From: "Ken Haller" <apism@home.com>
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 19:38:30 -0600
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: Are Feral Honeybees Recovering? Call for observation.

> > I am thinking that the crash in pollinator populations was caused by a
> > coincidence of two factors, pesticide misuse and varroa mites. I believe
> that
> > we are also seeing some significant (but not complete) recovery. I'm
> looking
> > for confirmation or refutation of this.

It will be interesting to see what affect "improved" stocks of commercial
bees will have on feral populations over time. In other words, with feral
colonies having taken a major hit, due to a number of factors, will swarms
from improved genetic stock eventually seed the feral gene pool with
improved genetic traits?

It seems, if this is the case, a niche will develop in the feral
population, those with a genetic advantage over others (hygienic, grooming
and disease resistant traits) will have an advantage over those without
these advantages.

One would think that there has been some affect on the feral populations
already as a result. Are then these unmanaged, indepenedent colonies truly
"feral" anymore or simply escaped colonies?