" with enough traits we can eventually make an accurate identification."
What you are describing is a breed or cultivar, not a race. At least according to my understanding of the definitions.
Why select for color at all for instance? What biochemical explanation could be possible for any correlation between color and fugility or color and shutting down breeding in a dearth? The only one I can think of would be linked genes.
What we really may need to improve our bee's performance is more in line with what is going on in Holstein cattle breeding. They have mapped the genome with SNPs or microsatellites (I do not remember the exact technology they use) and done regression analyses to determine what correlates with desired performance. Using that tool you screen a bull calf at birth and can tell if it has the right genetics. It is more complex in bees because the right genetics varies with geography of course. We just need another decade or so of DNA mapping technology advances to make such things economically possible in bees. If you can select the right drones for II you can make fast headway.
Dick
" Any discovery made by the human mind can be explained in its essentials to the curious learner." Professor Benjamin Schumacher talking about teaching quantum mechanics to non scientists. "For every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong." H. L. Mencken
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