[Pollinator] Feral Honeybee Health?

[Maraiah Russell]

I think Tom Seeley is one of the experts on this, a list of his many publications is here:

http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/seeleypub.shtml

The wild populations seem to handle the Varroa better, and possibly are adapting. Their natural comb size, frequent swarming, and smaller colony size have all been proposed as reasons why Varroa isn't decimating their populations like managed colonies. I have no idea about the Colony Collapse Disorder.

Maraiah Russell
Fort Wayne Children's Zoo
________________________________
From: Pollinator [pollinator-bounces+maraiah.russell=kidszoo.org at lists.sonic.net] on behalf of Peter Bernhardt [bernhap2 at slu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2016 8:49 PM
To: Bee United; Pollinator List-serv; Peter Wyse Jackson
Subject: [Pollinator] Feral Honeybee Health?

This afternoon Dr Peter Wyse Jackson, Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, asked a most important question I could not answer.  What is known about the health of feral, naturalize Apis mellifera vs. industrial hives or even home hives?  Do these feral colonies suffer from the same level of Colony Collapse Disorder and Varroa?  If you have pertinent literature on this topic please forward it to Dr Wyse Jackson.

Sincerely,
Peter Bernhardt, Prof. of Biology
Saint Louis University
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