One of the challenges in beekeeping is understanding how differently the genes flow in honey bees as opposed to the reproductive models we are most familiar with.

In discussions of all kinds on bee breeding, it is hard to overstate the fact that the simple Mendelian laws of inheritance we are all taught in high school simply don't apply to honey bees. Yes, the laws of inheritance are still in play, but with multiple drone fathers, arrhenotokous parthenogenesis (ye olde drones have a mother but no father factor), and the slow turnover of generations in honey bees (you do not get a new generation until your queen has a daughter queen), the flow of genetic material is considerably less open to close management than in other domesticated species.

But the idea that one overwintered queen is de facto "locally adapted" or Varroa-proof, and that on her line can be built a fixed gene pool persists. 

For most of us, feeding queen rearing colonies well, breeding from our best, and encouraging deliberate rearing of healthy drones from superior hives is the bulk of what can, and should, be done. Creating, insofar as is possible, an area-wide improved gene pool.

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