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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 8 Nov 2003 13:23:43 EST
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In a message dated 08/11/03 05:11:50 GMT Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> what do we as beekeepers do to assure that once a
> Russian Queen is successfully introduced to a beekeepers yard that the
> traits so painfully developed  by the ARS folks will not be diminished by
> local breeding once the new queens or a daughter's queens are introduced
> to the beeyards of America and the World. What will happen when her
> Russian daughters openly mate with the resident Italian, Carnolian and
> other local drones with no genetic SMR resistance?


If you want to perpetuate the Russian genes I suggest you replace as many
local queens as possible with daughters of your purchased queen.  Let them mate
locally. They can then provide drones to mate with the daughters of the Russian
queen you buy next year.  The drones will carry only their mother's genes.
Keep repeating the process and give spare queens to all your neighbouring
beekeepers.  If they are any good they will go back to you rather than pay for
professionally bred ones.  Keep assessing the colonies headed by daughter queens
and cull any showing characteristics you don't like.  Eventually you may not
need to continue annually to purchase a Russian queen as your strain will
dominate the area.

Chris

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