>>>   “The perfect bee would produce a lot of seeds and visit a lot of flowers,
even in poor weather – and there would be a lot of them,"  Dr. Hannah Burrack,
at NC State

Seems to me that one bee would not incorporate all the above characteristics.  But, a colony whose queen mated profusely with various drones individually carrying some of these characteristics could produce workers who variously would individually incorporate within the colony population the above characteristics plus others beekeepers desire might be possible.  <Not sure the previous sentence is grammatically correct.>

I would envision a mating yard whose drone producing colonies would variously carry a trait or two which is desired so that when the queens were free flight mated, would hopefully mate with various drones and the subsequent progeny would have a mixture of these characteristics exhibited within the colony population.   And, it would seem to be based not only on queen genetics, but also heavily dependent upon the drone genetics with which she mates.  

Are our commercial queen breeders concentrating on the production of queens that are generally healthy and productive, or are they actively seeking to incorporate desired characteristics by providing appropriate drones which would saturate their drone congregation areas?  I don't know.  I'm just postulating possible situations.

Mike in LA 


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