# Genetic Diversity



## B Reeves (Oct 2, 2009)

Mark, you made me laugh today, your liberal ideas are overflowing on this subject, not every bee is equal, some will die, as the manager it is your duty to kill what is not going to help the group, if you cuddle the poor stock it will destroy many. I am laughing when I write this
Bob


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I'm glads that I can bring joy to someone and make their day a little brighter.

But, if we diod away w/ al of the undesirable genetics in our bees, wouldn't that leave them open to problems from some obscure place where we aren't even looking or aren't aware of?

Just curious.


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## TWall (May 19, 2010)

Mark,

I am new to bees but not genetics.

I don't think "we" need to be worried about a loss of genetic diversity in our bee populations any time soon. The one thing I am finding is that there is a very wide diversity in how people keep their bees. That includes equipment, management practices, marketing and genetics. Look at other areas of agriculture. Most have become much less diverse than beekeeping.

That said, a repository for "pure" Apis mellifera strains would probably be a good thing.

Tom


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

a couple of quick thoughts on the subject:

1. "requeening a whole yard with sister (or near sister) queens mated in the same area" is an extreme approach....perhaps the opposite of "propping up weak stock so that it can survive year to year and contribute to the gene pool". somewhere in the middle....grafting from several colonies rather than just one, not requeening everything at once, not taking extreme measures to isolate mating yards, etc is probably a better place to be than at either extreme.

2. the mechanics of bee genetics is extremely complex and results in a number of unique characteristics....among them are that "bad genes" and "good genes" are hard to identify, "bad genes" have ways to stick around in low levels for many generations (a "bad gene" may well not be fatal if carried by 1 or 2 drone fathers in a colony...some may well be advantagous at low levels).

you could go on for days thinking of the ramifications of the honeybee's unique genetic mechanics...drones are merely "flying queen sperm", and any mating is really 2 queens mating.

imho, we should keep in mind what these mechanics do, and allow them to function...not short circuit them by II or by trying to control every last detail. likewise, crossing many different strains at once and constant introduction of "better genes" seems fraught with problems as well.

letting a population stabalize seems like a better approach...and honeybee populations don't get inbred quickly, and inbreeding is easy to identify.

i would also recommend watching the following videos:
kerstin ebbesron
http://thecompleteidiotsguidetobeek...ion=com_content&view=article&id=63&Itemid=118
and
randy quinn
http://thecompleteidiotsguidetobeek...ion=com_content&view=article&id=62&Itemid=117
as they relate to the subject as well.

deknow


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

The the term Complete Idiot must not be in refernce to the authors? 

Thanks for the recommendation.

Early morning thoughts sometimes are just dreges of dream secuences. I just thought it would be nice to get some perspective.

I'm all for genetic diversity. My oldest is 1/4 Korean and mostly European w/ a smattering of Ganesatake (Mohawk), my middle child is Euro-American mostly German/English/Irish and my youngest is EuroAmerican/Ganesatake. Not that we intentionally planned this result. Life provides for one to accept.

I wear my liberalsim on my sleeve for all to see and atke notice of. Live your values.


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## NYengineer (May 22, 2010)

I think that, as more beekeepers actively select for survival in their local area, the diversity of localities in which we live potentially ensures much more genetic diversity than previous management practices.


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## Grid (Jun 5, 2009)

It's an interesting and, in my view, valid question.

The example I use is the Irish Potato Famine of 1845 - 1852. As I understand it, Ireland had mostly reduced its potato biodiversity down to two similar strains of potato, selected for various traits everyone agreed were beneficial (I'm guessing things like yield, flavor, etc...). 

Unfortunately both strains were susceptible to the same blight.

I try to maintain genetic diversity in my apiary - I have some feral, some local, some Buckfast, some Russian, some Italian from Hawaii, some local stock from Manitoba. That said, getting attacked every time you open a hive sucks, so I am re-queening one of my feral hives with some gentler local stock.

So am I maintaining genetic diversity, or contributing to the problem? I hope I'm striking a balance. I do still need to handle these creatures regularly after all.



