Hello Barry & All,
Barry raises some excellent points as do the others which have added to the
post. To sum up the direction I believe Barry is headed with the discussion
about identifing AHB and put all of us on the same page I will have to
repost previous information from my former posts.
First the queens released by Kerr were not ALL A.mellifera S.. The first
press release said they were A. mellifera adansonii. Is short the name
covered ALL races of bees at the time from Africa.  We came to find out in
later years even A.mellifera Capensis queens were imported by Dr. Kerr.
However there has NEVER been a documented report (I am aware of) of the Cape
bee . Please correct me if I am wrong. I am a student of AHB but surely
there are others with more knowledge about AHb than me on Bee-L. So we can
only assume the cape bee queens & strain didn't survive.  The Cape bee could
be far worse for commercial beekeeping than AHB or varroa. All those
beekeepers which have studied the bees of Africa agree (Brother Adam also)
that the only truly undesirable is the infamous A.mellifera Scutellata.
According to Brother Adam the only time he used gloves was with A.m.
scutellata.  If you are still with me and haven't deleted yet my point is
that Ams has distinct features and color.
quote pg. 39 of new *Hive and the Honey Bee*:
"Although A.mellifera Scuteliata has common features with A.mellifera
capensis, it is EASILY distinguished from ALL other races"
A.M.scutellata is a small bee with scarace pilosity,variable pigmentation on
the abdomen(one or more yellow bands),mostly a BRIGHT YELLOW SCUTELLUM on
the thorax AND a characteristic wing venation.
In my last post on AHB I asked if A.M.S. is what we are finding in AHB
areas. I didn't get a answer. I ask again? Maybe as Barry says the A.m.s has
been bred down to a point only dna can tell if any AHb still  exists. I
believe thats the point Barry is trying to make. Correct me if I am wrong
Barry.
As for this years Texas queens. Tens of thousands of queens were raised and
open mated between I10 and I20 and east of Navasota. I have worked
with,transported and polinated with some of these queens and they are some
of the easiest bees to work with I have seen in years. To set the reord
straight about the Weavers. The migratory beekeepers in Texas probabbly
raised more queens in Texas than the Weavers did. Any one of those could
have brought back a queen open mated with AHB. The area in Texas most
commercial migratory beekeepers use SHOULD have been africanized five years
ago. Why the slow to a crawl of AHB? Are we as I believe Barry is saying we
are seeing only a bee with a very small dna of A.mellifers scutellata?
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
Odessa,Missouri