> Brood viability is a complex issue...
> " Computer simulations demonstrated the following: 35-50 breeder queens
> are
> needed with random queen selection to maintain at least 85% brood
> viability
> for 20 generations"

Is this not half of what we need to know to understand what he is really
saying?

What percentage of queens would exhibit that 85% viability?  All, some, or
only a few?

And how important is brood viability in *breeders* used for research?  For
crossing?

Even for commercial use, in some cases?

> My own opinion is *at least* 50 breeder queens. I must clarify we are
> talking about a queen breeder selling a *pure as imported from Russia line
> bee*.

I understand that, in some idealistic way, many people dreamed that the
Russian bee would be used commercially as a totally pure strain.  That is a
lofty goal, but in the real world, reaching it was never very probable.  If
such a thing happened, IMO, it would be a fluke.

The future success and utility of the stock was never at all clear, even
from the outset.  It was a gamble, and budgets for gambles are limited.  I
would guess that costs and complexity of such a project curve up with the
square of the number or lines maintained in the project, not linearly with
the number itself, so some compromise was necessary.  It is a simple matter
of estimating probabilities and economics -- which is never a simple matter,
or exempt from second-guessing -- or criticism in hindsight.

Moreover, the understanding has been with us, from the start, that further
additions to the stock are possible at any time, if justified by earlier
results.  It is also clear that future additions might be better selected,
after the desirable characteristics have been identified in the original
importation.  And, since selection techniques are improving at a fantastic
pace -- more and more, genes and associated traits can be easily matched --
who knows, maybe the next addition will be from bees currently in the USA --
or some other continent?

What is the ultimate use of the Russian bee?  Is it to be used only as a
pure strain, or mainly as a source of selected, superior, and perhaps new,
characteristics for existing and future commercial stocks?

Just as the SMR stock is - IMO - a 'demo' bee, and has been blended into
other lines, or used a source of new ideas, the Russian bee is - IMO -really
a 'demo' bee, and will ultimately be used primarily as a source of new
characteristics for commercial stock.

Interestingly, however, the lab's presentations that I have seen always
dealt with the pure stock and its suitability for various purposes.  Little
has been presented in these talks about the crosses, other than that crosses
they have worked with don't stand up to varroa as well as hoped.  That is
understandable, due to their focus, but - IMO - gives a false impression
that the project is either successful -- if the Russian is adopted widely in
a pure form -- or a failure if it is not, and I think that is not a fair
conclusion.  Things are never that black and white.

> The problem with the Russian line *in my opinion* is the hybrid
> Russian does not display the varroa tollerance of the bee as imported from
> my research. The bee lab culled many queens which were imported  as they
> did
> not many times display varroa tolerance (among other things) in Baton
> Rouge
> they had (according to those doing the Russia selection) in Russia. Was
> the
> Russia selection process flawed ? Was the selection based on the lowest
> mite
> drop maybe not the best way to find the best varroa tolerant bee as
> suggested by researchers at the ABF Reno convention AND by Dee Lusby?

I think that the selection process was a little more sophisticated than
that, since I understand that the entire mite load in the colony was
carefully analyzed, including mites in brood.

Whether all the decisons were correct is always open to speculation.  People
work with what they see and what they have, and we are always smarter at the
end of the day than going in.  Sometimes we beat ourselves up in retrospect
over what we learn along the way.  I suspect the lab is feeling a little
chagrined about SMR turning out to be 'simply' a special form of HYG.  It
was under everyone's nose all the time, but was missed until now.  That's
science.  But, at least now we now know, and can use that fact.  Sometimes
researchers on differing projects converge to a solution.

> Were some of the  Russian import queens dispatched perhaps
> the better survivor bee?

We'll never know, and dwelling on the idea is - IMO - of limited usefulness.
Decisions have to be made, and discards are an inevitable part of the
process.

One thing I learned as a carpenter was that any project is always producing
scrap.  Saving scrap is tempting, but there is a cost in keeping it around.
More scrap is being produced all the time, howver, and all that saved up
scrap material *never* gets used.

> " What we do not know is so vast it makes what we do know seem absurd"

True, but we have to make decisions using what we think we know now.

BTW, if people would go to their Options | Send tab in their email software,
and check the "Plain text" box under "Mail sending format", then replies
would be much easier to make, and for all of us to read, since most software
removes confusing formatting and inserts ">"s in quotes in plain text
replies.

allen
A Beekeeper's Diary: http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/

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