Grid.


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

I am also a fan of genetic diversity.

I can't contribute much at this point, being a beginner, but my long-term plan is to have a line of Russians, a line of Italians, and a line of 'local' swarm stock (if I can get one). Once I start making splits and nucs with different queens, I'll cull and choose the best among those lines, but unless one line is just useless I'd like all of them to contribute to my apiary. Instead of requeening all from one hive, I'll pick the best queen of each line to contribute to the yard. I know their original traits will breed out in a few generations, but they will not have started out closely related.

Oh yeah, and they don't get drugs so I'm choosing for hygenics at least!


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## B Reeves (Oct 2, 2009)

Mark, Diversity is allways a good thing, we breed our bees to live in an artificial environment to produce honey products, those undersirable genes will allways be there and new ones will be produced due to mutation, but lets keep it in perspective during you next dream sequence think about what your hives look like from the space station, we silly Humans, the bees will be here long after we are gone 
Bob


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

no, diversity is not always a good thing.

for instance, if i had some poor stock (the kind that needs to be fed frames of honey and capped brood to maintain) and offered it to you to add to your own "diversity", would you consider that a good thing?

deknow


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

My point is that we don't know the value of what may appear to be poor stock, not really. It may contain some necassary genetic advantages that could be of use in the future. This is not to say that we shouldn't be improving our bees genetically. And I doubt that we will ever creat a bee that would be like the irish potatoe. Bee genetics is complex.

But, isn't genetic purity dangerous?


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

Genetic diversity is always a good thing, this does not mean undesirable genetics are a good thing. Like the potato famine demonstrated, get all your eggs in one basket, you better watch out. I dont care how fantastic those eggs are, your asking for trouble.


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

I'm pretty sure all our breeding for 'gentle' bees dosn't help them one bit when they swarm and go feral. Or when gentle drones mate with feral queens...

I mean, Africanized bees are awesome survivors. No one bothers them, and they out-swarm the varroa on a regular basis. Two characteristics that breeders try to avoid, but help the bee in the wild.

So I have to agree with you sqkcrk--we ARE breeding out traits the bees, on a whole, need to survive. Unless eventually they turn into our version of sheep today--fat stupid things that will never last 2 seconds in the wild. 

Not saying that's good or bad--I'm a beek, I like gentle bees--but probably not great with bees overall survival. Cause domestic sheep don't breed out with the wild stock, but you can't control drone flights.


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## bigbearomaha (Sep 3, 2009)

We like to play at being "little Gods" and look, we have remade the bees a new world in the form of the bee yards and hives we put them in. 

Now to fit the way we want our little bee worlds to work, we try to make the bees change and adapt in ways that accomplish our intentions and wand wants, not what the bees need for life outside our little worlds.

It's just human nature to try to control everything , whether it's a good idea that we do or not.

Humans consider themselves the dominant species in a world that they are increasingly trying to take total control over.

We want to control the weather, lifespan, each other, nothing new under the sun here.

In our little bee worlds that we 'create', bees natural behaviors, such as swarming and defensiveness are undesirable. Thus we see them as 'bad' genetic traits and want to eliminate those.

OR

maybe the bees ultimately just don't give a darn about us and will end up doing what they intend to do regardless of what we try, even where biology is concerned.

They never read the same books we do and they never seem to want to take our advice anyway.

Big Bear


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## BerkeyDavid (Jan 29, 2004)

It is a good question. Don't forget that you cannot totally control your line unless you do II. The drones are so important.
I try to keep the diversity by choosing different lines for the drones from the lines I graft from. You can increase the chances of your drones succeeding by using drone frames and moving them into the hives you don't want to provide drones. It will suppress the generation of drones in that hive, and the donor hive will make more drones.
Every year or so I like to get an II queen and use her to graft from. It is critical to keep refreshing the pool IMO.


