as Santa Barbara is concerned - feral bees there will
hopefully continue their boom - and wise breeders will take those
bees and breed from them - remembering that of course the bees have
not been sanitised with fluvalinate, tetra-mycin and all those other
western products that treat symptoms not problems - hey maybe the
bees have even re-inocculated themselves with Candida apis which 14
years ago was found to reduce certain mite infestations naturally -
but of course being in bees naturally it was unpatentable!!
 
Keep well
 
Garth
 
Garth Cambray           Camdini Apiaries
15 Park Road
Grahamstown             Apis mellifera capensis
6139 South Africa
 
Time = Honey