We have such an early spring flow here that I start building colonies in February...  So I decided to eliminate 90% of the carniolans and switch to Italians.  I'm letting the queen breeders do the hard selection work, then I use this year's best performers for queen mothers and most of the rest I just allow to raise drones; what I'm seeing is that by "raising the floor" as Paul well stated, I don't generally mind the drone pool that I end up with.  I try to eliminate colonies with temper tantrums, slow spring build up, non-productiveness, and poor wintering, and those usually show themselves fairly quickly, especially on a flow.  Given colony numbers and time restraints I just can't apply the selection pressure (er, drone elimination) that researchers or breeders might.  I'm really rooting for Randy in his breeding efforts too!

There probably is some hybrid vigor in our stock, but it isn't intentional, and I certainly don't try to maintain it.  

FWIW, I manage about 100 in 1-1/2s and doubles, with a 6-hour workday in between morning and evening church services, in addition to cooking a couple times a week.

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