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collected in areas where African bees were established. The east European

variants were largely in managed colonies. In southern Mexico, the frequency

for the M100 group of variants was 24% in drones, and 10% in workers.

These frequencies are consistent with previously identified nuclear DNA RFLP

markers specific to east European bees (Hall 1986, 1990), and may have

reflected more recent colonization by African bees compared to Honduras and

Venezuela. Some of these managed colonies were known to be of east

European ancestry, based on mtDNA (Hall & Muralidharan 1989; Hall & Smith

1991; Smith, Taylor & Brown 1989).

 The detection of the Mspl variant M301 in colonies established primarily

from feral swarms provided evidence for the persistence of A. m. mellifera in

the neotropics, as has been suggested by allozyme frequencies (Lobo, Del Lama

& Mestriner 1989). The M300 group frequency ranged from 19-33%,

including areas which have been occupied by African bees for over 20 years.

 In workers from Honduras, the detection of an Mspl variant bearing the

1.8kb fragment could not be identified outright as M301 and thus attributed to

A. m. mellifera ancestry in the apiaries and feral populations from which the

samples were obtained, since variants M303 and M304, found in South African

drones at much lower frequencies, also contained this fragment (Figure 8;

Tables 3, 4 & 6). The possibility of African origin for the 1.8kb Mspl fragment

had to be considered, because other Mspl variants had been detected at higher

frequencies in Honduras than in South Africa (e.g., M400 variants). It was also