wrote:
>
> Just for curiosity's sake: *What state are you in? *I'm in California,
> and here we use to call the bee keeper and he was happy to get the new
> hive. *But I hear things have changed. *There's a parasitic mite and
> Africanized bees, so the bee keepers don't come and get them any
> more.

They should come running. Domesticated bees are in a
plague now dying in droves. If a resistant hive is discovered
that can be added to the mix it would outweigh any risk of
adding infected bees to an already infected population.

> I've been told the only thing to do now is call the
> exterminator.
>
> That sure seems like a waste.

That and it's possible an entirely new species could be
harvested from the wild and used in place of the current
domesticated population. A wild hive would not make as
much honey as a domesticated one, but honey is a
by-product of using bees for pollination not the primary
product for most bee keepers.

Harvesting from wild hives would increase genetic
diversity in kept bee populations. That's a good thing.