MITOCHONDRIAL-DNA EVIDENCE FOR THE 19TH-CENTURY INTRODUCTION OF AFRICAN HONEY-BEES INTO THE UNITED-STATES

Since the introduction of an African subspecies into Brazil in the mid -1950's1, descendent 'Africanized' honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) have spread throughout the Neotropics and into temperate North America. Re striction enzyme analysis of 422 feral honey bee colonies collected fr om non-Africanized areas in the southern United States revealed that o ver 21% of them had mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) derived from a European race established in North America by the 17th century, 77% of them had mtDNA common in honey bees maintained by beekeepers and about 1% exhi bited African mtDNA. Further analysis revealed that the African mtDNA was derived from a north African subspecies imported to the US in the 19th century.