Hello Mike and All,

Had a few questions.

Mike wrote:
 Capensis laying worker problems
> have been seen previously in Germany, Brazil, Zimbabwe and South
> Africa (at least 3 times). All of these, except the last event in South
> Africa, have dissipated or been controlled.

I did not know about the problem in Germany. How was the problem solved? Was
the problem related to queens brought back from South Africa on the trip
several German beekeepers took with Brother Adam?
In the video "The Monk and the Honey Bee" Brother Adam says  scuts are not a
bee he is interested in for his breeding program but accepts a scut queen
any way.

(4)  There are no   indications of scutellata colonies resistant to the
capensis takeover, but  the problem is one only of commercial beekeeping,
and the wild  population is essential pure scutellata (and is not threatened
by the  Capensis Problem).

To add to what Mike wrote in my opinion our U.S. European commercial bees
would not be able to handle capensis either . My opinion is also the opinion
of Dr. Shiminuki and expressed at several of his talks I have attended. I
believe because our European feral colonies do not swarm and abscond like
scuts do they would  be threatened by capensis in the U.S. EVEN if the feral
European bees had the SMR gene or Russian decent. The point I am trying to
make is it has long been the goal of the Usda to introduce the smr gene into
our feral swarms through swarming from commercial hives which is logical
thinking. If pseudo queens are in the area then they could stop or prolong
the  effort to repopulate the U.S. with varroa resistant bees by killing off
those colonies.

> (5) There are various speculative reasons as to why this capensis
> event has become such a huge problem, while others have not - but
> this remains largely speculation at this stage, and should not be part of
> this discussion.

I believe as Barry and  Lardus do that migratory beekeepers moving capensis
out of the isolated cape area caused the problem around 1990.

Now for the big question I have been wanting to ask.

Was African queens shipped to Arizona from Baton Rouge in the 1960's?

> (6) In 1943 Mackensen published an account on research done on 3
> "lines" of bees in the USA, which indicated that 1% of workers in these
lines produced female offspring (assumed by thelytoky).

this was the old ABJ article I refered to in a earlier post this week. .
Although results were seen to (in my opinion) a minor degree the experiment
proved to me that although all mellifera are capable of thelytoky *without
the strong pheromones of capensis workers and the large ovaries and
spermatheca
all but capensis pose much of a threat to commercial U.S. beekeeping.*

Scuts with capensis genes for the above would be the exception.

If Dees bees are only showing  thelytoky on a small scale and not pseudo
queens they would be of only casual interest to me.

> (7)  This "line" of  bees was then reported to have "disappeared" but is
now again the  centre of the reports of thelytokous bees from Arizona.

Dee has said thelytoky has been in their bees for three generations without
problems  which would not cause concern as long as not seeing pusedo queens.

However if those bees  I saw pictures of  in Dr. Hoffmans presentation were
Dees bees as Dee claims then I do see a possible problem growing for the
migratory pollinators if those bees were to be brought into areas of
commercial pollinators hives. The  same concern was expressed by Dr. Hoffman
in her presentation.


> (8) As far as I am aware, the only "capensis" trait being reported from
> the Arizona bees is that some of the workers produce female offspring,
presumably by thelytoky. There is no report of them causing queen loss,
dwindling in colonies, invasion of colonies or colony loss.

If you had seen Dr. Hoffmans talk ( Savannah ABF 2002)you might think
differently which is how the whole subject got started. Dr. Hoffmans talk
was about the possible threat these pusedo queens pose to commercial
pollinators bee hives.

> (9) This situation is of both academic and economic importance, and is
> being investigated, (Dees bees)

Who is doing  the tests and will the results be made public?

Thanks again for taking the time to add your input Mike to the discussion.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison