[James_Henry]

The honeybee is a domesticated species, and there are breeding programs set on making honeybees more resistant to the mite and virus that are often the cause of colony collapse. It's a tricky process though.

My guess is that genetic engineering of the bees or their microbiome will end up being the solution.

Or we can just let them all become africanized...

[penagwin]

According to wikipedia, africanized bees are already the bee of choice in Brazil.

[James_Henry]

From what I understand, if you took away how dangerous they can be then they dominate the western honeybee in every regard.

I found the line in Wikipedia that makes the claim that "The Africanized bee is considered the bee of choice for beekeeping in Brazil" and the source seems to be a 2009 paper from volume 23 of the journal "Brazilian Journal of Agricultural Research" (Pesquisa Agropecuária Brasileira) which doesn't exist as volume 23 was in 1988 (see http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_issues&pid=0100-2... ).

[ptah]

genuinely curious: how will africanization help?

[lettergram]

Resistant to mites, they seem to have improved ability to forage, etc.

A lot of beekeepers have hybridized African bee hives. They can be more aggressive, so wear a suit and avoid irritating the hive too much and you’ll be fine.

[dangerface]

Africanized bees are more hearty to mites and disease.

[isoskeles]

Are they also domesticated though?

[James_Henry]

No, and they can be pretty dangerous.