# Taming of AHB



## hpm08161947 (May 16, 2009)

So if I detect AHB and keep replacing queens for say 10 generations I will see little impact on their AHB characteristics?

I wonder if this is because the area has somehow become saturated with AHB drones. Or else... must be some of that strange bee genetics going on.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

hpm, It is my understanding that when an AHB drone mates w/ a nonAHB queen the AHB characteristics are expressed/dominant. And when a nonAHB drone mates w/ an Africanized Queen, the same is so too. That is my understanding. 

It's possible that I have that wrong. It's possible that there is some new thinking on this too, which has escaped my knowledge. That's why I'm asking. I look forward to more informed input. 

I e-mailed Dr. Dewey Caron on this. He has not yet gotten back to me.


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## ChristopherA (Jul 20, 2010)

Glenn Apiary has a nice chart explaining it.

I dont have it bookmarket, but from what I get from it, if european mates with ahb drone, the euro is dom. If the AHB queen mates with any drone its ahb dom.

Now with that said, the requeening process of ahb is very difficult. It is taught the ahb colony will not accept the euro queen and make thier own from larva. It is more difficult than requeening with russian queen.

This is what I have been taught not what I have actually seen or worked, no ahb in virginia


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## mythomane (Feb 18, 2009)

They can be, and are, diluted.


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## valleyman (Nov 24, 2009)

ChristopherA said:


> Now with that said, the requeening process of ahb is very difficult. It is taught the ahb colony will not accept the euro queen and make thier own from larva. It is more difficult than requeening with russian queens.


What is meant by the statement "more difficult than requeening with russian queens. 
This is a completely wrong misconception. From personal experience, I had absolutley no problem requeening Italian/mutts with pure russian queens and know others that have had no problems also.

We have to be carefull what we post that we have no experience with. If you had a problem requeening with russian I would suggest that you had another problem than todays russians.


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## mythomane (Feb 18, 2009)

You have it backwards. Russian hives are difficult to requeen with Euro stock.


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## Jaseemtp (Nov 29, 2010)

I had just posted a similar question on another site.
My thinking is that over time the AHB genetics would have to be diluted, after all what was started in Brazil years and years ago was a hybrid.


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Due to lack of time, I am copying and pasting a few post that I had made on another forum about this issue... Hope it helps!

"""Requeening is HARD, but not impossible... the aggression traits are more heavy carried by the drones, and since the drones are direct links from the queen, you will need to maintain consistent European queens.. true enough, your European queens can be mated by AHB drones and thus produce aggressive colonies, but they are not producing AHB drones, thus catching this in time (before she is replaced by a queen from her own eggs, which would possibly be fertilized by the AHB drone, and this produce AHB drones herself) will keep you safe from spreading the genetics... swarm control is very important... flooding your yards with drones is also... the more you use drone brood for varroa control, the more likely you are to pick up AHB genetics via swarming or superceding... work your hives often and keep an eye out for excessive bearding, runny bees, and any form of aggression... there are no serious benefits to AHB genetics... these are not a breed of bee afterall.. just a mix of of muts that interbred with hybrid colonies over time... dilution is the key to stopping the spread, mated queens from tested areas is the way to keep up the dilution..."""

_Quote: Thank you for the information Russell, have you heard about the re-domestication of Africanized bees in Brazil?

I found this on Wikipedia and elsewhere. "Not all Africanized hives are defensive; some are quite gentle, which gives a beginning point for beekeepers to breed a gentler stock. This has been done in Brazil, where bee incidents are much less common than they were during the first wave of the Africanized bees' colonization. Now that the Africanized bee has been "re-domesticated", it is considered the bee of choice for beekeeping in Brazil. It is better adapted to the tropics and so it is healthier and more industrious than European bees."

