# A Genetic Basis for Subspecies



## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

I came across the following recent study prepared by more than a score of members of the COLOSS group as a part of their _SmartBees_ initiative and it provides some very interesting information concerning the genetic basis for honey bee subspecies:

Authoritative subspecies diagnosis tool for European honey bees based on ancestry informative SNPs - BMC Genomics

In this research they report in part that:

_Based on pool-sequence data from 1995 worker bees representing 22 populations, four evolutionary lineages and 14 subspecies, we selected 4400 informative SNPs employing two powerful and commonly used approaches (FST and PCA). Of these, 4165 SNPs, for which probes could be designed and which passed the BeadChip decoding quality metric, were genotyped in 3903 individual bees using the Illumina Infinium platform. Final quality control filtering left 4094 reliable SNPs to build a statistical model using machine learning (ML) algorithms for assignment of European honey bees to 14 different genetic origins. The best model was the Linear Support Vector Classifier (Linear SVC) which could correctly assign 96.2% of the tested samples to their genetic origin. Thus, the here presented method accurately identifies European subspecies, which is crucial to support management strategies in sustainable honey bee breeding and conservation programs._

There is quite an in-depth treatment of the ‘C’ lineage in this paper, showing that while these related subspecies are similar, they are genetically distinct.

And then there is this- which is encouraging:

_Consequently, as the bees included in this project were collected in a vast area ranging from Russia and Armenia in the East to Portugal in the West, and from Malta in the South to Scotland in the North, we conclude that much of the natural diversity of European honey bees can still be considered extant, in spite of human interference since more than 150 years.








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## Snarge (May 4, 2015)

Litsinger said:


> I came across the following recent study prepared by more than a score of members of the COLOSS group as a part of their _SmartBees_ initiative and it provides some very interesting information concerning the genetic basis for honey bee subspecies:
> 
> Authoritative subspecies diagnosis tool for European honey bees based on ancestry informative SNPs - BMC Genomics
> 
> ...


Very interesting, Russ.

Another fascinating part is where the probes found an “absence of data” and how this still provides valuable information.

I wonder how the Linear SVC (support system classifier) would assign samples in Canada and the U.S. to their genetic origins and which subspecies would exist in these diverse locations?

Definitely not as large a genetic pool, I would assume, but it would still be very interesting.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

Snarge said:


> Definitely not as large a genetic pool, I would assume, but it would still be very interesting.


I would guess that we would ironically have more diversity than much of Europe due to our propensity to import stuff and move stuff around.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Litsinger said:


> I would guess that we would ironically have more diversity than much of Europe due to our propensity to import stuff and move stuff around.


If you remember my wing measurements from winter 20/21 - all the cases measured were bouncing around the C-lineage.
There were 1-2 cases that seem to have some O-lineage pull to them.

The beeks in Euro still don't toss the bees across the state lines as freely - but it is moving that way too.

A lot of C-lineage (Carnica) was being imported from Germany and Austria until lately (season 2023 is under question now). I can see the C-lineage gaining a lot of new ground there too.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

GregB said:


> If you remember my wing measurements from winter 20/21 - all the cases measured were bouncing around the C-lineage.


I think if you looked down here you'd find a good bit of M too...


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Litsinger said:


> I think if you looked down here you'd find a good bit of M too...


Drop few dead bees into an envelope and send my way.
If any M, they should stand out.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

GregB said:


> Drop few dead bees into an envelope and send my way.
> If any M, they should stand out.


I'll do it!


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## HaplozygousNut (Dec 30, 2015)

Very interesting!


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## HaplozygousNut (Dec 30, 2015)

Litsinger said:


> I think if you looked down here you'd find a good bit of M too...


