Dick, I really appreciate your posting accurate information to the List.
The subject of heterosis (hybrid vigor) is widely misunderstood.

What interests me are the noncoding genes that are involved in regulation,
as well as epigenetic regulation.  Either can strongly affect the
"regulatory cascades" of how existing genes are transcribed to affect what
we observe as the "phenotype."  I suspect that this often occurs with the
honey bee, and am curious about how much it is involved in breeding for
varroa resistance.  My experience suggests that our bees currently have all
the alleles in our breeding populations to confer resistance -- we only
need to select for those bloodlines that "read" their genes in the "right"
way.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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