future with african bees

[bill]

One question, since the african bees have come and they seem to have an advantage in reproducing will they eventually become feral, pure blooded african bees, or will they remain a hybrid.

[stilllearning]

based on a virgin queens habit of multiple matings, I would expect
them to remain somewhat mixed although the african genes will
probably remain dominant  IMO our best defence is yearly requeening
from know sources, possibley importing queens from Hawaii where there
is no africans  like some of our other pest that have been sucesfully
eradicated, we  might some day see a time when they are all
gone

[qa33010]

Are they as hot now as they were in '57?  It seems to me and the pitence of genetics that I've had that even if the aggresive defensiveness is a dominant gene that there will eventually be a dilution that should cool them down.  Am I wrong?  Or am I really wrong?  Thanks!
                              David

[Finsky]

will they eventually become feral, pure blooded african bees, or will they remain a hybrid.

It is impossible that they will come "pure blooded African bees".  They have got European and African genes. And when you go to africa, it a large continent were is all kind of bees and genes.

One gene pole is from Elgon Mountain Kenia. I have some Elgon bees . They are very normal to nurse.

South African reported that their feral African bees are not tolerant fo varroa.

[Apis629]

They probably could, over time, become full-blooded africans.  The African drone flys an average of two miles an hour faster than a European drone.

[Joseph Clemens]

Not really possible for a bee with both EHB genes and AHB genes to become 100% pure AHB. Once the gene pool is contaminated, isn't it then impossible to purify it again?

Once a hybrid, always a hybrid. Backcrossing to either parent line should increase the genetic influence of the parent line used, and reduce the genetic influence of the other parent line, but will never eliminate all of the genetic components of the other initial parent line.

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I am also curious about the hypothetical reproductive advantage.

Supposedly AHB drones are more likely to be the drones that mate with any available virgin queens.

I've also heard that AHB and EHB drones and virgin queens have different schedules, so that AHB drones aren't available for EHB virgin queens and the reciprocal.

[Michael Bush]

The AHB drones fly earlier and stay out later than the EHB so their flights overlap the schedules of both EHB and AHB queens.  The EHB drone flight times only corespond to the EHB so it's not a total two way street.  The smaller AHB drones (only because they are on natural cell) outfly the larger (built by workers on unatural 5.4mm cell) drones from the EHB colonies.

But if we breed for native feral bees now and small cell, we might have a chance of competing.  I wonder if the flight times are also because of cell size?  Also, the natural cell size bees seem to make a VARIETY of drones sizes from tiny to huge and maybe this variety is the cause of the differences in flight times and the variety might improve the odds of being the right size, speed and time to succeed.

[Joseph Clemens]

Thanks MB for expanding that for me. I didn't know the details.

Your observations mirror my own as far as drones and drone sizes are concerned.

[Finsky]

We had German Black bees in Finland 2o years ago and it was quick to mate with queens. Those drones were like epidemic disease. Varroa killed our feral bees = German Crossed Black, and beekeeping turned much more easier.

Drones and bees were big with German Black and crosessed hives were often huge and awfull to handle.