In message "La Reine de la Cite' des Phoques (Liz Day)" writes: > Feral honeybees exist quite far north, I think, but somehow I > thougth the killer bees were less resistant to cold or for some > reason wouldn't make it this far (Chicago). Any good info? > Liz Day There is no set, simple answer to this question. If you speak of "pure" African bees (ie, the DNA and morphology is similar to Apis mellifera scutellata from South Africa), they are not as adpated to prolonged cold temperatures as are bees derived from Europe. They can thermoregulate in a cluster, but whether they could make it through a winter in Chicago or Minnesota is anybody's guess (especially in a winter like this one). Jose Villa from the USDA Bee Lab in Baton Rouge has nice data on the overwintering ability of African honey bees. I can lead you to references if you're interested. On their own, meaning without assistance from beekeepers, African bees probably will not swarm and establish feral populations very far north. We assume this because of the distribution of African bees in Argentina. In northern Argentina, African bees thrive quite well. Further south, there is a permanent hybrid zone between African and European bees, and even further south, only European bees are found. This situation probably will occur in the US, only in reverse. If so, "pure" African bees will only be found in the most southern states. However, the above predictions don't take into consideration the beekeeping industry, particularly the queen rearing and package bee industry which is located primarily in the southern US and along the east and west coasts. Thousands of queens and packages are shipped yearly all over the US. How will this affect the distribution of African bees and their hybrids? It can potentially distribute them everywhere. There is a plan in the works to help ensure that all queens and bees that are shipped or transported out of areas where African bees thrive are reared from "certified" European stock. So we will get European queens in the mail, but we may not be able to certify that these queens mated with all European drones. In the long run, we will probably be dealing with mostly European queens hybridized with some African drones, and they will survive everywhere we take them and take care of them. Some will be perfectly manageable and gentle and others will not be so manageable. It will be up to every beekeeper to consistently cull out irascible colonies and propagate gentle colonies. Do African bees get varroa and tracheal mites? Yes. Are they more resistant to these mites? We don't know. In Brazil, African bees don't seem to be as affected by varroa mites as are European bees. Will this trend hold in more temperate regions? We don't know (or I don't know). Marla Spivak [log in to unmask] University of Minnesota