"  Confirming Peter's point
(at least I presume it was his point) that behavior can be uncoupled from
New World African influence."

First I want to thank Daniel for a very thoughtful presentation of his experiences.  The above quote by Daniel to me is really important.  All of genetic theory says what Daniel said should be quite possible.  Perhaps not easy, but possible.  Rigorous selection by eliminating hot queens and drone flooding should in theory get you there and Daniel says it got him to where he is today.  But, it is important to realize this is only going to happen if the large breeders all select for reasonable tempers as well as other valuable characteristics.  What progress we make will be mainly due to the good work those large breeders do and will have little or nothing to do with what people like me do.  Guys and ladies like me are simply too small to swamp out those bad genetics and we have a grossly inadequate number of queens to select from and grossly inadequate numbers of drones to effectively flood.  I think much the same can be true for headway on varroa resistance.  In both cases the genetics are complex involving many different genes.  You can only improve complex genetic situations by brute force of large numbers today.  Given another ten or so years it likely will get easier when large scale sequencing gets dirt cheap.  But,even then that data really will only help the guys and  gals who deal with large numbers.

I hope we hear more about your experiences Daniel.  I find the anecdotes fascinating.

Dick

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