# Where do suppliers of breeder queens get their queens?



## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

RichardsonTX said:


> Where do suppliers of breeder queens get their queens and drones?
> 
> The reason I ask this question is because I hear comments made that there is a genetic bottleneck in the bee population here in the United States which has reduced genetic diversity in the queens coming from queen suppliers. If this is true, how is it happening?
> 
> ...


I am not convinced we have inbreeding problems of significant magnitude. For instance Latshaw produces some 800 or so breeder queens a year. I suppose some are for his own use. Still, he sells most of them. Various other people also produce breeder queens for sale. The total number must be something over 2000 per year. With that many there simply is not any inbreeding issue at all. Arguing only a narrow gene pool was imported 200 years ago (150 generations ago) is pretty meaningless as ancestry over about ten generations back becomes totally meaningless. Some might argue only eight generations and others might argue for 15 but really it makes no difference which number you pick in terms or reality with respect to inbreeding with the numbers of breeder queens used each generation. There might be some specific trait you want to import but that is about the only reason to bother importing in my mind.


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## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

Hey, maybe we could start selling our drones to the queen breeding companies.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

No thanks! They have their own vsh drones and backup sperms to
make these breeders. There is no bottleneck when they are sharing the selected
breeder queens. Don't worry with the mutt queens there is enough genetic diversity
in the bees. Bee researchers know when to legally import the sperms to maintain this
diversity when needed to.


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

This is a great question!

To be brief, most folks that select for traits improving their bee stock, are breeding. Folks that simply produce queens are not improving them.

Breeding requires record keeping and/or a great memory. Keeping track of stock and it's origins as well as it's relatedness, are very important in bee breeding.

In pockets where there are many commercial beekeepers, sometimes the stock used becomes too homogeneous or similar in it's genetic potential, and vigor/performance declines.
I think that was what the article cited was referring to.

Good breeding requires looking at the present, past and future when planning, crossing and evaluating results. All people that breed have contacts and share/trade/purchase and curate stock for their breeding programs.

Is that any help?
Adam
http://vpqueenbees.com


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## RichardsonTX (Jul 3, 2011)

Richard, where did you see that Latshaw produces 800 or so breeder queens a year? I'm not disputing that but just noting that that's a lot of bottleneck if that is true. Their webpage recommends use of each breeder queen for 500-1000 daughter queens so if 750 is the average times 800 that is 600,000 queens going to service an industry that the National Honey Board claims had 2.64 million honey producing hives in 2013. Even if all honey producing hives were re-queened, 600,000 daughter queens would cover almost 23% of that. 

Since I've posted this thread I watched a presentation from another large queen producer and it looks like they "collect" queens from various sources and select their breeder queens from that collection or offspring of that collection. Also, other articles I've read indicate that a lot of drone semen is imported. 

I wasn't able to find a database or list of all queen producers in the United States but a map that Google has of "all" queen producers probably only had 100 locations marked on it. Having said that about the Google map, I pretty sure the only thing that shows up on their map would be queen producers with websites. 

Anyhow, I am just curious about the selection process. I am certainly glad that we do have queen producers like Latshaw Apiaries, that, from what I've heard, produces outstanding breeder queens with consideration for different requirements being demanded of those queens. Without some part of the supply chain provide a lot of positive influence on the quality of queens in our industry we'd probably be in a worse situation. But, that is only part of the equation since the drones those daughter queens mate with are only controlled to the degree of how the queen producers manage their business. I've tried to think about how I would control the drones around my yards and it would be a challenge if I tried it by myself without collaborating with neighboring beekeepers. 

Here's an article (https://news.ncsu.edu/2013/06/wms-tarpy-diversity2013/) that talks about the benefits of genetic diversity. I noticed that the researchers definition of genetic diversity is how many drones the queen mated with but without any comments analyzing the variety of beneficial genetic traits found in the workers used in the samples. While genetic diversity is a good thing, I think that a high concentration of beneficial genetic traits in the queen and drones that match the requirements of a specific geographic location, i.e weather conditions, flora, predators, etcetera, are more important than genetic diversity, if that environment is the primary environment for the bee versus what a bee is exposed to if used primarily for something like pollination where it would be placed in a wide variety of environments. The evolution of separate species of honey bees and subspecies due to different environmental requirements validates this theory, I'm thinking. So, if that's true, then selecting breeder queens (and drones) with a lot of emphasis on the environmental (and performance) requirements the worker bee will live in is just as important to genetic diversity. To me, this points to the need for queen producers to provide drones from hives that have been exceptional performers for that environment (or performance requirements of their customers) for virgins from breeder queens that may come from supplier like Latshaw that specialize in providing breeder queens. It's kind of mind boggling for me to think of all the variables that come into play here.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I was also reading about the development of the Russian Honey Bee by the Russian Bee Breeders Association. That's another good example of how a hybrid is beneficial by focusing on genetic traits that enhance performance in certain environments. And, examples of how concentration of some genetic traits in a hybrid may work well in some cases but not in others was the Starline (an Italian hybrid) that had exceptional performance in the United States but poor performance in England.


