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Frequency of AHB and EHB under Managed Conditions and in the Natural Environment

 

AHB

 

Hives were classified as "Managed" if actively maintained and colony contains a marked queen or came from a feral hive that had been requeened > 4 months prior.

Hives were classified as "Feral" if hive was a wild unmanaged colony, a rescue swarm with no requeening or in a mantained suspect hive with an unmarked queen (> 1 year) that may have been usurped.
 
For PCR testing, 1 bee per colony was tested assuming all progeny are descended from a single queen.
Free flying foraging bees originate from unknown hive locations, so 5 bees per site were randomly sampled.
 
Feral hives were 86 % AHB, 14 % EHB
Foraging bees were 78 % AHB, 22 % EHB

Conclusion: The overwhelming % of bees in the natural (unmanaged) environment are AHB. These represent bees that are descended from A. m. scutellata queens accidently released in Brazil in 1956. The % of bees wiht AHB DNA is likely higher since the current test only detects matrilineal lineage and NOT hybridization via drone mating.

 

 

Mitotypes

 

 

Cummulative PCR results for honeybee samples (hives and foraging bees) as of 02/25/24. Data shown is for approximately 140 specimens.

Endpoint fluoresence is used to assign status as European honeybee (EHB) or African Hybrid Bee (AHB). Fluoresence signals for HEX and FAM TaqMan probes should be mutually exclusive. A few samples show minor contamination (strong AHB signal with weak EHB signal, pink).

Cytochrome b mitoyping PCR assay is based on the published method: "A qPCR assay for sensitive and rapid detection of African A-lineage honey bees (Apis mellifera)." L. Boardman, P. Srivastava, A. Jeyaprakash, M.R. Moore, L. Whillby and J.D. Ellis. Apidologie (2021) 52:767–781.