This is an attempt to answer some of the questions on AM capensis,
particularly those raised last week by Blane White.

Just why capensis workers can lay eggs that can be raised as
females remains a mystery. German researchers are currently having
another crack at solving why a capensis worker can lay an egg with 32
chromosomes (female), vs. workers of all other bee races that can
only lay eggs with 16 chromosomes (males).

A capensis worker lays unfertilised female eggs. In practical terms, it
means nothing more and nothing less than a capensis worker
cloning itself.

It’s still early days, so take it as strictly hearsay that at this stage the
researchers have developed two ideas. First, that the capensis
worker’s abilities are a genetic mistake. But the researchers would
then have to establish why practically every capensis worker has this
talent, generation after generation.

They would also have to solve the puzzle of why a notable percentage
of eggs laid by capensis workers are not viable.

Idea number two is that capensis workers’ ability to lay female eggs is
somehow triggered by a viral infection.

There are few, if any, that classify AM capensis and AM scutellata as
different sub-species. They are simply different races of the honey
bee, and, as such, hybridise. In their natural overlapping range, this
has no doubt happened for millennia.

But the different climatic conditions preferred by the two races cannot
be over stressed. In terms of the African continent, capensis lives in a
very small area, the Western Cape. This is characterised by its wet
winters, howling winds and other seasonally unpleasant factors.

(In defence of Cape Town, I must add that a perfect day in that fair city
ranks with the best in the world). Pure capensis colonies living in
natural scut terrain are unproductive and miserable.

The modern position was aggravated by the migration, about a
decade ago, of hundreds of capensis colonies some 1000 miles from
their natural range to just north of Pretoria. They were moved onto
natural scut ground, and “parasitised” hundreds of scut hives. Many
thousands of colonies are migrated to this flow, the aloe davyana,
building up right now.

With this level of “infection,” and continued migrations by beekeepers,
just about all economic bee areas in South Africa are now “overlap
territory.”

As to other races on this continent, researchers have documented up
to 12. In Kenya, for example, you again find scuts, and also monticola
and luterea. But it’s probably safe to say that nowhere in the world
would you find a beekeeping problem remotely similar to what you
now find in South Africa.

Capensis’ “unique” talents present the following conundrums. First,
colony sub-families. It is widely accepted that a queen of any race may
mate with up to 20 drones. If a scut queen mates with, say, a pure
capensis drone, that particular colony sub-family is set for trouble
making; more so when the scut queen is partially capensis.

Every South African scut colony is, in essence, a time bomb. Let’s say
the imagined colony is migrated right now to the aloe davyana. This
flow is nectar heavy in some areas, but pollen rich in practically all
areas. It’s widely believed that if a capensis-rich egg is laid (by the
queen), it starts secreting a hormone (or similar) immediately on
hatching - if not from within the egg.

The nurse bees are seriously attracted to such larvae and, given the
added factor of endless pollen pouring into the nest, start “super
feeding” such larvae. These workers emerge as some kind of an
intercaste. They recognise - effectively - zero phenoromes from their
own queen mother, and start laying (female, of course) eggs. That’s
the beginning of the end of the colony. Period. Kaput.

Hence the “time bomb” concept: on more marginal flows, such a
colony may last for ages, with the scut queen hanging in on her scent
just marginally dominating that of the capensis-rich eggs and larvae.

In summary, man-made influences inducing stress (mainly heavy
handling and migration) and certain natural influences  (mainly heavy
flows) may initiate capensis destruction of a scut colony. The timing of
the event is also influenced by the general structure and health of the
colony, sub-families existent, and (similarly) the overall degree of
hybridisation. Other factors also apply, such as a single capensis-rich
worker invading a scut-rich colony. The number of permutations
become endless and, of course, impossible to manage effectively.

The spookiest factor in the capensis story is that the extent of
destruction of “normal” colonies is evidently getting worse, not better.
Indeed, it may now be the general belief that capensis behaviour
(delayed as it may sometimes be) has become dominant genetically
in South Africa’s “wild” bee population.

I’m heading off to my queen apiaries in the bush for a week or so, and
will be ”off-line.” But I am spending several days with a very learned
scientist. And several other days chasing capensis-rich workers
around the forests, if I find any. On my return I will try to write
something further and far more intelligible about capensis.

My best regards to you all,

Barry Sergeant
Kyalami
South Africa