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## RichardsonTX (Jul 3, 2011)

adamf said:


> This is a great question!
> 
> To be brief, most folks that select for traits improving their bee stock, are breeding. Folks that simply produce queens are not improving them.
> 
> ...



Adam, that's a great point about the difference between breeding and just producing queens. To a certain extent, I've been guilty of the latter with emphasis on making splits using queen cells from queens in my hives that have been more resistant to mites/disease but that emphasis has been at the sacrifice of gentleness and productivity. Up until now I've primarily used my own stock and some queen cells from a commercial beekeeper. But, this year I've also purchased mated queens from a couple of queen producers. Going forward I plan to continue that practice to widen the variety of genetics in my bees and see how certain queens perform/excel in certain traits in relation to others. The frustrating part is not being able to control drones since I don't keep a mating yard at the center of other yards where I can influence the drone stock. From what I understand, the virgin queen flies far from her home yard to DCA's so that the she doesn't mate with drones from her originating hive. That would negate any efforts on my part to control the drone stock though or am I thinking wrong? 

I've considered trying to network with the beekeepers within a five mile radius of my mating yard to work together to produce optimal drone stock but that's a tough job trying to find out who all keeps bees around me. The other option I've considered is increasing the number of hives I manage and trying to set up 4-5 small yards within a 1.5 to 2.5 mile radius from my mating yard. Would that be the proper distance if my focus were on Italians? 

Thanks for the feedback on how breeders find stock for their programs. I've started to notice that fact already from some of the info I've read lately. One of the things that was most eye opening is that breeders import drone semen into the United States for use in their programs here. That would broaden our honey bee genetics beyond the pool of the Carniolan and Italian subspecies especially if that semen were used by suppliers who specialize in providing II breeder queens.


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## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

I am going to start off by comparing apples to oranges to throw them bombs.

First lots of these people making the statements are not genetic experts (NEITHER AM I) and there is lots of assumptions of these people about genetics. 

But look into both Whooping cranes, black footed ferrets, and Attwater prairie chickens. Those species' final numbers dropped to less than a few hundred, less than 40 for whooping cranes, and believe me genetic experts around the world are looking at these species and other VERY CLOSELY. And they all say that they are seeing enough genetic drift occurring that these species are going to be ok in the long run as long as hunting, canine distemper, and fire ants impacts are managed for each of these respectively. And these species all breed with one mate at a time versus a queen bee that mates with multiple mates.

So I realize that the genetic diversity may not be as huge as it maybe was in Europe 300 years ago, it sure is large enough that the issue with bees is not a genetic bottleneck. That was something that was talked about several decades ago when I took genetics, but with the modern advances is genetic understanding in the last 2 decades, much of what was assumed when I took it in college has been largely misunderstood. 

And there are other producers besides Latshaw. :lookout:

Now dunking for cover and drinking a beer as I visit the beeyard.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

adamf said:


> ...Folks that simply produce queens are not improving them....


I disagree with this statement, Adam!
I source the production queens from the reputable tf operation. Then the grafted daughters are mated with
the local drones. From them I selected the most gentle, early Spring build up honey producer, brood pattern and mite
resistant, etc. possible. I see it as a way to improve on my local stock already. The ones that do not fit my criteria will
be cut off from the next queen graft program. If they exhibit any sign of aggressiveness I will not use them. Some
beekeepers will tolerate them just because they produce more honey. But I do not. I have found out that there are
the gentle type bees in addition to be the best honey producer around. It all depends on the local drone population while getting the compatible genetics into my local apiary. So there are more room to improve upon. It is a matter of going it
the slow way or the faster AI way.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Adam was quite clear about how he distinguishes 'breeding' from 'producing' queens ...



adamf said:


> To be brief, most folks that select for traits improving their bee stock, are breeding. Folks that simply produce queens are not improving them.


If one is 'selecting' based on traits (as Beepro says he does), that fits Adam's definition of "breeding".


