Hi Dean & all

> seems to me that thelytoky is a useful survival mechanism, and not a genetic dead end.

Indeed it is a useful bridge mechanism that allows propagation of genes 
to further generations in the case such as a queen not returning from 
her mating flight, but overall it seems so rare that we should not make 
a song and dance about it.

Martin Luther King 'had a dream', I have a dream also, that one day 
there will be a huge database of behavioural, morphometric and DNA data 
on all races and strains and all castes of honey bee, freely available 
to all on the Internet. Mr King's dream has come to pass sooner than 
many would have imagined, perhaps my dream may happen sooner than we 
think, then such questions would be far easier to answer definitively.


Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://melliferabees.net Email: [log in to unmask]
Short FallBack M/c, Build 7.21/2.01
Son of ORAC M/c, Build 5.o1/2.o1

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