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## Reid (Dec 3, 2008)

To add a side path to your genetic diversity questions . . .(seeing as the thread is starting to fade a little) 

What about the way(s) in which people are breeding queens and that processes effect on genetic diversity? Some likely good, some likely not so good. To pick on the bad parts while not intending to ruffle anyones feathers to much, to me it is obvious that very little, if anything, about the mass production of queens mimics the natural selective process.
Just closely watch the process a colony goes through when either swarming or superceding. 

-During supercedure or for emergency purposes they start several queen cells, likely from larvae of different ages, to hedge their bets. Then, commonly, they will tear down the first cells started from the oldest larvae in favor of the younger fed more royal jelly for the longest period of time. Even then they will occasionally tear down nicely formed queen cells prior to hatching and further reduce those left to hatch. 

-During swarming they take their time and sometimes constructed many nice queen cells, which all are allowed to make it close to hatching. After the swarm sometimes the first queen to emerge kills off the others, sometime not, and the workers prevent hatching to allow for after-swarms. 

Either way, both of the above situations include a selective process (that we do not fully understand) made by the colony as to which cells will reach maturity and an inevitable fight to the death.

And then there is artificial insemination! 

We are probably fooling ourselves if we think we can make better queens than the bees can themselves.

In the end it probably comes down to money, like everything else. You can't be very profitable doing it the bees ways, so it is the goal that every graft survives to adulthood. 

How is it possible that the mass production process yields the best queens?
I don't think it can.
But a process where you nudge the genetics while allowing for the selective pressures to occure just might.
~Reid


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

I've thought about this thread a lot in the past few days. There's another couple factors the bees naturally select for that we counteract--

1) Fast hatching. If you're the first to hatch, you win and can kill all the rest while they're still developing. Again, Africanized bees, who have been wild the longest, have a monopoly on this--that's why they're outbreeding feral European bees in the south--they hatch a day early and kill all the queens with European drone fathers! When we separate all the cells, at the least we're putting a pause on the genetic pressure to hatch quickly. (how do you think queens got from 21 days to 16 days??) (I think we should try breeding Euro bees to Africanized--breed selectively for 15-day hatching while adding in more and more Euro each generation until we get several lines that retain the fast-hatching but are mostly European descent. Then release THOSE to counter-compete with the Africanized)

2) A lot of people claim small-cell is better for reasons I won't go into here. But then breeders pick the BIGGEST queen cells to keep. This is just theorizing since I know very little about queen raising right now, but if you want smaller bees, wouldn't it follow that eventually the queen needs to be smaller to fit her abdomen into the cells?

Fun thread, and I'm interested in hearing any opinions counter to mine!

~Tara


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

So how diverse is bee genetics in the United States? How many sub-species or even queen lines are there since imports were banned back in 1922? A couple new lines have been snuck in or legally imported. If a queen lives one to five years, we have had 88 to 14 generations with less than 9 genetic lines. Diversity is what Buckfast Abby accomplished by going to several continents to collect new lines. Duplicate lines are maintained to prevent genetic depression. Heterosis almost universally improves by deepening the gene pool - which is shallower than spit in the U.S.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Tara said:


> Again, Africanized bees, who have been wild the longest, have a monopoly on this--that's why they're outbreeding feral European bees in the south--they hatch a day early and kill all the queens with European drone fathers. (how do you think queens got from 21 days to 16 days??) (I think we should try breeding Euro bees to Africanized--breed selectively for 15-day hatching while adding in more and more Euro each generation until we get several lines that retain the fast-hatching but are mostly European descent. Then release THOSE to counter-compete with the Africanized)
> 
> ~Tara


21 days to 16? I don't know how that happened.

AHB do that? Emerge from the queen cell a day earlier than European HB?

It has been my undersatnding that when an AHB Queen is mated w/ a Euro Drone that the Africanized genes are dominant. And when an AHB drone mates w/ a Euro Queen the AHB genes are dominant. That is why we still have AHB even since the African Honey Bees were released from their hives in Brazil 57 years ago. And after coming through the highest per square mile density of European honeybees in North America when AHB spread through Mexico. So, if that is true, your idea, a nice theory, would meet the same ends as what we have today, AHB, not a quieted down mixture.


