> If we ever figure out what causes hybrid vigor maybe it would be less of
a crap shoot

The simplest explanation might be that the cross-breeding of inbred lines
simply allows for reversion back towards a more complete wild-type genome.

> Bee breeding is of course a continuous process, and one
should not underestimate the practical difficulties of maintaining a
desired strain of bee.

When I told my sons that I was gearing up for this season's mite-washing of
1000 hives, they said, What--are you going to do all that work again?
Somehow they hadn't gotten the memo that a selective breeding program is a
long-term process.

>
> > The workers of inbred queens show deficiencies in many different aspects
> of their lives when compared to non-inbred workers. The disadvantages of
> inbred workers are very serious and severely affect the honeybee colonies.


I was curious about this, so asked someone who has maintained highly-inbred
lines of bees for many years--Kim Fondrk, who has maintained many colonies
resulting from single-drone inseminations.  He told me that many of those
colonies perform just fine.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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