Bob Darrell wrote:
>
> I believe that Chris Slade, Dave Cushman and others on their side of 
> the pond are trying to return to the pure black bee(AMM) without any 
> influence from any other race. We on this side are continuing to mix 
> in genetics from other races(Russians) to improve the genetics we have 
> previously imported.
Excellent point. We are really talking apples and oranges because 
honeybees are not native to the US so there really is not settled bee 
for any region. What we try to do is take a bee, which was settled in an 
area in some other part of the world that is similar to our area, and 
try to make it work. In some cases it works and in others it does not.

There was an interesting article in a recent Science News about 
California Salamanders. An import helped in the survival of a native 
species because of hybrid vigor. The problem is that there has not been 
enough time to tell if that vigor is lasting. We have the same problem 
with bees in the US. We may have a "hybrid"  bee that seems good but, in 
time, can express many bad traits of its predecessors and not be that 
good a choice. Brother Adam's bees seem to have disappeared from most of 
the US, for example.They did exhibit exceptional characteristics when 
first introduced but, in time, became something else.

So bees in the UK can be bred for the area because they were there 
"forever" while our bees are all newcomers and there is no distinct 
"American" ( including both continents) bee. And there never will be 
because of the tremendous diversity of climate and topography in the 
Americas. Eventually there would be regional bees just like the rest of 
the world.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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