This topic has generated a lot of tangential thoughts.

Stock improvement in some specific trait, either by nature or management, is a central question.

As has been noted, somehow people developed attack dogs and lap dogs from the same , I assume, basic original stock.   Was that a process of breeding for only one trait, selecting those most closely ressembling the ideal, or simply not breeding those that didn't come close.

From that example and the examples of other animal and plant breeding, we know that quite a bit is possible without a hi-tech approach.

A general improvement in AFB resistance has come about in recent decades from simply identifying the most susceptible individual colonies and either burning them or making sure that they did not reproduce.

Homer Park ran bees in  Northern Alberta and took queens from what he considered to be the best colonies in the north back to California, bred them, and used the offspring to head up packages to go north in the spring.  Over the years his stock got a very good reputation.

We used the same approach one year.  We marked the best three colonies in each of  forty or more yards  one year and took the best eighty in the spring, selected for temper, population, clean bottom boards, no mummies, etc.  to the breeding yard.  The best twelve were used for grafting and the rest for drones.  The improvement in our crop that year was very remarkable. 

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