>Are there any social-psychological data available about the characteristics of the beeks who undermine local breeding programs? Do they have enough in common to constitute a particular demographic or demographics?

Here in the UK it is, I am ashamed to say, professional beekeepers.

Two reasons:

Profit through selling queens and more especially nucs to beginners - buy in cheap queens early (before they can be raised here), then split colonies to make nucs.  Beginners are always in a hurry to get their hands on their first bees and often are not prepared to wait for UK produced stock to be available - despite the cost of these nucs.  There are also so few swarms available since varroa - and that was a traditional and cheap way of starting up.

Re-queen their own production colonies early in the season to eliminate the need for swarm control.

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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