From: "joel acheson" <joeljed@hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2001 15:14:03 -0000
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: The Proof In The Pudding

>They are labeled merely as *LUS-bees*. They are a Caucasian
>type strain with Italian influence that key out with DNA in their own
>grouping (the closest bees like them being found in the hills of San Diego
>Calif).

Thank you Dee, for this answer. I especially enjoyed the part about the
bees from the hills of San Diego. When a child of 7 or 8, I lived a few
miles from Harbison Canyon (in the hilly back country of San Diego), which
was named for the man who I believe was the first commercial bee keeper in
the San Diego area. That was back around 1890 or 1900, as I recall.
When a youngster I always had a fascination with bees, and would go out to
the garden to pet (literally) the feral apis mellifera which would come to
our flowers - Mom never did understand that. In later years, I did a paper
for my 8th grade science class on honeybees, based on a hive of wild bees
which occupied the walls of a building near my home, and which included
pictures I took of their activities, and for which I received a grade of
A++, if you can believe it.

The whole point of this is that I have often wondered if those bees I knew
in my youth were descended from the original stock that had been brought in
by Harbison, way back when. And makes me wonder now, if those good bees you
have are also descended from that same stock. It stands to reason that some
100 years or so of survival in the hostile climate of San Diego County would
have done wonders for natural selection in them.
'Nuff blather. Thanks again, Dee.
Joel