Hi all

I am glad it was George that raised the following questions...

> My topic might be: Russians (Are they Carniolans?), Who can decide?
> Where does one get "true" racial queens, of ANY race?
> Does anyone understand honey bee "genetics"
> or different "strains" of the same race?
> Queen "producers" versus queen "breeders"?

Each of the above would make an extensive thread in it's own right, but I
have some pointers that may show us where the answers lie, rather than
definitive answers.

The Russian bee seems to be a bit of a 'mixture' rather than an 'alloy', I
have been hovering around the fringes of honeybee genetics, morphometric
analysis and behavioural analysis for some years now and a few things are
stating to gel in my mind. The parentage of the Russian bee is unusual and I
think it has come about because two or three strains that started to diverge
many hundreds of years ago have come together and recombined. (at least that
is the interpretation I am currently using).

Deciding 'what' they are may happen more quickly than you expect, as some
new techniques in DNA analysis are showing ways of identifying characters
that are specific to certain races and strains, and the results are in
agreement with the morphometric and behavioural techniques that we are
already using.

2 or 3 years will see some big advances in this 'new' method.

> Where does one get "true" racial queens, of ANY race?

Nobody yet can bee 100% definite about the purity of any stock, but I have
recent data on 400 AMM stocks that were thought to be good specimens of AMM
by morphometry and behaviour shows that less than 1% of them had any
Ligustica genes in them at all.

(this discrimination can only be made between AMM & Ligustica at the present
time, but the principles should apply to other races once we have a
sufficient library of the DNA code for more individual alleles.)

2 or 3 years will see some big advances in this library. I would ask list
members if they have any verified code for any know honey bee allele that
they pass this to me as I am currently collating such data.

> Does anyone understand honey bee "genetics"

Not fully, but this understanding is increasing year by year. (I know my
personal understanding is improving, but I started late)

> Queen "producers" versus queen "breeders"?

This is one of my hobby horses, anyone can produce or propagate a queen, but
BREEDING a queen requires much knowledge and records of the stocks
concerned, plus a great deal of tedious testing, selecting the good, along
with discarding the bad. A little luck would not come amiss either.


Best Regards & 73s, Dave Cushman... G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website
Email: [log in to unmask] or  [log in to unmask]
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman & http://www.dave-cushman.net

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