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Yes and I have!
Remember the first generation of the Italians X the local carnis was
mean as hell. Cannot do a proper hive inspection without them clinging to
my veil. I don't want those bees was on my minds all the time.
Four years later, after many generation of selection, now I can do a hive inspection without them flying
all over. Just had my first honey harvest this season. Looking forward to the Autumn harvest also. 
Yes, even a hobbyist beekeeper can do the selection and improvement when you know how. 

First honey harvest:


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Some of us get invited to a lot of friend's apiaries, notice the excellent performers, and mooch a frame of larvae, from which we get fair-to-decent stock with which to work. We buy some with VSH, or known bloodlines or crosses that are well-chosen for traits we'd like to add. We mostly open mate, though some of us send off queens and drones to an I.I. service. We diligently kill the drones of the poorest stock and re-queen them with better queens.

Over several years, we might see some improvement in stock, especially if we do like Adam says, and take careful notes, run some tests, watch very carefully. We order some from each other, different suppliers different years to avoid inbreeding. We do a lot of bee math, over the entire apiary, and prepare a lot of nuc' boxes, raise a lot of queens.

The very best queens are not for sale. Those are our heirloom bloodlines, our breeders. We try to get as many good queens as we can handle in a year for our apiaries, and other queens those in excess, will be for sale. They are not inferior bees, they may rank excellent. They are sisters and daughters of the very, very best. We expect that they are so good that you will be delighted with them.

Every so often, we may expand our operations. That is when a breeder is interested in purchasing the very best stock he / she can find that are NOT related to our bees. We may spend a lot of money on some 2-year-old breeder queens, just to get their genetics. We'll graft her daughters, and probably send those off with some well-chosen drones to be instrumentally inseminated, then carefully watch and record details of their F-1's and F-2's. When we have enough stock, we try out-crossing the best with some appropriately-chosen drone stock, hoping for some excellent crosses. If there are enough winners, we may produce enough to sell them. As Richard Cryberg notes, by 20 generations later, we have to "re-shuffle the deck" - they are inbred, and headed South (not intended as an insult to Southerners).

Richardson mentions the Starline bee. Dr. G.H. Cale's effort developed a bloodline that was well-adapted to year-round commercial honey production, especially in North Dakota's clover fields. England's environment is a poor match for these bees' traits. Brother Adam's Buckfast bees were well-adapted to Devon's harsh environment. They may not make as much honey in the clover as a Starline colony, but they sure survive a harsh winter a lot better. Such are the applications of a breeders' efforts.

Hope this adds to you picture of the breeders' world.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

We're lucky to be in the most bee friendly environment in the whole world.
With our long growing seasons and mild winter climate we can keep bees for
the entire year. Finding some breeder queens is not that hard after a few generation
of queen rearing.


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## RichardsonTX (Jul 3, 2011)

Here's an article I read recently that I thought I'd share: http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/08/some-honeybee-colonies-adapt-wake-deadly-mites

It's interesting that it points out how feral colonies in the area studied had a bottleneck in mitochondrial genes since only a few of the queens in the area survived when varroa mites first came into the area and then those surviving queens essentially repopulated the area but their offspring showed high genetic diversity in nuclear genes since the queens mated with a wide variety of the drones that also came from the hives that died. Here's the part that'll really open the can of worms for some folks. The surviving bees that demonstrated the ability to survive evolved to be smaller.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Richard Cryberg said:


> I am not convinced we have inbreeding problems of significant magnitude. For instance Latshaw produces some 800 or so breeder queens a year. I suppose some are for his own use. Still, he sells most of them. Various other people also produce breeder queens for sale. The total number must be something over 2000 per year. *With that many there simply is not any inbreeding issue at all.* Arguing only a narrow gene pool was imported 200 years ago (150 generations ago) is pretty meaningless as ancestry over about ten generations back becomes totally meaningless. Some might argue only eight generations and others might argue for 15 but really it makes no difference which number you pick in terms or reality with respect to inbreeding with the numbers of breeder queens used each generation. There might be some specific trait you want to import but that is about the only reason to bother importing in my mind.


