Thanks, Dee.

Since you did not respond to all the other comments and clarifications I 
made to your previous post on this topic, I trust that my guesses were 
correct.  However, you have chosen to discuss the following question:

>> One other question that everyone asks.  What role do you think that the 
>> ARS documented Africanization of Tucson and area may have had on the 
>> optimal size for your bees? Or was that a factor.  Seems to me you 
>> dispute their observations.

> ...Well, we didn't back away from following the bees and their needs, and 
> breeding by older ways not followed much anymore, to see how they would 
> fall out with the old archive sizes by latitude and altitude we researched 
> and pieced together, which they have done fine.

OK.  In plain language, I take this to mean that you read old literature 
that claimed that someone or someones wrote somewhere that bees are 
distributed and adapt such that specific sizes and colours are found at 
various lattitudes and altitudes, and that there is a definite way of 
predicting this.  Seems I recall that you wrote some articles on this.  Can 
you tell us where to find this info?

> ... As for the documented africanization of local area, funny thing is all 
> the early finds, which  I noted by mapping, were only near those beeyards 
> sized down with SC we were supplying back then <snip> already for going on 
> 8 years, a lot of bees both domestic and feral were already mating back 
> and forth...

So you are suggesting that the earliest ARS reports of africanization around 
Tucson were due to the fact that you and local beekeepers were using smaller 
cells, and that the identification method used initially was cell 
measurement as explained below?

> Then going smaller like we did and at this time the 4.9mm ruler measurers 
> were being sold for africanization etc, with 5.0mm line being drawn for EU 
> bees and 4.9mm being drawn for AHB bees for FAST ID, the game FWIW was 
> set.

So, you are saying that they saw your bees and escaped hives and measured 
and thought they saw AHB?

> Deciding to go smaller and having many locally follow us, then put us and 
> others, into the forbidden zone FAST measurement wise, no matter what the 
> bees were.

OK.  Got that.  I recall hearing that they are reconsidering some of the 
isolated early California finds on the basis that they are now finding cell 
size is not a totally reliable identifier.

> On top of that testing in EU showed our bees to be caucasian like stock, 
> while USDA showed it in blind testing to be AHB
So, you say that testing in Europe showed EHB, while US testing showed AHB. 
I suppose a logical question was what methods were used in each case, and 
whether the Europeans were looking for AHB markers, and, what amount of AHB 
would it take to make the call.

One very curious thing--to me--is that in the US, AHB determination seems to 
be like the old racial segragation thing (remember that?): one black 
ancestor and you are a black.  One white ancestor did not make you white. 
Go figure.  By association, "African is bad?".  Is this what is going on?

I'm wondering if, in Europe, they go by degree and that a little AHB would 
not be worth mentioning, since, after all, there are African genes in 
Spanish bees.  (And to get even farther off-track, the earliest bees in the 
Americas were Spanish!).

Anyhow, I'm wondering if the European determination of "caucasian like 
stock" neglected any African heritage as being inconsequential, while the US 
anaysis seized on the tiniest trace of African influence and ignored the 
rest?

> and personally I believe due to money needs for labs, the problem was 
> never corrected..

OK.  That is water over the dam.  Do you, today, dispute the claim that 
Tucson is "africanized", or the extent of africanization?  Please expand on 
this.

> FWIW..................also because I have never seen a change in our bees 
> really behaviour wise, but color wise back to the old mediterranean 
> colorations, and pretty uniformly too.

As I understand it, many of you bees came directly from swarm traps on golf 
courses and around Tucson.  Were these swarms from your hives  and those of 
the remaining AZ beekeepers, or from wild AHB passing through?  Or a 
mixture?  And if the latter, then how did you "unafricanize" them?

> As a side note: I also know that mixing several races/strains makes for 
> hot bees. So does many chemicals put upon them..

No arguement, altough this can be unpredictable.

> and also diet plays into the scenario.

Or, especially, lack of diet :)

> So with the hype for 20 plus years now, it's like who do you 
> belive........well, most do as trained.

You are preaching to the choir, here, but I have trouble believeing that 
where there is smoke, there is no fire.

> Unfortunately I am before the time of training like other older 
> beekeepers, and as we die off/leave, all the newer know is the hype and 
> what they read, not what physically brought up and shown in the actual 
> management of bees and how to compare and sort out, which to me is 
> differnet, was then and still is.

Well, not everybody can see that anymore, but I have to agree with you.  I 
do have to say, however, that all the old info is not necessarily better 
than the newer info, or even necessarily true.  Moreover, some of the old 
guys were bad at math or terrible writers, and we'll never know what they 
were trying to say.  Our best guess is to assume the most cryptic writing 
was trying to say pretty much what the clearest texts say.

> I am replying, long winded maybe but trying to tell you how I feel and 
> think about things.

Well, Dee, you never have been the easiest person to understand, but I very 
much appreciate your sharing your ideas.

> Let me add, we had to follow the bees needs and the sizing game we 
> couldn't follow, we had to follow the bees needs to control the mites and 
> secondary diseases and to that end continue to help our bees. If we had to 
> do it all over again. We would follow the bees needs.......paper is nilch 
> when it doesn't work, but that then makes life hard, for many cannot sort 
> that out.

I have to say, from where I sit, that you are exactly right.  A good 
beekeeper serves the bees and in turn they serve him/her.  I can't count the 
times that I planned everything out, then went to a bee yard and was told 
otherwise by the bees.  To the degree I was a successful beekeeper, I can 
attribute that to being able to read the bees and co-operate with them.

On the other hand, you can count on me to dispute and question some, or even 
most of your conclusions, and question whether the course you have chosen 
will suit more than a specific sort of beekeepers, UNLESS we embrace (or 
simply forget about) race and learn to work the bees we are presented with 
instead, of trying to dominate by brute force.

allen

PS.  I notice that not everyone understood your post 

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