What do you think? _

"""""This is on a colony vs colony basis... of course there are some colonies and even some areas with large groups of colonies that mostly share a genetic link and thus have similar attributes... however, the misunderstanding that I hear most is based on the idea that AHB is just another strain of bee... there are a few differences that need to be considered here... first.. AHB is not a breed of ehb, thus this is not your typical crossing, it is in fact an interbreeding between completely different creatures. AHB have adapted over hundreds of thousands of years, and all bees on earth can be linked back to them... think of it more like a Cerana / a Mellifera... instead of a. Mellifera carnica / a. Mellifera ligustica... the original species may have adapted to the multiple threats throughout its long existence, but what we call ahb is simply an unnatural cross of pure AHB and many strains across a vast area... historically, crosses such as this have either replaced the local species or caused a rift in the natural state around them and were either wiped out by the natural order or bred back to the original species due to the stress. In this case, we are still in the very early stages of the perversion, and only time will truly tell what the final score will be... Secondly.. the transfer of genetics is already quite diluted, and thus the effects are already showing great diminish... pure AHB are not hard to work, the strains of south and north America are not hard to work... it is the unbalance of natural intent that causes the interbred subs to show such aggression... an internal switch that knows that something is wrong and knows that this creatures very existence hangs by a thread, thus it clutches to the most basic of instincts, protection of the colony and rapid reproduction. Much the same way that interbred vegetable plants produce excessive amounts of fruit... because the natural balance is out of sink thus it faces extinction if it dies not adapt... how can it adapt in such an alien environment? By speeding up the reproductive system so that new generations can be rapidly produced, each one more responsive to the stresses than the last. Does that mean that they can be useful? I wouldn't want to... this is far from a "natural" creature. We have to keep in mind that each colony and each mix will be different... after all, there are no true AHBs in thus side of the planet breeding with ehb, there is only a vast number of ehb strains each with different amounts of AHB genetics in their lineage... this is what we are calling AHB... some may not even be detectable with out genome research... others may seem to fit the description from the early days of the invasion... either way, I will choose to continue the lines that have been selectively bred for hundreds of years and have certainly made great leaps in resistances.""""" 

Will they over take the ehb in the US? I do not believe so... Going back to something that I teach quite often, Selection... The AHB colonies have not be selected for survival in cooler climates (this type of human selection would be necessary, as they are out of their natural state or environment)... this may indeed be a great help in controlling them as they generally lack the instinct of clustering (in their native form... which further shows that use of this stock would set our current stock back hundreds of years in adaptation), thus any form of cold winter (even the lite ones here in MS) have proven to be too much for them... now of course there are genetics that they are interbred with that may help certain lines get through winter... but the majority of the lines will not be able to survive long outside of the areas with warm to mild winters. It is also important to note that AHB are not necessarily any more resistant to mites and diseases than any EHB... They tend to swarm excessively, thus breaking the brood cylcle often... this is their main counter to Varroa... The fact that they do not reside in areas with any real winter, and that they seem to do best in dry and coastal regions is a good indicator that they may or will be very susceptible to nosema as well.

Hope this helps!


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Jaseemtp said:


> I had just posted a similar question on another site.
> My thinking is that over time the AHB genetics would have to be diluted, after all what was started in Brazil years and years ago was a hybrid.


This was the hope when AHB passed thru the most densely beehive populated area of North America, being Mexico, to no noticeable degree of change, from what I remember.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Can someone speak about "the African Honeybee" and "Africanized Honeybees". One is a strain and the other an established hybrid, aren't they?

What we are dealing w/, in the USA today, is the Africanized Honeybee. Some folks use the term African when they mean Africanized, perhaps.


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

I recently posted on another thread about AHB, and I'll briefly repeat some of my understanding here:

1. The bees released in Brazil were pure African bees.

2. Where AHB are more suited to an environment than EHB, they completely take over. In those places little or no hybridization happens. The net effect is that, through much of the AHB range, there is little or no difference between Africanized bees and African bees.

3. AHB are more suited than EHB when the climate is warm and the rainfall does not exceed about 50 inches per year. There are transition zones where both EHB and AHB live and there they hybridize. The transition zones seems to be defined by a combination of temperature and rainfall. 

4. Right now, the northward expansion of AHB in the U.S. seems to have stalled out along a line that goes roughly from northern Oklahoma to somewhere in the middle of California. They have not spread into the deep south very much, probably due to rainfall. They seem to stall out when they hit East Texas/Louisianna. We have had two cold winters in a row in Oklahoma, which I hope pushes back the AHB population. Last year, no new counties in Oklahoma were officially determined to have AHB, and they are looking. Of course, what has been officially discovered is not the same as what is actually out there. The good news seems to be that the spread of AHB is slowing to a crawl, and I think (with hope in my heart) that we might be reaching the Northern border of AHB territory.

5. There is variation in AHB bees as far as aggression goes, and hopefully people can select for more gentle AHB in areas where they take over. That would probably be easier to accomplish in transition zones. Also, the climate can affect the aggressiveness of a single AHB hive. The same hive of bees in S. America could be fairly gentle when moved to high altitude but very hot when move to lower, hotter altitudes. However, I suspect that, in the long term, the only way to keep EHB in an area that is clearly more suited to AHB will be to purchase queens from further north and replace them on a regular basis. I suspect that beekeepers in the transition zone could have a positive impact by eliminating AHB when they find them and supporting the EHB population. 

