Page 62 - Walks In The Black Range, Vol. 4

was the introduction of a parasitic mite, Varroa, which Apis mellifera had no natural defense against, the second is Colony Collapse Disorder which may be caused by something like the Israeli acute paralysis virus.
At this point on our walk, a scant .9 miles up the “trail” we were tired of crawling over debris, shifting rock and boulders, and avoiding tripping in the tangle of vines and vegetation. We gave up. We opted instead for another try from the top, from the Black Range Crest Trail.
A few days later, on October 2, we walked south on the Black Range Crest Trail from Emory Pass (Sawyer’s Peak Trail, see Volume 2, Number 4, October 2019 of this magazine) for 2.2 miles to the junction with the upper part of the Grandview Trail. The trail junction is well marked here (“B” on the map). The map on the following page indicates the distance is 1.7 miles; this is an error. The elevation gain on this portion of the trail is just over 1,000 feet. From the junction we wandered around a great deal (see detail of the Grandview Trail on a following page) trying to find the trail. Eventually we saw some burned tree blazes (at “C” on the map and pictured on a following page) - not that route finding is difficult, you are after all walking down a ravine. Before long we found the trace of the trail. The map indicates that the trail is in the stream bottom; it is rather on the north side of the ravine.
European Honey Bee, for the reasons cited at the BugGuide website. We use Western Honey Bee here and on the www.blackrange.org website. There are at least 24 recognized subspecies, some of which hybridize. There are also feral and domestic populations. Attempting to delineate these bees to subspecies is problematic. The rather notorious “African Killer Bee” is one of these subspecies.
These bees have experienced significant hardships of late. The first