I am thinking about beginning to raise my own queens for requeening either this fall or in the spring.  It is very difficult to get queens here exactly when you need them.  There is always a waiting period and then there is a rationing system.  

Anyway, it was with great interest to read about the fibinacci style genealogy.  This demonstrates the precise rate at which bees reduce the exchange of genetic material in comparison with, say, mammals.  

Whereas a worker has two parents she is discounted because she has no progeny.  The drone has only one parent as a result of being produced by parthegenesis.  He is haploid.  He therefore can only pass on DNA exactly as he received it from his mother.  Therefore he is merely an extension of the queen herself for the purpose of  diseminating the colonie's genes in the subsequent generation.  This means that the chance of  creating genetic diversity is further reduced on a per generation basis in comparison with ordinary sexual reproduction.  

I have been raising ten colonies of bees in an area where there are no other beekeepers.  So if I release a virgin queen there is a good chance she will be mated with her brother.  Isn't it true that if this were to continue over the years it would lead to inbreeding problems?  The way I see it, if the drone is not otherwise related to his mother and father, he has a 1 in 4 chance of combining the identical chromosomes with that of his sister/mate.  It gave me a headache trying to figure out the odds if the virgin queen's father was a brother of the virgin's mate.  

Can anybody enlighten me on the viablility of this endevor?

Joel

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