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

Its my understanding--just from reading, not real experience  that Africanized queens emerge a day earlier from their cells. Therefore, when a Euro queen mates with multiple drones, both Euro and AHB, the AHB drone's daughters will ALWAYS win the hive (given similar egg laying times) because they kill all the rest a day early.

The 21 day to 16 day thing was just a guess, but first-queen-out survives sure is a lot of genetic pressure to move things along!


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

I've heard breeders say that often when you try to gain one trait, you lose another. (And what do you do if a bad trait is tied to a good trait? To lose the bad trait you also lose a good trait?)

Are genetics really all that important? A well fed developing queen of questionable genetics will outperform a poorly fed developing queen of pedigreed genetics.

I'm starting to play around with a little queen breeding this year. Today I was looking through some queens I produced from a dark brown feral queen I obtained from a cutout. (One of the 2 strongest hives coming out of winter.) I was not surprised to find brown daughter queens, but I also found orange daughter queens, and I even had a bright yellow daughter queen. That was a little surprising to me. It will be interesting to see how they turn out.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Tara said:


> Its my understanding--just from reading, not real experience  that Africanized queens emerge a day earlier from their cells. Therefore, when a Euro queen mates with multiple drones, both Euro and AHB, the AHB drone's daughters will ALWAYS win the hive (given similar egg laying times) because they kill all the rest a day early.
> 
> The 21 day to 16 day thing was just a guess, but first-queen-out survives sure is a lot of genetic pressure to move things along!


The way you put things makes it seem to me that you think either that EHB queens in cells and AHB queens in cells exist in a single hive at the same time, or that AHB drone daughters can come from EHB queens after mating w/ AHB drones and then they go around the hive killing I'm not sure who, the other worker pupae or the other EHB queens.

One or both of us is confused.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I am quite sure that Tara is right on this in principal though I have my doubts it is a five day advantage and I cant quote the exact research supporting it. In addition it gives them a distinct advantage in suppressing varroa reproduction. We have always know that africanized bees have many desirable traits it just seems impossible to seperate the undesirable ones in the process.


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

"AHB drone daughters can come from EHB queens after mating w/ AHB drones and then they go around the hive killing I'm not sure who"

That's exactly the way I understand it--when EHB virgins mate in AHB areas, they will probably get a mix of drones. So their daughters will be either EHB/EHB or EHB/AHB. As you say, the AHB traits take precedence, so the half-AHB queens will do what queens do when there are multiple swarm cells present: they will kill every other queen they can find, no matter what bloodlines. But emerging 1 day earlier than EHB queens means the AHB wins the hive because its just slaughter--not a 'fair' fight when she can just kill the EHB queens in their cells. She may have to fight other queens, but they're more likely to be other AHB queens who also emerged a day early.

Jim--sorry, I should have been more specific. AHB queens only have a 1 day earlier emergence advantage vs EHB queens. I was refering to the very gradual process that I'm guessing took place over the last 5 million years to make queens emerge out 5 days earlier than the workers. There is a constant contest among queens to come out early, so logically if the one with the genes to pop out, say, 3 hours earlier than her sisters survives, she will pass those 'early' genes to her daughters. Workers don't compete and don't reproduce, so there is probably minimal change for them. Once again, I want to reiterate this is a theory I've made based on my knowledge of genetics and environmental pressures--I have no facts supporting the idea that 5 million years ago queens emerged later than they do now.

I hope that clears things up on both questions...


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

_That's exactly the way I understand it--when EHB virgins mate in AHB areas, they will probably get a mix of drones. So their daughters will be either EHB/EHB or EHB/AHB. As you say, the AHB traits take precedence, _

This spring, I purchased 10 queens from an Arizona beekeeper. He grafted the queens with larva from a Cordovan Italian queen purchased from Northern California. The queens I purchased were open mated in AHB territory.

Only 1 hive out of the 10 showed any AHB traits, but those traits were quite clear.

