Hello Aaron & All,

> It was the continual selection for the SMR trait alone that produced bees
that by his own admission were at that point terrible inbred, exhibiting
spotty brood patterns.

The queen breeder I have been discussing the issue with reads BEE-L but
rarely posts. Dr. Harbo has openly told us in presentations the SMR breeder
queens were very inbred. Allen will say the same as I am sure Carolyn
will.Aaron has said!

After we purchased the first two SMR II breeder queens Dr. Harbo sent us a
letter explaining the inbred problem WAS the reason for the spotty brood
pattern and also in the F1. I may still have the paper.

Our first grafts involved F1 daughters (125) and a Marla Spivak hygienic
drone source. Still poor brood viability. these hives were production hives
and even used for California almond pollination.

I did raise a small number of F2 daughters mated to a feral survivor drone
source (and what ever was flying in the area). I did still see what I
considered poor brood viability (but improved)so I moved on.

Every brood  cell pulled because diploid or varroa infested brood hurts the
colony! The colony will dwindle which is what happened with many of our F1
SMR colonies and also with a hive which is inbred to the stage of poor brood
viability!

>It's interesting to me to see the assertion that it takes an F2 hybrid
to get from the spotty brood to an acceptable pattern.

You can outcross about any inbreeding problem unless the outcross has the
similar genetics. Two possible reasons for the F2 success with shotgun
brood..

The SMR were inbred as Harbo said.
or
The bees in the hive which carried the *trait* of munching on varroa
infested brood were becoming less and less.

My guess is number 1

My queen breeder friends guess is no.2.

>Again, not accepting or rejecting the assertion, I'm wondering if perhaps
Dr. Harbo simply took the work too far and might have been better off
stopping at the stage where it is asserted we must now backpedal.

I believe the above is a fair assessment of the problem *if* due to
inbreeding.

I bought lottery tickets for the 340 million drawing. If I had won bee
research would have been taken from the model T stage to the  sports car
stage!

We can all dream can't we! Dreams are what sells lottery tickets!

Bob

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