Hi Steve

> If you are saying that “naturalization” occurs when all non-
> natural movement of genetic material via transport of queens ceases, and 
> some form of stability is achieved when selection is allowed to take place 
> under presumably open mating conditions,

What I am saying is that constant introduction of new genetics or 
re-introduction of other genetics not naturally encountered in a area, 
stops the ability of the environmental factors pertaining to the 
location having a chance to act to bring about stability.

The process is natural selection, which many consider is a very slow 
process. The natural selection process however also relies on the speed 
of change being very low in the first place, by creating massive changes 
(via transported genetics) the differences (selection pressures) are so 
great that natural selection can occur over a very small number of years.

> If man made selection is applied then what’s to say we 
> don’t run into the problem I think Peter was talking about where you select 
> for your favorite characteristic(s) while being unaware of what’s happening 
> with those characteristics which aren’t so obvious but are perhaps even 
> more important to the overall viability of the population? 

It is encumbent on those doing the selection to avoid such problems by 
not making simplistic or 'favourite' choices and arming themselves with 
enough knowledge to make better choices, it also helps if mistakes are 
learned from rather than being made repeatedly. The viability of the 
population as a whole is very important to me, I believe it is desirable 
that bees could fend for themselves instead of being propped up by 
beekeeper's efforts.

Far too many queen raising operations rely on producing queens from a 
relatively small number of 'special' or 'top scoring' examples which may 
give rise to genetic narrowness from the queen side, however with open 
mating the gene choice for each queen from the male side is an 
absolutely enormous figure (far higher than most think even if the 
drones come from the same colonies). The fault here is that the 
selection is too tight and the number of strands selected is not high 
enough.

One of the problems in understanding this seems to stem from the fact 
that all the sperm of a drone are the same, this seems to be interpreted 
by many as 'all drones produced by a queen are identical in genetics'.

> what makes you say that the kind of selection you are talking 
> about does not occur in the U.S.,

Selection by individual beekeepers when raising their own queens, simply 
because the majority of beekeepers purchase 'off the shelf' from large 
scale breeders that are not making selections that are relevant to the 
geographic area that the queens will actually be used in.

> in what countries is such practice common place?  

UK, Europe, New Zealand and perhaps Australia, but Trevor could answer 
that better than I.


Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable)

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