Added emphasis to the quote above is mine. You may want to look into inbreeding and just what sort of minimal population you need to avoid a restricted gene pool. inbreeding first of all is breeding mother to son father to daughter etc. it is not the same thing as restricted gene pool. Neither would be a matter of how many queens are produced it is a matter of how many queens they produce from. Are you suggesting that they produce all queens from a pool of 2000 nationwide? if so this is not a drop in the bucket as far as a genetic pool is concerned. a healthy thriving genetic pool would require hundreds of thousands of individuals. The sort of genetic pool that treatment free advocates would require to see the adaptation to environmental stresses they expect. Restricted genetic pools and even inbreeding actually have their place. it is not like it is a dirty word. if it is used effectively. but you have to have found the genetics you want to promote first. Realizing that to do so also has it's negative effects. If there is in fact no genetic restriction among honey bees. why are the classic symptoms of inbreeding rampant in honey bees? As far as I can tell starting in the 70's with the practice of replacing queens with mass produced queens in an attempt to prevent AHB colonies from taking over. basically beekeepings answer to appease the public of a threat they only imagined could be fixed. In effect to a large extent a genetic diversity of potentially millions has been replaced by a few thousand. sound like a bottle neck to you? if not then again I am interested in just why honey bees are demonstrating every symptom of compromised thrift common to genetic bottle necking. Lack of vigorous health. inability to withstand diseases or parasitism, inability to adapt to local environment, continuous and steady decline in overall vigor. Lack of what is commonly known as hybrid vigor. As well as an ever increasing susceptibility to knew pathogens. It is often pointed out that animals will build a resistance to what is attempting to destroy them. Mites developing resistance to treatments. Try to kill roaches by hunting them and only the fastest tend to survive making them less likely to be killable. etc. Why do we not see this in the Honey Bee? Why is it that the Honey Bee is unable to withstand any of the ailments that plague them? Inbreeding and genetic restriction would be very high on the list of suspected causes. Now you say some breed from as many as 2000 queens. how many colonies where those 2000 queens produced from? from what I can tell the pool from which these queens can be drawn from is extremely small. as in a few hundred at best and likely far smaller than that. Such as a few dozen. 2000 queens all sisters. that equals inbreeding.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

One can look genetic diversity as having many tools in the tool box to deal with different challenges. A good breeder can assemble the tool collection, but they can't make new ones. Or rather, the probability they can make new ones is limited compared to a bees being bred all over a continent. 

The benefit of many small local breeders, in addition to having feral bees, is the probability of new tools being developed goes up gradually increasing the number of tools in the tool box. 

If I stay in this game long enough, my goal would be to characterize the genetic diversity in the area, and bring in new genetic diversity, not to be the backbone of breeding, rather to integrate into existing stock. Its not that every hive needs every tool, but it would be nice to see them at a population level in some sort of hardy weinberg equilibrium. New challenges would shift this equilibrium bringing useful traits to the fore. 

If genetic characterization is done every so often, newly evolved local traits may sometimes be identified and evaluated and perhaps exported to enhance continent diversity.


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## jcase (Jul 30, 2016)

beepro said:


> No thanks! They have their own vsh drones and backup sperms to
> make these breeders. There is no bottleneck when they are sharing the selected
> breeder queens. Don't worry with the mutt queens there is enough genetic diversity
> in the bees. Bee researchers know when to legally import the sperms to maintain this
> diversity when needed to.


(late reply i know)

Besides recently with WSU, who else is importing sperm? I wasn't aware anyone else was allowed to by the USA at this point?

https://news.wsu.edu/2016/07/25/importing-frozen-honey-bee-sperm-key-conservation/


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

jcase said:


> (late reply i know)
> 
> Besides recently with WSU, who else is importing sperm? I wasn't aware anyone else was allowed to by the USA at this point?
> 
> https://news.wsu.edu/2016/07/25/importing-frozen-honey-bee-sperm-key-conservation/


I don't know, but I do know that the USDA has in the past and Sue Cobey has done it too, but I believe that Sue was part of the WSU effort.


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## jcase (Jul 30, 2016)

AstroBee said:


> I don't know, but I do know that the USDA has in the past and Sue Cobey has done it too, but I believe that Sue was part of the WSU effort.


Ah was hoping you knew of someone else, wishful thinking


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I saw a presentation by Dr. Steve Sheppard on the topic and the research showed a very small genetic pool from the commercial bee breeders. I don't remember the exact numbers so I won't risk misquoting them. I don't know if that research was published or not, but I got the impression it was going to be. You could do a search for it.


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## PeterP (Feb 5, 2014)

Jcase, If you import a queen you get drones that provide 100% pure grandfather's genetics. No need to import sperm when you can get it on the "hoof".

Have a look at the saskatraz web pages. http://www.saskatraz.com/pages/availability.htm

Regards Peter


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