Dee Lusby writes:
>This depends upon how you look on the situation Peter relative to
>complex mongrel breeding coupled with usage of artificially enlarged
>combs which add steps of regression for downsizing into the scenario
>and retrogression for reversing the layers of piled on breeding
>mixtures.

Unanswered questions:
1. What is "complex mongrel breeding"?
2. What is a "piled on breeding mixture"?
* (these are not conventional terms)

3. Do you have a "true" type of honey bee?
4. Where did it come from?


I wrote:
>It would still be extremely rare and can not be invoked as
>the mechanism in any sort of unintentional selection for
>larger bees over the past 100 years.

Reply:
>Quite true. It is only a backup system. Unfortunately, it
>is also a backup system that beekeepers have not been
>properly told how to address in field management.


So then you do *not* claim this as the route by which bees "acquired"
the larger size? By the way, we do advise beekeepers on how to deal
with laying workers: kill them.


--
Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]>