A number of people have offered opinions on the pending
Honey Bee Genome project.  Positions have ranged far
and wide, but I get the impression that people don't
"get" the basic point of the effort.

The point of the effort is not to manipulate DNA.  No one
will be manipulating DNA to attempt to create a "Super Bee",
a "Frankenstein Bee", or recreate any of the 1950s Japanese
monster movies (which were clearly "B Movies").

The point is to create a "map", and to locate the genes
associated with various traits of interest.  This has been
done with the fruit fly (Drosophila), and the results have
been impressive.  Check out http://www.fruitfly.org to
see just how much one can do with a well-understood
genome.

Then, when breeding bees through NORMAL MEANS, one
can compare the DNA of the newly-bred bees with the "map",
and quickly see if the desired trait's associated gene is
"on" or "off".  This beats the heck out of current trait-testing
methods, which are not far removed from those used by
Gregor Mendel back in the 1800s.

The value is in being able to SCREEN bees, and avoiding all the
time-consuming testing one might otherwise be forced to endure.

Cloning bees would take skills and equipment beyond the means of
the typical bee breeder.  Cloning is still at best a hit-and-miss undertaking
even when attempted by well-funded experts.  Most cloning attempts don't
make it out of the petri dish.  Any commercial bee breeder that tried to
clone his bees would quickly go bankrupt.

You can (and should!) support this effort, and you can do so without
any fear of anything getting out of hand.  You haven't seen any giant
teenage mutant ninja fruit flies buzzing around, and the fruit fly fellows
are way, way ahead of us.

        jim