As to the genetics issues discussed above, I don't understand why it would make a difference to the offspring whether the genes come from the drone or queen. Bees don't have a gender chromosome, so they should not have any sex-linked traits. But I'm no geneticist. If anybody can clarify this, please do. 

Also, I should add that I may not know what I'm talking about here. 

Neil


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## valleyman (Nov 24, 2009)

mythomane said:


> You have it backwards. Russian hives are difficult to requeen with Euro stock.


Never heard that before, never had experience with it so I can't comment. Besides I can't see anyone ever wanting to go back to Italians after having Russians. I just hope that I never have an AHB problem as far North as I am in central Ky.
And once again Mr. Russell, thank you for your informative post.


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

The queens that were released in Brazil were not pure strain, but rather the first gen hybrids that were being studied... the spread was not actually by their own progression, but through their breeding with local stocks... AHB drones mating with ehb virgins creates a somewhat aggressive colony, but once the ehb queen is replaced by one of her offspring (so long as the daughter is from an egg that was fertilized by an AHB sperm), the new queen will possess the AHB genetics and thus produce drones with the AHB genetics... the lack of requeening practices throughout s. America has attributed greatly to the quick spread. When ehb queens mate with AHB drones, the colony may simply seem "hot", but by the next gen, the colony can become "unmanageable" if the new queen (which is now carrying the AHB genetics) mates with AHB drones... the effect is heightened by the number of AHB drones that she mates with and even more so by the number of gens that have been produced building a higher amount of AHB genetics in the queen as well, and thus in her drones, and thus in other colonies as it progresses... the key to control is observation and corrective action to stop this cycle at the earliest stages... the more AHB genetics that are built into a colony, the harder it becomes to requeen... selecting away from aggression and not allowing the colonies to produce their own queens (whether from the swarm, supercedure, or emergency instincts) is the most effective way to inhibit the spread.


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Mark, sorry I missed your request... the original pure African strain that was used to create the "hybrid" that we call "African", "africanized", or AHB were from south Africa and are not a terribly aggressive bee... they are very productive in their natural terrain, but one must keep in mind that ALL bee keeping is area specific... in their area of origin, there is an awesome resource and virtually no winter... thus the strain has no need for adapting a shut-down period and has adapted to being able to keep small colonies and swarm multiple times per year... the queens are very prolific layers and cell development time is quickened in part by the perfect climate for the species... throughout a history of excessive robbing due to the great need for wax and honey for alcohol, they had developed a special defensive trait which allows one unified signal to incite a mass swarm... when stressed or threatened, they would simply abscond at once, causing as much damage to the threat as possible while they sought a new location to colonize... the great climate allows them to be able to do so with out concern for the brood and stores that they leave behind... lastly, this type of rapid recolonization is believed to be their greatest defense against the small and large hive beetles of their region... I have a few friends that are working with these bees there and they tell me that the yards there are set up with many extra empty hives... sometimes twice as many as are stocked... this is one way that they have found to help decrease the losses from the rapid absconding while working their hives... the colonies will literally leave the hive as they are working it, and go into another... makes taking off supers an easy task... can you imagine simply opening a hive and ALL of the bees leave, leaving behind the honey, pollen, and brood frames for you to use elsewhere? Lol.


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## irwin harlton (Jan 7, 2005)

I believe I read where swarms off a ship in LA harbour were analized ( in late 1980's ) for their DNA ,it was exactly the same DNA that was found in Brazil after AHB introduction.....it had not changed in over 20+ years


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes good point. I can remember in those days, before AHB had reached Mexico, plans being made to make a "wall" of bees with different genetics to dilute the africans as they went through.

I think what happened is the plan was never hatched, or not properly anyway. But regardless the AHB genes made it through and have re-grouped on the other side.

Talk of "taming" them. Yes that's the latest buzzword. But you don't "tame" a gene. If it's there, and can group up with the right other genes, it will express itself.


