ABSTRACT
Italian bees probably predominate in the ancestry of North American honey bee stocks, and Iberian bees probably predominated in the ancestry of South American honey bee stocks prior to their Africanization. A morphological comparison by S. M. Buco et al. of South American, Africanized and South African honey bees helped clarify several features of the process of Africanization. The processes of Africanization resist changes in gene frequencies towards the European types and yet there is sufficient mating between Africanized and European bees that extensive measurable hybridization exists throughout the Africanized population. Human transport of Highland bees to Brazil in 1956 was responsible for the start of Africanization. Africanized honey bees spread into new areas primarily by the movement of absconding swarms. An observation of parasitism among European bees in Baton Rouge in autumn suggests an absconding swarm as the source.