Allen Dick of www.honeybeeworld.com recently had an interesting discussion in his diary about the time to queen emergence. Since there can often be a large time discrepancy in emergence times for queens that were grafted at the same time, he suspects the 15 day to hatch time is actually an average. Some European bees emerge sooner, and some a little later.

A commercial beekeeper told me that you can open a queen cell a day early and release the virgin, and it won't hurt the queen.


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## BIGN (Mar 21, 2009)

Killer Bees: Taming the Swarm, was a TV show on the science channel. The part about AFB queens emerging 15 days instead of 16 days was on this show. The show also stated workers emerge 18 days instead of 21 days. I believe the woman who did the study was Dr. Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman and may have worked for the USDA. Hope this helps.


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## BIGN (Mar 21, 2009)

http://www.beesource.com/point-of-v...ng-for-queens-with-shorter-development-times/ Found this, talks about the AFB queen emerging in 15 days.


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

Cool! Someone else had my idea!


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

This is over twenty years ago. What happened? Obviously noting significant or it would have been main stream by now.


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

Ah... I didn't check the date. Maybe they never considered the part about letting a ton of their 'breeder' queens go feral in strategic places to try to compete with the AHB.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Tara, I don't know what you know, so take this as I give it. Breeder queens cost hundreds of dollars each.

And, AHB already went through Mexico w/out being diluted genetically speaking. So, I doubt that any plan that would include strategic placement of EHB colonies would have much effect on AHB colonies. Didn't I already say that?

The outward migration and establishment of AHB territory has more to do w/ where AHB can and will live then it has to do w/ who is there to keep it out or at bay through competition. When it comes to AHB, from what I understand, there is no competition. AHB wins every time.


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

Sorry, been busy lately and lost the chain of this thread.

That's what I've been saying... 'strategic placement' of NORMAL EHB won't do a thing to AHB, and AHB will win out, because the AHB queens emerge out first EVERY TIME.

The point of that article was that the breeders made a line of queens that WOULD win (emerge before AHB).... they made EHBs who could breed out the AHB--but instead of trying to think about the 'greater good' and make a quarantee zone kind of thing with these bees, they just stocked their own yard so their own yard wouldn't get 'contaminated' by AHB. 

Yes, I realize a ton of work went into their breeder queens, and they would be valuable. I'm not judging them for not wanting to 'waste' hundreds of dollars worth of queens they'd put so much time into developing--I'm just saying they had a tool to stop the AHB spread, but chose not to do anything with it on the larger scale.


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## Bsweet (Apr 9, 2010)

Lets see if I can get this from the mush under my hat to the keyboard. If a ehb queen mates with ahb drones she will throw ahb brood and if an ahb queen breeds with an ehb drone she will throw ehb brood(at least thats I think I read somewhere and thats how they breed out the ahb traits. If thats the case maybe the answer is to flood ahb areas with ehb drones and not count on ehb queens to win the fight.So if your in ahb areas stop freezeing drone frames.????? On the bee gene pool that started this thread, alot of swarms leave our bee yards every year(at least based on the reported cutouts and trapouts)plus withall the beekeepers world wide raiseing bees to fit their area and and their idea of what is best that on a whole the pool should stay pretty deep.:scratch:


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Let's look at what we beekeeprs have bred for in the last 100 or more years.

Bigger bees, which make a longer life cycle which give the Varroa more advantages.

Less drones, which gives the AHB a breeding advantage.

Less propolis, which according to Marla Spivak's research (and what Dee Lusby has been saying for decades) allows more pathogens advantages including viruses and brood diseases.

Solid brood patterns, which bred out hygenic behavior.

I think sqkcrk has a point. What we think is better is not necessarily.


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

if a EHB Queen Mated with 15 EHB Drones and just 1 AHB Drone they say the little tad poles in the seamen of the AHB is so much more aggressive than the EHB, about 80% of all that seamen that makes it to the spermatheca for storage will be AHB.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

I think unless science can beat this one, down south the best choice is to keep breeding for gential bees. Eventually you have to be able to dumb the dang things down right? Or wrong? 

