>
> >I have to say that I was a little surprised by your interpretations.


I must agree.  Pete, you and I have discussed this for years, and I've long
pointed out how the genes of each localized breeding population segue into
into the next.

But that doesn't in any way mean that individual short-lived human
beekeepers should be able to mess up what thousands of years' worth of
natural selection has arrived at.  Beekeepers are suckers for thinking that
the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, and have the ability
to overwhelm extremely valuable locally-adapted populations with McDonalds
versions of commercial stock that can't survive on its own.  I fully
support restrictions on imports where native races are threatened.  Unlike
as with other domesticated animals, we can't fence in imported managed bee
stocks, so the results of the actions of an individual bee importer cannot
be controlled, and have the potential to screw up complex genetic
regulatory cascades that took thousands of years to develop.

As far as continents in which honey bees are not native, it's a somewhat
different story, since there are no native races to lose.  Thus, we've
crossed a huge variety of subspecies in this country, and then selected
certain strains for commercial production.  But it's been clearly shown
that those strains are unable to persist in the wild without human
assistance (Magnus's data).  One could argue, not a problem, since it's not
a native species.

But how about the beekeepers who may wish to breed locally-adapted stock,
that may be immune to toxic local flora, or a particular parasite, or
exhibit better wintering ability?  Should any Tom, Dick, or Harry have the
right to dump a bunch of pretty yellow mite-candy bees that are unable to
survive on their own right next to his/her mating yards?

Human hubris tends to cloud our grasping of long-term evolutionary
adaptation.  I feel that we talk about illusionary "property or other
rights" that we should remember that nature always bats last, and that our
descendents may later criticize us for damage that we've wrought due to our
shortsightedness.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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