Hi all
Back to "prepotency", it was a term that described observed heritability and anticipated genetics before genetics had been discovered. Not really used any more. Any, brighter minds than mine explain it thus:

> The precepts of breed improvement successfully used by early plant and animal breeders included such ideas as *like produces like or the likeness of some ancestor*, *inbreeding produces prepotency or refinement*, and *breed the best to the best*. The development of all breeds of livestock has included some inbreeding to produce uniformity within the breeds. 

> If the beekeeper follows in the footsteps of the animal breeder and tries to fix characteristics by inbreeding or line breeding, he immediately runs into difficulties. These systems of breeding will almost invariably increase the proportion of low-viability matings by reducing the number of lethal alleles in the line. What the beekeeper gains in uniformity and fixation of desirable characteristics, therefore, might be more than nullified by increase in mortality. 

> In order to produce uniform colonies with high-viability brood, one has to cross races and strains that are likely to contain different lethal alleles or specially selected lines of known lethal-allele composition.  Hybrid breeding seems to be the bee breeders' best solution to their special problems.  -- Mackensen, Otto, and William C. Roberts. "Breeding Bees." Yb. Agric, US Dept. Agr (1952): 122-131.

Essentially, this is what Brother Adam did, and in some sense, so did Warwick Kerr.

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