You will get what you select for when breeding most any critter. I have no evidence that there is any particular gene linked to swarming. From a knowledge of genetics in many critters I would suspect swarming is linked to anyplace from 20 to over 100 sites on the DNA. I suspect that simply because those are the kinds of numbers you see for a great many things ranging from height in humans to milk production in cows. Mendel's peas are really exceptions to what is generally seen. Mendel was down right lucky to pick a few traits that were each due to single gene mutations.

None the less, I know of many examples where breeders have simply selected for some trait and over a period of time gotten remarkable results. My wife ran a commercial canary breeding operation and selected for production of young. Over a period of less than ten years her birds productivity tripled simply be carefully selecting for good production. The Homing pigeon was created in the last 150 years by originally crossing several breeds that would come home from 20 miles. In 1960 an occasional bird would come home from 500 miles in a day. Today most will make 500 miles the same day.

So, it really boils down to the question is swarming in part due to genetics? I know of people have selected against swarming and said it was fairly easy to select against. I also know of cases where people have used nothing but swarm cells for increases and found that after 25 years they had bees they could not keep out of the trees. That does not prove it is genetic but is a pretty strong indication that it is. 

Dick



     On Friday, June 28, 2019, 10:52:30 AM EDT, Bill Hesbach <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  
 
 Dick > If you crowd your bees to induce swarming the first to swarm will be the one that has the most swarmy genetics.  The second to swarm will have the second most swarmy genetics.  The one that does not swarm has the least swarmy genetics.  For that reason alone I consider all swarm cells to be worthless junk whose only purpose is to get sliced by my hive tool.


Hi Dick - Just wondering about the science behind the above statement.  I'm not sure what swarmy genetics are.  Have these genes been identified?


Bill Hesbach

Cheshire CT

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