At 12:00 AM 5/13/00 -0400, John Edwards
  wrote:
>Our experience has been that maybe 2/3 of AHB colonies are reasonable, esp.
>when small.

I heard from someone else that they too thought the Africanized were much
less aggressive when the colony is small.  Surely, this must have occurred
to folks as a possible management tool (e.g., in Mexico, Brazil..?).  I
thought about sending some of these bees in for ID but got caught up in
just dealing with the removal.



> > had surely overwintered there.
>
>Brrrrrrrrrr.   Maybe it was a warm winter ??

In fact, the past two winters have been warmer than "normal" here (and many
other places).  The question of exactly what aspect (if any) of winter
temperatures may predict the distribution of  Africanized (or European)
bees is interesting.  In some research done on bark beetles, a colleague of
mine found that the average annual minimum temperature predicted the
geographic distribution of the Southern Pine Beetle much better than say,
the average winter temperature.


Jonathan Ruel
Flagstaff, AZ
35 deg N, 111 deg W
7,000 ft elevation