Roy Nettlebeck wrote:                                                           
>                                                                               
>  Hello All, I was adding boxs to my bees that I srarted on April 6th of       
> this year and noticed something. Out of the 25 hives that I added boxs        
> and took a look inside , I saw a big difference in brood patterns. About      
> 30% were solid and made me think about all the honey they will make.Then      
> come the ones with cells that were void, about 100 or more on a frame of      
> capped brood.The ones with the solid brood frames , had a higher              
> population of workers.That is why we want good queens.The queens came         
> from the same breeder and in fact from the same queen Mother. That could      
> be a problem right there.But the drones have a function in this also.         
                                                                                
Hi Roy,                                                                         
                                                                                
Yes the drones represent half of the inheritance. Without going too deep        
into genetics, x and y cromosomes and the like, let's talk about the basics     
in breeding.                                                                    
                                                                                
In all bee breeding there is an amount of inbreeding involved. To secure        
one trait you find desirable in a line of bees, you need to cross that line     
with bees that have the same characteristics. That means most of the time       
you have to cross with close related bees. In that process you will loose sex   
alleles. The result is that a larger number of eggs will be male instead of     
female and therefor eaten by the workers.                                       
                                                                                
There are different ways of breeding and maintaining the stock, but there       
will always be inbreeding involved. In order to avoid inbreeding in the         
production hives, two lines of inbred bees can be crossed, and will often       
produce excellent material.                                                     
                                                                                
IMHO there is a careful balance between inbreeding and vitality to              
produce good queens.                                                            
                                                                                
--                                                                              
Regards                                                                         
                                                                                
P-O Gustafsson, Sweden                                                          
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