Sorry for being unclear, I was not referring to isolated populations 
similar to the oasis bees, but responding to the comment about 
inbreeding and lack of diversity as can happen here in the US.  During 
the period where there were few feral bees I'm sure there were many 
areas similar to parts of rural South Carolina.  Off the track for 
commercial migratory beekeepers, the only honeybees in some areas were 
those introduced by small commercial and hobby beekeepers.  Often only 
one or two queen breeders were represented and I know in our area there 
were pockets with very few queen introductions per year. Supercedure and 
swarm queens usually became drone layers by late summer, presumably due 
to drones that were too few or too closely related.  Also, varroa 
resistance was poor, and most stock was not thrifty enough to survive 
drought, at least until we started mixing in Russians.

If the genetic base was more diverse to begin with and better adapted to 
local conditions, I suspect the early outcomes would have been better. 
In recent years in our area the feral bees and drone populations are 
much improved, and feral and new queen survival is much better.  For 
about ten years an active beekeeping association using few chemicals has 
introduced as many different stocks of bees as are available in the US, 
and also selected survivors and collected ferals, then mixed the whole 
genetic pool among several counties.  Productivity and survival and 
resistant traits have steadily increased.  Isolation can be an 
advantage: About 95% of our increasing numbers of beekeepers import only 
stock with demonstrated disease or pest resistant traits, so I look 
forward to continued improvement in our mongrels' survival.

As I mentioned, there are some Caribbean islands where the honeybee 
populations have been isolated for extended periods of time.  At one 
point not all had varroa; it would make for interesting research, 
especially during winter for a northerner (g).



On 6/28/2010 1:54 PM, Peter Loring Borst wrote:
> On Jun 28, 2010, at 11:48 AM, Carolyn Ehle wrote:
>> the situation found in most modern isolated populations in the New World.
>
> Where are there "isolated populations in the New World" ???
>

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