Apologies to all for the quotes below. I have concluded that they are
necessary to understand the interchange in question.
The need for lengthy quotes partially explains why this topic seldom gets
fully discussed: too many little details get into the discussion. Then the
discussion branches and branches until it boggles the mind and one or both
parties give up from being unable to organize -- or respond to -- all the
points and the whole subject gets bogged down in minutiae.
I applaud those who can follow all the little twists and turns and I believe
that following this all the way through to a conclusion will be rewarding.
---
> > >and can not be invoked as the
> > >mechanism in any sort of unintentional selection for larger bees over
> > >the past 100 years.
> >
> >I think that was meant to be a separate and unrelated topic.
>
> I was referring to the connection that Dee Lusby herself made in the
> exchange which follows.
<snip>
> >Peter wrote:
> > The workers do not pass on any characteristics to their
> >children, as they have none[no children]. The queen acquires no traits
> >from the workers as they are not her parents.
> >Dee's Reply:
> >In a way they do. Workers pass on characteristics by way of
> >laying workers that produce both drones or workers, of
> >which if workers are produced they certainly can become
> >queens.
You are right. It appears that Dee is involving thelytoky in the upsizing
(and downsizing?) question.
Whether or not we end up agreeing with her, she certainly can put us through
some heavy lifting mentally, and I am learning a lot from this. Maybe what
I am learning is not exactly what any involved parties would want me to
learn -- and I am not certain how much I am retaining -- but this whole
discussion is tearing up a lot of turf.
I'm again going to try to clarify what she is suggesting, and hope to be
corrected if I miss. It seems to me that the mention of thelytoky here is
not intended to be a major point, but merely a reminder that where thelytoky
occurs, queenless colonies can participate in future generations and are
not an evolutionary dead-end as we normally think.
This seems to me to be a bit of a red herring, having been thrown in as an
aside, and being non-essential to the main argument. I have found that such
red herrings and side-discussions made it very difficult initially for me to
follow and assess the central arguments of the 4.9 crowd. Such diversions
have made it very hard to follow the central thread, since they seem a
constant feature of any 4.9 discussion.
In order to discuss any theory, it must first be clearly stated so that it
can be proved or disproved. That clear statement, perhaps has been missing
in this discussion. Having managed, I think, to follow that thread for the
most part, I'm trying to find a way to keep from being distracted by
irrelevant minutiae.
Maybe we need a re-statement of the central points (a manifesto?), and I'll
(bravely) try to do so here, not being a believer -- or a disbeliever.
* Over the past century, domestic bees in North America and Europe,
and parts of the world that follow their lead have been selected for
increased size
* Selection took place by 'eyeball' evaluation of queens and by deliberate
propagation of bees that did well on man-made foundation.
* Foundation sizes increased over that period, and the bees that did best
on the larger cells naturally continued to dominate both through survival
and deliberate human selection.
* Some of this selected gene pool could function well on both the larger
cells and on smaller cells -- even down to the bottom of the range that
was reported before foundation was introduced. Some could not.
* Around the time that foundation started to be popular, a number of
people surveyed natural comb sizes in various places in the world.
* Whenever a survey of comb sizes was undertaken, apparently
a range of worker cell sizes has been observed in any population of
bees. Bees didn't seem to all that fussy about what size they made
most of the time and different sizes were often found in the same hive.
* The EHB natural range reportedly went as low as 4.9 mm, although 4.9
was at the extreme low end of the range observed. The median was
somewhere in the region of 5.1 to 5.2 mm, as I recall, and ranged
from about 4.9 to 5.4. (The exact numbers are not all that important
here, so please bear with me)
* When mites became a big problem, a theory was developed that by
limiting the size of the cell, less room would be available for varroa,
and by breeding smaller bees, tracheal might diminish, whether from
not being able to get into spiracles, or due to some other scale factor.
* Initial attempts using 5.05 mm were not sufficiently successful.
* Further attempts using 4.9 and slightly smaller have achieved success
at reducing both mites to very low levels in the field.
Having stated that bare-bones manifesto, I must hasten to add that the
question of Africanization has arisen and muddied the water during the
period that this downsizing process has been underway at Lusbys.
During the period during which this experiment has been underway, the Tucson
area has been declared Africanised. Since AHB naturally uses cells in the
4.9 range, the suggestion has been made that the success of the experiment
has been at least in part due to the new stock, and that a downsizing of EHB
has not occurred. What is really happening is hard to say. Africanization
is a very imprecise term. If proven, could it account for all the success?
Or is it another red herring?
Others, elsewhere in North America and Europe are attempting to replicate
the work with standard off-the-shelf EHB, with varying success. Much of the
evidence is anecdotal, and analysing what is really going on in a more
intensive and scientific way could be very costly. Some attempts are
underway, and hopefully as time passes, things will become more clear.
allen
http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/
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