Thank you to Stephen Augustine for his questions:

1. In regard to AM capensis, what in the past has restricted their range
to the Cape area?

The Western Cape area is a relatively small domain around Cape
Town. It is one of only two small areas in Africa (the other is on the
northern tip) to receive winter rains only, the so-called “Mediterranean
climate.” Second, the Western Cape boasts a “unique” floral kingdom,
the “fynbos.” This area is surrounded by a huge expanse of
semi-desert, the Karroo.

So it seems likely that capensis developed specialised foraging
techniques to deal with a “unique” flora (“fynbos” translates literally as
“fine bush”) and second, specialised survival techniques for winters
which can on occasion be very cold, extremely miserable, hopelessly
overcast, horribly windy and otherwise hostile.

There are indeed areas where the range of capensis overlaps with
scutellata, but the scut has remained dominant over gigantic areas of
Africa. Unlike capensis, the scut is incredibly adaptable and flexible,
migrates without a second thought, is capable of drawing wax in no
time, forming brood at a truly breathtaking pace, and hoarding huge
amounts of honey at rates that almost defy gravity.

Scut swarms will fly, seemingly forever, in search of good new
foraging grounds. Not to be cruel, the Western Cape flora, beautiful as
it is, was probably not up to the scut’s standards. Evidently the winter
weather also failed the scut test. By the way, parts of the Western
Cape also experience some bad patches during the dry summers,
aggravated by offshore howlers know as “Berg Winds.”

So far as the overlapping areas of capensis and scut ranges are
concerned, it should be remarked that a “wild” scut nest in such an
area would be under very little threat from capensis.

Such nests are “natural” and any intruding capensis would be killed.
The scut nest really has to be stressed for capensis to take the gap.
This is where man’s hand helps capensis - mainly by migrating
colonies (massive stress) directly to strong flows (more stress - the
brood nest explodes).

In the same vein, one of the very very early signs of capensis
infestation is lots of dead bees at the hive entrance. That being, of
course, the scuts fighting capensis intruders. Some beekeepers
believe that in commercial apiaries, capensis workers actively and
wilfully fly around seeking a scut colony to “parasitise.”

2. Can we assume that the genes for aggressiveness must be
dominant and re-establish when the bees return to the wild? I wonder
about this in light of the so-called "killer bee" phenomenon in the
Americas.

I think beekeepers here would certainly agree that the aggression trait
is dominant. Even though we deal today in South Africa with a “wild”
scut that is hybridised with capensis, the “wild” bees are every bit
aggressive as the worst publicity would have it.

3. In our context, I think the point to make about capensis workers’
thelytoky abilities is their readiness to lay. Thelytoky may be of great
esoteric interest among other races of bees, but in this country
capensis have caused untold economic damage.

In practice, beekeepers here have found that no degree of
management, manipulation, or any other technique or tactic is
sufficient to prevent a commercial colony from being destroyed by
capensis. It’s not a question of “if” the colony will fall to capensis, but a
question of “when.”

Some beekeepers have gone the “permanent site” route, in order to
reduce colony stress. Even then, the capensis problem remains,
albeit somewhat diluted.

So it is that one of the tests an ApiCrown queen must pass to qualify
as a breeder queen is as follows:

1. Ensure all the bees in the colony are progeny of the queen (the
queens are often introduced into nucs of “wild” bees). The colony
should be at least of a reasonable size, with brood of all ages, and
some stores of honey and pollen.

2. Remove the queen completely; introduce her to a nuc, or whatever.
Remove all frames with eggs and brood young enough for the bees to
grow into queens.

3. Days, and even weeks, later, this queenless colony should be as
happy as possible in such conditions. Environmental conditions
should comprise at least a reasonable flow, so there is pressure on
the bees (normally the queen) to expand their population.

The acid test is that there should be no evidence of a single egg (or
brood formed from eggs laid after the queen was removed) in a single
cell, be it worker, drone or queen cell. I mention the latter as capensis
workers would typically lay in worker cells; scut workers in drone cells.

In a nutshell, the ApiCrown queens should produce workers in which
the instinct (rather than ability) to lay eggs has been suppressed to a
negligible (hopefully zero) level.

Of course, this test is not conclusive or the “final solution.” It does not
answer the question of what would happen if a capensis worker
“illegally” gained entrance to the colony described after, say, a
fortnight.

And here a very important point: a capensis laying worker need not be
a sudden new arrival in a colony. A “wild” colony displaying normal
behaviour after any amount of time has inevitably always harboured
latent capensis laying workers. They are literally waiting in the wings
to start laying.

At least this test of ApiCrown workers in the method described means
(we hope) that we have eliminated the latent laying workers from the
breeding lines. Put another way, a 100% absence of queen
phenorome for an extended time does not trigger laying workers.
Remember, with normal capensis infestation, the capensis workers
start laying eggs while the scut queen is still alive!


My best regards to you all,

Barry