Some breeders work with the genetic diversity within each race or group of bees. Nature does that and enough genetic diversity is retained for survival. Some breeders today are successful with this approach. Do we have the experience to make the criticisms of these efforts? Are mongrels better? Traditional animal breeders including natural selection have not believed it to be so. Also can anyone really include the genes from hundreds of queens into their selected breeding stock? It seems that selecting for traits such as varroa resistance would mean that the genes of the more resistant queens in the group would predominate.
For example , if I have a mite resistant queen and cross her through repeated generations with non resistant queens while I cull out those less resistant; then it seems logical that the most resistant final product I would have would be no more mite resistant than my original mite resistant queen. Sure, mutations happen and there are unexpressed genes that may appear.
An example might be if I had a black mite resistant queen together with 100 non resistant yellow queens and I selected for resistance I would likely end with a mite resistant queen very similar genetically to the mite resistant queen I started with and If I made no special effort to select for color she just may be black also. I would likely finish the breeding program with a queen that is genetically almost identical to the original mite resistant queen.
A lot can be said for selecting from within a race or naturally diverse group. Isn't that what the most successful breeders in the US are doing today? I see no contradiction when I say that to maintain genetic diversity it is necessary to maintain the separate races as separate genetic groups. If all are mongrels then where do we go for diversity in the future.
Carl Webb
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