I cannot go that route.
Just because a colony if feral doesn't have a thing to do with whether it is AHB or not.
There are still a lot of feral bees out there that have not came into contact with the AHB.
Every Bee Keeper cannot recover every swarm that leaves his/her bee yard.
After a couple years in the wild the gentleness is gone.
Carnelian is one of the worst when they cross out with Italian.
You would think you had AHB. Been there, done that.
And (had) them tested. 99.99 percent, not AHB. is what they tested.
They chased me for two or three hours for several hundred yards and took a week for them to settle down. They were re queened with a new prolific Italian Queen.
All I have now is survivors from feral swarms. With no Queen over 2 years old.
:)doak
Who said anything about labeling all feral bees as AHBs? Please read my comments again. My comments clearly state that we should get away from this viewpoint that bees are or are not AHB from the media's viewpoint. My comments were aimed at portraying bees as either feral, wild, or managed. It should be loud and clear that the bees in vicious attacks, are not from managed hives.
Maybe I need to step back a step or two. I was talking about perhaps getting the media/public/non-beekeepers to understand the difference, but maybe we should start with beekeepers.
Here is a situation....
Little old lady loses her dog.
We can do what we usually do, and that is mention honey bees. We can mention "perhaps" they are AHB. We can lump all bees together, as we always have done so the public knows no difference between the bees that killed the dog, and the very same bees we keep in our hives.
Or.....
We can openly and honestly distinguish when mentioning bees that killed that dog, and define it beyond honey bees. The very honey bees we keep.
We can use words such as wild, feral, unmanaged. It should be clear that these are NOT the same bees that beekeepers keep.
But were so hung up in defining or somehow portraying every sting incident as some "honey bee" event, and for the layperson or public in general, they see no difference in that wild colony and the bees you keep.
I'll say again, it's not about AHB, it's about public perception, and clearly stating that it is not managed colonies doing the damage. And it should be clear that the public should not be concerned with managed hives. It is unmanaged colonies they should be aware of.