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