> It follows that any swarm in LA lacking a marked queen would have a very high probability of being AHB. Perhaps it would be more accurate to conclude that any swarm in SoCal would have a high probability of consisting of bees with a certain degree of African genetics. In my limited experience of handling colonies in SoCal at various degrees of hybridization (i.e., pure European, F1 Euro/feral, F2 Euro/feral, and presumably pure feral wild type), the feral population appears to have stabilized with a normal curve of defensive behavior clearly higher than that of gentle European stocks--to something more similar to the old dark "German Bee" stocks that I used to find in Calif, as opposed to the extremely defensive first wave of the Africanized invasion. Long prior to the Africanized invasion of SoCal, we'd occasionally have thermonuclear hot colonies that would start hitting you like a machine gun when you approached the apiary. Last summer I spent time walking through a yard of about 50 feral colonies in SoCal without a veil, with no sign of overt defensiveness. Even when I started cracking the hives for frame-by-frame inspection, I didn't need a veil until after I had inspected several hives, and even after opening quite a few, we could still stand next to the apiary and talk with minimal interest from the bees. Far be it from me to condone the keeping of dangerously hot bees in any residential area, but I suggest that we be careful in assuming that all feral colonies in SoCal are unworkably hot. My on-the-ground experience indicates otherwise. There appears to be a locally-adapted wild population of bees somewhere in its evolutionary process in SoCal. I don't know the effect of the constant introduction of European genetics, but based upon my observations of the phenotypes, I suspect that it has little influence--the ferals are very easy to differentiate from imported stock simply by looking at their brood patterns (healthier, and more in tune with the environment) and behavior (somewhat more jittery on the combs). Is there a high enough ratio of managed ferals to wild type colonies for human selection to shift the population towards more gentleness? I don't know. But I certainly support those who are making the effort. But with such effort comes the great responsibility to not create nuisances or dangerous situations for the neighbors. Although there have long been dangerously hot bees in SoCal (and elsewhere), the likelihood of stinging incidents is certainly higher with the current feral population than with the bees of yore. Since it is difficult to regulate the degree of beekeeper responsibility (or stupidity), it is likely safest to require that residential beekeepers maintain marked gentle queens. However, I see no reason that those marked gentle queens could not come from a selected, locally-adapted stock. -- Randy Oliver Grass Valley, CA www.ScientificBeekeeping.com *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html