I think that's a fair position to take when giving a broad overview to an uninvolved audience. His audience wasn't beekeepers. (Although he's also wrong about the feeding upon blood; It's the fat-body they feed-on)
In this kinf of thing, what may be needed is an easily digested sound-bite that will be understood and remembered rather than something more accurate but less effective in reaching the intended audience.
It's very normal to tell one thing to people who are hearing about a subject for the first time, and then be more nuanced and discuss exceptions and other ideas with those who are more involved in the subject. Sometimes it's important to teach things in the right order, even if the later stuff somewhat negates some of the earlier stuff.
Like how learner drivers are taught one thing, and only when taking an advanced driver's course told something different after they are already experienced and safe to do it differently.
It would seem from other, limited locations on the planet where bees are not kept, that leaving them entirely to themselves results in a population crash with 2-4% surviving colonies going-on as progenators of a varroa-tolerant population that recovers fairly well in time. But that's with suitable habitat, a diversity of pollens and little in the way of pesticides and NO kept bees present. This is never going to happen in the UK, nor in most places.
Any feral colonies that MIGHT be "wild" are likely subject to interbreeding with your Buckfast/Italian/Russian/Carny/whatever drones even if they did not in fact originate as a swarm from an apiary, and cannot be assumed to be "wild" as if it were a fact. Interbreeding tampers with any evolving varroa resistance that could have occured as well as bringing-in fresh mites from treated colonies.
"Feral" is the best we can do without very comprehensive genetic studies, and the chances of finding anything else are extremely small, sad to say.
