I have just finished reading the latest issue of BeesCene out of
British Columbia and I am sure they won't mind me quoting from it
regarding a letter published there.
        Quote" The recent developements in DNA fingerprinting, as used by
the police, has applications in bee keeping. It has been used to
investigate open mating of queens and reveals the match between
genetic materials and therefore how closely the two samples are
related.
        The research shows that in an open mated, mature queens colony:-
        a) The workers, on average came from 10 different drones.
        b) There are roughly equal numbers of workers from the 10 drones, so
the queen not only stores the sperm but also uses it equally and
randomly.
        c) Since each worker will have obtained a random half of the queen's
chromosones all those which came from any of the 10 drones will be
three quarters related to each other (all chromosones from the one
drone are the same) and have three quarters of their characteristics
alike; but on average  they will only be one quarter related to the
90% of all other workers in the colony which came from a different
drone parent. So the workers have an enormous amount of variation in
their characteristics.
        d) When a swarm occurred the workers did not divide randomly; they
divided very much according to their drone parents, the swarm
consisting very largely of workers from only three or four drones.
        If DNA samples from queens and drones could be compared during a
breeding program, then maybe the results could be used to improve
selection in the future.
        (From a talk by Prof Beament to the Cambridge Beeks, via BEES.)
 
Makes you think? Certainly it has blown a number of old wives tales
out the water.
        Comments anyone?
 
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