2
 Despite abundant nectar sources in the neotropics, self-sustaining feral

 populations of European bees did not become established (Michener 1975).

 The poor performance of European bees in the tropics has been attributed to

 their failure to adapt to environmental conditions vastly different from those in

 which they evolved (Ruttner 1988). To improve commercial honey production,

 queens of a central and south African race, A. m. scutellata Lepeletier, were

 imported into Brazil in 1956 for experimental breeding with European bees.

 Swarms of African bees escaped into the wild (Kerr 1967) and subsequently

 proliferated to form large feral populations that spread through tropical South

 and Central America. African bees entered Texas in 1990 and Arizona in 1993.

 The release and spread of African bees has been disruptive to the

behavior and ecology of the melliferous flora and fauna in the neotropics

(Cantwell 1974; Michener 1975; Roubik 1980, 1989; Spivak, Fletcher & Breed

1991; Taylor 1977; Winston, Taylor & Otis 1983). Explanations for the

migration pressure resulting from the introduction of the bees from Africa and

for the rapid colonization of New World territories previously unoccupied by

honey bees have focused on the extent to which neotropical bees represent an

admixture of African and European subspecies (Hall 1990, 1991, 1992a; Hall

& Muralidharan 1989; Rinderer 1986; Rinderer et al. 1985, 1991; Sheppard et

al. 1991; Smith, Taylor & Brown 1989; Taylor 1985). The ability to distinguish

honey bee subspecies is essential to ascertain the extent of hybridization. In

turn, the degree of hybridization will influence the northern limit of African bee