Hi Milt

At the last count, to the best of my recollection, the African continent
had 13 native races of honeybee. These races vary from specialised
bees that live in (relatively) small areas such as AM capensis, to
mountain bees such as AM monticola, to the desert races, and to the
races that occupy vast areas and many microclimates such as AM
adansonii and AM scutellata.

See: http://www.beesource.com/pov/osterlund/bucprinc.htm

Almost half a century ago, an academic took a number of African
honeybee races to an apiary near Sao Paulo in Brazil. While he
certainly succeeded in boosting honey production, certain swarms
went walkabout. Most of the feral swarms that survived have been
traced directly to AM scutellata.

These bees hybridised to an unknown degree with other races, and
were dubbed "Africanized Honey Bees." This bee spread through
south and central America and then into the continental US. It is
probably no co-incidence that AM scutellata is Africa's most
successful honeybee, in terms of habitable areas occupied. Cold
weather stinks up the joint for scutellata, possibly explaining the AHB's
reluctance to invade further north in the US.

Barry Sergeant
Kyalami
South Africa