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## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

Years ago my mother who was married to Dr. Shimanuki at the time, spent a lot of time in Mexico with Shim working on the AHB problem. Nothing seemed to work. The AHBs seemed unstoppable. So the researchers devised a plan. They would place 30,000 colonies of bees across the Isthumus of Teohuanipec (spelling). This is the narrowest place in all of Mexico. With coopertion of the Mexican government the plan went into effect. Bees were moved into the most likely places that AHB would migrate into. All was going to plan, the barrier seemed to be working, UNTILL the mexicans started stealing the barrier bees!!! Once the competeing EHBs were out of the way, AHBs blew through the barrier along the coast like grass through a goose. Two things were noted in after action reports. 1-The barrier is believed to have slowed the arrival of AHB into Texas by at least three years.2- There was some noticed Europeanization attributed to the bee barrier of the AHB wave as the bees moved through the barrier area once the bees found a hole in it. All in all it was not 2 million dollars well spent. TK


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## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

There is a story about a visiting beekeeper that visited Dr. Kerrs breeding unit while he was away on research. The visiting beekeeper did not know why there were queen excluders on the research colonies, so HE removed them. When Dr.Kerr returned, he found to his horror that 26 of his research queens had absconded or swarmed into the Brazilian jungle. It is a nice story but I have heard a different story. The story I was told is this. The bees that existed in Brazil were not adapted to the tropics. So the Brazilian Government funded Dr. Kerrs work, as he is a well known geneticist. So once the bees were on hand, (the second shipment that did not get poisoned), breeding started in earnest. It was not 26 queens that escaped (but as the story was told to me), BUT thousands of queens that were release to the areas beekeepers who hoped to improve their stock!! Sadly, it was too late when the mistake was realized of the monster that was created. So the Brazilian Government created a cover story of the visting Beekeeper...... TK


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## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

Dr. Kerr's intentions were and should be considered even today honorable. If things had gone to plan, we all would be singing the praises of the Africanized honey bee. Dr. Kerr with the help of Collaborators in Africa, selected the best bees that sub Sahara Africa had to offer. Dr. Kerr brought those bees home and an uniformed customs agent poisoned that select shipment. Dr. Kerr had only a limited time and grant money funds. So frantically he returned to Africa and with the help of his collaborators gathered what stock they could lay their hands on......Most of this stock came from Tanzania. Some of it, around 8 queens came from near the hybrid zone between Andosonii and Capensis (the notorius Cape Bee). So the Africanized bees that we have today can trace their parentage to these two sources. So we get the Firery temper of the Africanized bees from the Scutellata from the bees from Tanzania. And we get the quirky biological weaponery of Intercast workers, theloytokii-(spelling) laying workers, and suicide upsurptions swarms from the bees of the hybrid zone in South Africa.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

rrussell6870 said:


> were from south Africa and are not a terribly aggressive bee...
> 
> I remember reading an article in of of the 2 bee mags some years back by a retired researcher who made this same point. His suggestion was to bring those gentle south African bees into the US to breed with the AHB in order to lessen the AHB's agressiveness.
> Would that work?


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## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

Misspelled "uninformed"----It does not matter whether 26 queens or 26,000 queens escaped into the wilds. The number is not important. What matters is they got out and created a problem.. So the bees in the second shipment with quirky biology and a very mean, nasty temperment spread into the general beekeeping population. What people do not realize, is the bees that was be replaced was also one with a rather mean and nasty dispositon. So mean and nasty bred with mean and nasty....The bee that was being replace was Apis Mellifera Iberica.....The Spanish Black Bee.... We here in Alabama, through previous identification work done by the USDA DNA research still have identified pockets of AMI present. I worked a yard of mine that is AMI the other day. They are the meanest, nastiest, in your face EHBS you ever wanted to run away from. You can not requeen them, as the bees in the area are AMI. And since they exist in a genetic pocket, they back bred among themselves and get meaner and meaner. Sound familiar, you can not requeen an AHB colony. AHB back breed among themselves and get more tempermental with each generation I wonder were they got that traits from--The Spanish Black Bee..TK


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## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

Gentle as to who's perception??? The gentle bees from South Africa are hotter in temperment than what the average American Beekeeper is used to working. If you have ever work German Black or Spanish Black Bees and amplify the temper by two then you will have the average temper of African honey Bees. That is not saying that there are not gentle Bees in Africa. If that were not true we would not have the Buckfast bee with its Apis Monticola bloodlines. I am quite sure that the bees in the first shipment that Dr. Kerr WERE the best that could be had including gentle temperment. If we could only retrace where he got those. TK


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Wow that explains a lot Ted!! A fascinating read.

Amazing how so many undesireable traits could all come together in the one bee!


