Grace

“Still, the greatest damage to the national herd’s genetic diversity has been wreaked not by breeders like Pat Heitkam and the Koehnens, but by the varroa mite, which wiped out almost every feral colony in the country. Feral bees had broadened the gene pool by mating with managed queens. Now the vast majority of the nation’s beekeepers rely almost completely on mail-order commercial queens to supply new blood.”
― Hannah Nordhaus, The Beekeeper's Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America