Yes. Strangely, the M lineage genes are found throughout the southern US, from California to Florida. But the M lineage is not so common in the northern US... Genetic past, present, and future of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) in the United States of America - Apidologie

I wonder if the German black bee genetics are mixed in the Commercial Italian bees as an adaptive mixture here in the US. I have had some of what I think were Commercial Italian bees (one queen was Cardovon) with dark thoracic haired drones like what German black bees or Tunisian bees have:


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

HaplozygousNut said:


> Yes. Strangely, the M lineage genes are found throughout the southern US, from California to Florida. But the M lineage is not so common in the northern US... Genetic past, present, and future of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) in the United States of America - Apidologie


Northern US is rather marginal territory for bee survival these days. Most of Western Europe UK or Germany, where our M stock originated, is pretty warm compared to Northern and Central US. We have bees here because we keep replacing them with imported stock. It was probably different before varroa, but post varroa the feral bees up here seem to be pretty much gone.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

AR1 said:


> *Northern US is rather marginal territory for bee survival these days*. Most of Western Europe UK or Germany, where our M stock originated, is pretty warm compared to Northern and Central US. We have bees here because we keep replacing them with imported stock. It was probably different before varroa, but post varroa the feral bees up here seem to be pretty much gone.


Northern US is not that bad a place - if not generally, at least certain locations are.

Given a chance, localized bee populations should have established even in Northern US long ago.
Don't forget - the eastern-most M stock originates from very hostile environments where they lived about ever (Russian Ural ranges).

The real issue is - continuous, random bee importation which undercuts whatever the local adaptions could be forming and stabilizing. The adaptation process is continuously thrown up the air and reshuffled by whatever packages arrived from Georgia this year.

I got this exact problem.
These guys are already advertised for pre-order *today*:

*California 3lb. Package w/ Queen*
*Georgia 3lb. Package w/ Queen*


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

GregB said:


> Northern US is not that bad a place - if not generally, at least certain locations are.
> 
> Given a chance, localized bee populations should have established even in Northern US long ago.
> Don't forget - the eastern-most M stock originates from very hostile environments where they lived about ever (Russian Ural ranges).
> ...


USA M didn't come from the Urals though, it came from western Europe. Prior to varroa that may not have been important, the bees did fine. Post varroa, not so much. Combined with constant imports of warm-climate bees.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

AR1 said:


> *USA M didn't come from the Urals though,* it came from western Europe. Prior to varroa that may not have been important, the bees did fine. Post varroa, not so much. Combined with constant imports of warm-climate bees.


Given the time, they would have adapted.

My point was more about variability and adaptability - about the wide ranges where the M exists - from moderate Danish lowlands to severe Ural highlands

See, one of the base stocks for the current localized bee in Finland are *Italians*.
That's right.
An unsuitable stock for them one would think - but they used them to extract desired Italian features to overlay those onto the other stocks. It worked.
The Russians also have some Italian blood in them - there was a specific importation of the Italians from the US (!!!) many years ago into the Russian Far East.

Even Italian blood can exist in severe conditions, after some crossbreeding.
But the straight M can pretty easily adapt to most any conditions.

As I mentioned about this video (below) - they imported the Grey Caucasians *40 years ago.*
Then *20 years ago* they went TF.
(901) Улей вверх ногами.Экспертный разбор результатов исследования вароаустойчивых пчёл Силицкого Р.М. - YouTube

These are the example time frames we are talking about.
It takes 20-40 years (maybe even less) to create a stable and locally adapted population from just about any input stock from scratch.

But the *isolation control/mating control* is an absolute must.
Else it is a futile effort.

Like in my case - annual imports of southern bees from CA/GA will undermine most any effort to create a locally adapted population.


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## HaplozygousNut (Dec 30, 2015)

AR1 said:


> Northern US is rather marginal territory for bee survival these days. Most of Western Europe UK or Germany, where our M stock originated, is pretty warm compared to Northern and Central US. We have bees here because we keep replacing them with imported stock. It was probably different before varroa, but post varroa the feral bees up here seem to be pretty much gone.


That is weird that the feral bees didn't come back in the north after varroa came. I would have thought they'd build resistance to varroa within 7 or more years. The winters are much colder there where you are in the northern US, but those longer winters actually might even help with varroa... 

I read in the bee magazine comparing how bees last something like 2 years before dying of Varroa without treatment in the northern US, but bees in the south such as Florida dying as quickly as something like 6 months because of the long warm season. They said that the longer warm season allowed the varroa to multiply rapidly compared to the north where the winter slowed the varroa. Admittedly, I haven't had experience overwintering colonies in severe, long winters yet. So I am not aware of what challenges there are in the winter. Our bees seem to get through our short winters easily here in central NC, without eating hardly any of their stores. And winter was actually a time when the bees would recover from high varroa infestation when I had first started beekeeping.