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

Dr. Dewey Caron is maybe the most knowledgable guy in the U.S. on this issue. I emailed him and asked: (1) whether the original bees that escaped were hybrids; and (2) whether current AHB are hybrids.

Here is his response:

[Begin quote]

The Africanized bee has not been tamed. Several breeding program have resulted in selections that are more manageable. After colonization of an area, the AHB is generally somewhat easier to work with, for example you can manage without wearing gloves. Also at higher elevations (more temperate conditions) the bees is not nearly as defensive and fewer adults leave the hive itself to defend within the apiary. It remains a unpredictable and difficult bee to manage and requeen and without selection not a very good honey producer nor bee to transport to pollination sites. 

AHBs are NOT a hybrid – they are a selection of African genetic material in the Americas. Some European traits have been incorporated and of course it is not the entire Apis mellifera scutellata gene pool within the Americas as mainly the Tanganyika queens survived, were reproduced and their stock initially distributed. Various selection programs (notably in Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico) have resulted in somewhat more European material being incorporated but it is mainly an African bee selection in the U.S. In the US, and the rest of the Americas, wild colonies are largely Africanized bees but when available, annual requeening with European stock enables beekeepers to manage largely European bees in sub-tropical regions. In the American tropics, beekeepers do not have that choice and trying to keep European stock alongside Africanized bees is nearly impossible as AHBs greatly outcompete the Europeans. 

Dewey M. Caron

End Quote

There is alot of incorrect information out there on this subject. It is widely reported that the AHB that initially escaped were hybrids and that AHB in the tropics are hybrids. That is, for example, what is posted on Wikipedia, but it is wrong. Dr. Caron's information is based on DNA testing of the bees and personal involvement with the bees (he lives in Bolivia during the winter and has hives there), which shows that they are really just a strain of Apis mellifera scutellata.

Based on other stuff that he has written, it DOES appear that some AHB-EHB hybridization occurs in the areas where both types of bees co-exist. 

Neil


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

I think the term "hybrid" is misunderstood... they are not a hybrid, they are interbred genetics... its not a race, but a gene which we refer to. If the gene is passed by a drone to an ehb queen, the result will be a certain percentage of the colony possessing the gene, once the queen us replaced with a daughter that was fertilized by the AHB drones semen, the gene is then present in all of the bees in the colony, as well as the drones that she produces... if she has mated with more AHB drones, the effect will be multiplied. Control is in the eradication of the gene via replacing the queens before the effect is fully developed, and destroying colonies that have progress too far.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes, he says QUOTE "Various selection programs (notably in Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico) have resulted in somewhat more European material being incorporated but it is mainly an African bee selection in the U.S. " END QUOTE

If they have other stock incorprated they are a hybrid. Could he mean they PRESENT, as pure AHB, because the AHB genes present tend to be dominant?

Just trying to figure it out.


But anyhow, whatever it means, I sure hope we never get them in my country and surely anybody having them in your country should be doing their best to eradicate them, it seems they will infiltrate and take over the other bees if this is not done. It does not seem likely you can take their "good" points and incorporate them into another bee, without also getting the whole package, sooner or later.


EDIT - Just read Roberts last post, should replace my words Hybrid, with Interbred Genetics.


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

He means is that there is no stabilization to the reproduction... look at it as an invasive gene, where ever the gene is found, the behavior is too... the amount of the behavior that each colony will show is based on the amount of the gene found within the colony... ie.. ehb queen mates with only one AHB drone, a smaller percentage of the workers in the colony will possess the gene... thus the colony may appear "hot", but manageable... but the more AHB drones the ehb queen has mated with, the more percentage of the colony will possess the gene... if the queen is replaced by a daughter, then all of the colony will possess the gene, including the drones... if that queen mates back to AHB drones, the colony will be unmanageable...


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Thanks Neil. That's the same response that I got from Dr. Caron. But I don't know how to transfer an e-mail to beesource. I dreaded the thought of having to write it out and then type it in.

Thanks.


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## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

From what I know of the subject, It was Pure African Honeybees that escaped depending on which story you believe. I believe the Brazilian breeding program story from who told me this. Not the visiting beekeeper story.The bees did not become a "hybrid" until they interbred with the rather mean and nasty Spanish Bee. And all that did was put more "fuel" into the extremely "hot" genetics of the Tanzanian/South African bees. This bee back breeds into itself. What we have now is a bee that is 98% pure African genetic material. So "Houston we have a problem". We will have to learn to requeen in the dead of winter with New Zealand or Australian stock in order to control them. TK


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