Hello Bee-L,
I have been following the feral drone string with much interest. It
seems to me that perhaps the only genetic trait that the feral drones
carry is that for swarming. The more you breed from them, the higher
will be the incidence of that trait in your population, in effect,
reversing the decades of dedicated work by your queen breeders.
I am reminded of the state of Apis cerana beekeeping in my country. Our
local strains are notorious for absconding, a different behavior but
with a similar result to the beekeeper, little or no honey. For this
reason alone, many beekeepers shy away from A.cerana. No matter how well
managed the hives are, the bees will still abscond. The beekeeper is
usually left wondering what went wrong. The research to find a
non-absconding strain has not been successful as yet. In other words, we
don't even have the desirable material to start breeding from.
You are fortunate in that the bees available in the market no longer
exhibit such wild behavior. Don't throw away that advantage which has
allowed beekeeping to grow to such a large scale in the US.
Regards,
Dave General
Cagayan de Oro City
Philippines
8.29 N, 124.39 E
 
 
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