I hate to say it, but the way you describe feedlot beekeeping, it sounds very similar. Laughing all the way to the bank, etc. Nothing wrong with that, but it is the same argument they use for feeding growth promoters to animals.

Schulz, David J., et al. "Comparisons of juvenile hormone hemolymph and octopamine brain titers in honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) selected for high and low pollen hoarding." Annals of the Entomological Society of America 97.6 (2004): 1313-1319.

We measured circulating levels of juvenile hormone III (JH) and brain region levels of dopamine, serotonin, and octopamine in honey bees, Apis mellifera L., from artificially selected high and low pollen-hoarding strains that show differences in their rate of behavioral development. One-day-old bees from the high pollen-hoarding strain had significantly higher JH titers than 1-d-old bees from a low pollen-hoarding strain. Conversely, there were no differences in JH levels in 12-d-old preforager bees from the high and low strains. Brain region levels of all three amines increased with age, but there were no differences between high and low pollen-hoarding bees in any of the three amines in any region of the brain. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that endocrine events occurring early in adulthood influence honey bee behavioral development.


full text at:  http://aesa.oxfordjournals.org/content/aesa/97/6/1313.full.pdf



Question:  If selection pressure (variability of pollen supply) is removed by feeding PS more-or-less continuously (or exclusively in the case of large scale bee supplier Jarret) how is the foraging behavior of those bees affected in future generations as their genetic makeup is no longer influenced by the natural environment?


Christina

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