From: "deelusbybeekeeper" <deelusbybeekeeper@excelonline.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2001 22:03:44 -0700
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: Righting laying worker colonies

Hi to all on Biological Beekeeping

Clay wrote back to Pav

> Is there AHB in the lines? Possible! AHB (egyptian stock for example)has been brought to the US since the late 1800's so there should be a % in most US stock even if some deny it. I think that african bees have been here for some time to tell you the truth. Mostly media hype. I say if the bees are good (regardless of race) keep them. If you think they are too aggressive requeen! Question: Why doesn't anyone talk about gentle AHB they exist? But no only the aggressive colonies. Answer: There is nothing to say about the gentle ones as they are indistinguishable between our euro stock. I have seen euro stock that could give AHB arun for there money!

Reply:

This is an excellent reply of typical USA stock. Since before the turn of
the 1900's stock from Africa was brought to the USA, and was indeed
incorporated into Italian stock as Trevor pointed out.

There is good African races and traits and bad supposedly.

In the late 1950s a supposedly bad strain called Andonsonii was brought in Later the name was corrected and called scutellata. It is these bees that are a hybrid, imported in 1956, escaped in 1957 that are noted for their aggressiveness and blamed for all sorts of deaths of humans and animals.

Luckly our already known strains of africanized bees, were known/recognized
in the USA and not included as part of the africanization of S. America., or all
beekeepers in the USA would be considered africanized here now.

In the 1980s it was recommended that monticola bees from africa be used to dilute the so-called killers of S. America in a blockade in central S.
America.

But is this really bad bee really so?

Not if you read actual articles published by Dr Roger Morse (now deceased).
It was a name given and meant to discredit a good scientist. I myself
overthe years have said africanization was played mostly for the money,
badly needed to help research labs stay open here in the USA. But that is another story.

Just what is Africanization?

Well the myth has grown that is for sure!

Is Arizona africanized? I, IMPOV really don't think so and I think in the long
run this will be proven out. Do our bees have africanization in them? As
Clay says, not any more than anyone else in the USA, and this is where the
USDA has drawn the line too, with no official called scutellata, being
found in managed colonies in Arizona and elsewhere in the USA, as I have never heard beekeepers accused of having them either in their colonies in N. Mexico or Calif or Texas, or for that matter any other state here..

This is a topic most overseas don't understand, concerning our bees here and politics involved.

National Geographic did a large article in 1976 talking about how
the aggressive AHB bred true coming north. We were taught by our USDA early on to recognize certain color traits etc and as commercial beekeepers not use them.

We ourselves as commercial always go for black queens etc knowing
that caucasian stock, like monticola stock or any darker stock is a gentling
factor for any aggressive colony no matter where located.

So just what is africanizaton? How do you tell it diferently if there is
good and there is bad?If most pre imports in the whoe USA have been labeled okay and only a certain color looking strain has been labeled bad! Is it important in view of todays problems?

IMPOV politics is shifting, and the bees will never leave the southern
states, for migratory don't bring them north and never will.OUr upper
mid-west is safe for the commercial beekeepers know how to seperate.

Will they ever breed down?

No, the myth will go on for the few queens that escaped and bred true, thru
millions of colonies coming north, and millions in funding to save jobs will
go on.

To close on my soap box again. Never seen an Africanized bee (scutellata
that is); but have seen plenty of good ferals we save from genocide weekly
and take to the hills to use for free labor for making honey.

Don't know what kind of bees we got anymore since 1997. Never did
officially find out from the USDA what we kept in the 1980s either, as every
researcher checking out our bees had a different answer.

I like small dark bees, been picking up ferals for years with my husband
Ed,and more so to overallhaul our outfit since shaking down in 1997 to go to
4.9mm foundation to fight mites and secondary diseases.

Maybe someday we will find out what we got in genetics. What ever it is,
that has been combined working our outfit back up since 1997, it's working,
it's productive as we're making a good crop this year, it's gentle for those
that have seen our bees, could even be native to the Americas.But real
Africanized, I dont think so.... the color is wrong and my dog is still
alive we take to the bees.

Comments!! (certainly Pav must have comments.........

Dee