But, I did have some trouble with winter when I first started beekeeping with bees not locally adapted to our area. They would get shocked and die by our first cold night (which was like 27F) in early November each year when not well honeybound. They seemed to be okay during the nights that got down to the 40sF or even high 30sF, but the first night of a few degrees below 30F would shock them. Now our locally adapted bees do wonderfully even through the cold snaps without showing stress.


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## HaplozygousNut (Dec 30, 2015)

GregB said:


> Given the time, they would have adapted.
> 
> My point was more about variability and adaptability - about the wide ranges where the M exists - from moderate Danish lowlands to severe Ural highlands
> 
> ...


It is cool how bees can be bred to adapt quickly! Have you thought about trying drone flooding for breeding a locally adapted line of bees in your area in Wisconsin? You may not even need to do artificial insemination, but just keep a large amount of hives within your area. Not only is there the possibility of breeding for varroa resistance, but also for foraging well in your local area, which could be just as important as varroa resistance. People have had success breeding Russian bees somewhat pure by drone flooding:


https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.1991.11101245?cookieSet=1



_"The drone population manipulations resulted in a significant increase (from 47.4% before to 93.6% after) in the proportion of worker progeny having more than one-and-a-half yellow abdominal bands. Thus, drone elimination followed by drone flooding can greatly increase the rate of desirable matings in an AHB-dominated area. "_

The bees may have some ability to breed preferably to their kind when open mated, and so drone flooding could work much better than people would expect within an area flooded by foreign commercial bees. The Egyptian bees are thought to be breeding remarkably close to purity in Egypt in areas where commercial Carniolan bees are present. Although it could be that those Egyptian bees are a particularly competitive subspecies to be able to breed selectively for their own race.

But it might be a problem to do drone flooding if your locally adapted bees turn out to be a mix of the same subspecies that are bred commercially (i.e. Italian bees). They might be attracted to breeding with their own subspecies, even if they are a different line or strain of that subspecies. That is if the bees breed selectively for only their own subspecies, and are not specifically breeding to their own strain.

I am curious where the Italian bees are best adapted to here in the US... maybe where you are in the north which has Summer nectar flows? I read about Italy having Spring, Summer and Fall nectar flows. Another bee that comes from a summer nectar flow climate is the Grey Caucasian bee. I don't know of many other subspecies of temperate climate bees that are native to summer nectar climates.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

HaplozygousNut said:


> It is cool how bees can be bred to adapt quickly! Have you thought about trying drone flooding for breeding a locally adapted line of bees in your area in Wisconsin?


Last year I did two things (wrote in my thread about).

I took some queens to the local TF queen/bee producer and mated them at his site (hope to repeat again)
I used my own old TF queen mother to generate good drone supply locally and tried to plug into it my own virgins
The main task here and now - trying to counter the material imported from Georgia and California.


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

HaplozygousNut said:


> That is weird that the feral bees didn't come back in the north after varroa came. I would have thought they'd build resistance to varroa within 7 or more years. The winters are much colder there where you are in the northern US, but those longer winters actually might even help with varroa...


I suspect the long winters do help in one way, by giving more time for the adult varroa to die off before brooding starts again. But it isn't enough to make up for the damage the varroa causes, weakening the winter bees.


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## James Lee (Apr 29, 2020)

GregB said:


> Northern US is not that bad a place - if not generally, at least certain locations are.
> 
> Given a chance, localized bee populations should have established even in Northern US long ago.
> Don't forget - the eastern-most M stock originates from very hostile environments where they lived about ever (Russian Ural ranges).
> ...


The importation of managed and migratory stock/packages etc., and population stability factor seems to be a recurring concern when it comes to tapping local population genetics. I wish there were more samplings from northern feral populations, but these studies from Magnus give me hope that the bees are still propagating survival mechanisms despite "dillution." 

I haven't found anything more up to date yet, but the takeaway here was the presence of the 'O' lineage being persistent in feral colonies - which hasn't been imported (that we know of) in any quantity since the 1800s.


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