I wonder if all apis mellifera is completly suceptible to AHB. It amazes me how they have spread across north and south america yet they stay put where they belong in africa. The say they spread to Flordia by shipping container from Texas or somewhere. Well then why the heck are they not in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and every dang other place. Is it what that stupid idiot did when he crossed the African with the euro that let them be so dang adaptable. I dont get it.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Territory, outward migration geographic containment, those are the things that keep AHB where it is. The Africanized Honey Bee is not the African Honey Bee. I believe that they both have seperate genus species type names. Probably Apis mellifera africansis and Apis mellifera adonsonii (I believe).

Africanized honey bees have gotten from Brazil in the 1950s to where they are in South and North America the same way that European Honey bees did here in North America from 1619 until today. They spread into the available and hospitable environment by reproducing themselves as they naturally will and then moving on to another location, displacing the other honey bees that they encountered along the way w/ dominant genes. AHB genes trump EHB genes. If not all the time, often enuf to have an advantage. That's all it takes in the long run.

There are lots of places in South and Central America where AHB do not exist, but EHB do. The same is true here in the US.

And there are degrees of Africanization in individual colonies. Researchers test for it an determine percent Africanized. Beekeepers "test" for it, or get tested by it, when they encounter a particularily agressive colony and decide to depopulate it. No lab test needed. Erring on the side of caution.

Michael, solid brood patterns breed out hygenic behavior? I had assumed that it was hygenic behavior that produced those solid brood patterns. That and a really well bred queen who is young.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

dr. kerr's experiment is probably the most successful piece of publicly funded bee research in history.

the goal was to introduce stock into brazil that would improve honey production. this was so successful that the usda couldn't wait for these bees to "march to north", they imported the stock directly.

the common attitude is that these bees are monstrously out competing "the bees we want". i'd suggest that kerr's bees were so successful because (as michael alludes) we did such a poor job of keeping the stock we had strong....mostly by selecting for traits that we assume to be important.

is it really that ahb is so unbelieveably strong? ...or is it only in comparison to our unbelievably weak stock that this seems to be the case?

i can't think of a single other piece of publicly funded bee research that has helped the industry in the long run.

deknow


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

sqkcrk said:


> Michael, solid brood patterns breed out hygenic behavior? I had assumed that it was hygenic behavior that produced those solid brood patterns. That and a really well bred queen who is young.


michael is correct here. survivors do not produce those absolutely solid sheets of brood....bees selected to never remove brood (and to never skip a cell for "heater bees") do.

deknow


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## DavesBees (Jun 2, 2009)

Very interesting thread folks. I sure don’t have the answer to the AHB problem but I have seen lots of reports, studies, and speculation on the topic. As a natural beekeeper I’m tickled to death when I bring feral colonies into my apiary for the genetics. I can’t help but think that when science knows everything there is to know about honeybees that their report will be…..Perhaps we should have left them alone.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Michael, solid brood patterns breed out hygenic behavior? I had assumed that it was hygenic behavior that produced those solid brood patterns. That and a really well bred queen who is young. 

Solid brood patterns are produced by queens with no inbreeding and bees that never remove infested brood. The difficulty is telling the difference...

My point, of course, is that our artificial criteria, outside of traits we obviously want, such as survivability, production and gentleness often backfire on us. I'm not suggesting we keep bees that don't have those traits, but we might do well not to second guess the bees on traits that don't interfere with those that we can tell. Such as propolis production and perfect brood patterns and less propensity to rear drones.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

Deknow,

Why do you say the release of Africanized bees in Brazil was so successful? Are you suggesting we WANT them all over the US? I (& many others) will quit beekeeping if they take over our area. Their agressive behavior would just make keeping bees not enjoyable anymore for me, my family or my neighbors. And your statement about the USDA importing them-is that correct?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

From the bee's pov it was successful and perhaps from the pov of the original experiment it was successful. Just like one might say that Europeans have been successful one this continent, but not from the pov of the Native Americans perhaps. You just have to be careful what you wish for, 'cause you might just get it.

Yes, some African Bees were brought here. But not enuf of them to get established. From what I have heard.


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