> You were aiming at the right term, thelytoky, ...
Yes, I knew I was in the ballpark; even spent a good deal of time searching
the dictionary and perusing the archives trying to come up with the term.
In all my years I haven't figured how to look up something I know I don't
know.

> The trait is exhibited by many insect groups. However, you seem to have
gotten the subspecies
> mixed up. It's the Cape honey bee, A. m. capensis, from southernmost
Africa, that will invade
> (via drifting workers) colonies of other subspecies, like scutellata, and
establish its
> own queens through thelytoky.

I was also aware of the cape bee vs. scutellata, almost quoted the article
but did not as the BEE-L guidelines frown on excessive quotes of previously
posted material.  The point I was making is that Gloria DeGrandi-Hofman
asserted that scutellata exhibits thelytoky as it migrates northward and
this may be a possible explanation for the majority of bees in a "colonized"
area showing AHB DNA.

Getting back to the original point, AHB and European bees have not shown
hybridization in the natural laboratory.  There has not been documented Apis
meliffera meliffellata of Apis meliffera scuteliffera or whatever one would
call the hybrid.  Nor has there been a definitive explanation why.  As it's
played out in the natural settings, when scutellata colonizes an area, the
Europeans disappear.

Aaron Morris