Tom said:
For some time, years ago, I suggested that heavy selective breeding
should be done with the AHB.

I would not attempt such a program simply because the AHB in the southern
U.S. is a mixed mongrel bag unlike what Barry Seargant has been working with
in SA.

I do not see any benefit from mongrel bees at all. All the talk of feral
hives being so wonderful does not impress me. THEY DO NOT BREED TRUE FOR THE
MOST PART & YOU CAN GET ALL KIND OF F1 bees!

To breed an improved  bee you need to know some of the lineage. Color is no
indicator with AHB in the southwest.

Brother Adam realized this and when searching for a bee to incorporate into
his breeding program and searched for the most true to the *Ruttner
classification* he could find. He never learned wing venation in the early
years and only went to instrumental insemination in later years but I still
admire Brother Adam and consider him one of the worlds most knowledgeable
queen breeders of his era!

Example from his video "Monk and the Honey Bee":
He went into the mountains looking for the pure monticola. Brother Adam kept
telling the others of the Ruttner description of the monticola bee. Finally
the group found a bee with all the Ruttner described traits.

Today we would have simply done a wing venation or DNA but now is not then.

Once genetics get as mixed up as in the case of our U.S. AHB then heavy
selective breeding might create a workable bee but then what does the
supercede bee become.

When the honey bee genome becomes available and each queen can be mapped
then a serious breeder might be able to tame the AHB through instrumental
insemination.

Trying to open mate your program AHB queens in an area of AHB could
certainly cause undesirable results.

The wrong mix of genetics could let you end up with a queen which produced
bees which run on frames, swarmed constantly and were very aggressive!

In my opinion taming the AHB at this point in time is simply a pipe dream!

Bob

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