James Kilty said:

> our local project to develop varroa tolerance, in its first year still, is designed
> to use open mating with drone flooding and queen larvae exchange between
> groups. This will be a slower approach than using II but should maintain
> genetic diversity...

One thing I have never clearly understood about "breeding better bees" is the
difference between bees and any other "hybrid".   If one wants to develop and
retain a consistent set of traits, how can one do without a "closed" program and
instrumental insemination?

A phrase kept popping into my head as I read this thread.  It was "regression
to the mean".  As luck would have it, I still have my college notebooks.

  Francis Galton (of Galton Laboratory fame) coined the phrase "regression to the mean".

  Galton conducted experiments using groups of sweet pea seeds. He computed
  the average diameter of 100 seeds produced by each sweet pea plant.
        The smallest pea seeds had larger offspring.
        The largest seeds had smaller offspring.

  In another study, Galton dug up the heights of 205 sets of parents and their adult children.
        If both parents were short, their children were slightly taller.
        If both parents were tall, the children were slightly shorter.

These two experiments lead Galton to coin the phrase "regression to the mean".

What does one do to avoid this phenomenon, except requeen with the progeny
of inseminated queens from a closed-population controlled breeding program?

                jim

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