Thread sort of moved - backstory, Dick Cryberg mentioned offhand that he rejects swarm cells because he does not want to pass on swarmy tendencies, and Bill Hesbach asked if there were studies of the heritability of swarminess.

First, I have a reference in "Queen Breeding and Genetics", by Eigil Holm, on p 42, where the author says: "However, swarming tendency is heritable. Danish bee keepers have reduced swarming by selection of colonies with low swarming tendency. [..] Swarming tendency should be controlled in all future. Good characters must be maintained, otherwise they are lost."  

This could be called anecdotal, or could be called a case study.

I also found this one: "Heritabilities and correlations for several characters in the honey bee", 1982, Collins, Rinderer, Harbo, and Brown.  The only decipherable sentence (for me) was " Heritability estimates were sufficiently high to expect success in a selection program for gentler, more productive bees.".  I will request it from Ohiolink soon.  

https://academic.oup.com/jhered/article-abstract/75/2/135/765178  

And this one, available free: "Heritability of production characteristics of regional honey bee populations from Serbia", 2012, Jevtic is the corresponding author.  

The occurrence of swarming severely reduces honey yield. In addition to
the genetic factors, great impact on this trait also has external conditions (HEPBURN
2006). By variance analysis, it was determined that origin had very significant
influence on aggressiveness (P<0.01), and significant influence on swarming 
(P<0.05), while there were no significant influence on honey robbing. The obtained
value of heritability coefficients for swarming in colonies of different populations
was average 28.62% and was very consistent. Deviation was only found in colonies
of Banat population, where it was significantly lower than the average heritability
(10.81%). The highest heritability coefficients were determined in the colonies of
Rasina, Morava and Timok populations. Carniolan honey bee has a strong tendency
to swarm but this trait may be affected by selection, (KULINČEVIĆ et al. 1997). 


http://www.dgsgenetika.org.rs/abstrakti/vol44_no1_rad5.pdf

Anybody find more jewels like these?

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