Hi Everyone,
Interesting discussion.  I think Robert wrote in part:
" It's difficult to think what to suggest in the way of introductory
reading; the problem here is that inheritance in bees works in a slightly
different way to inheritance in mammals, given the haploid drone (with only
one set of genes rather than the 'normal' two), and I'm only just getting my
head round it myself. I know I've seen some useful stuff, but can't place it
right now. Anyone else got any ideas?"

I would suggest "Breeding Honey Bees" ( or something similar don't have it here ) by Brother Adam for some insight into the genetics and breeding of honey bees.  Very good discussion of the genetics involved as well as practical information on selection for traits.

On the subject of inbreeding there is a very important difference between honey bees and mammals or plants that can cause problems.  This is in the area of sex determination.  In honey bees as well as some other insects if an individual only has one form of the sex gene it is a male while if there are two different forms present it is a female.  In the hive if a fertilized egg only has one form of the sex gene the resulting drone larvae will be destroyed by the nurse bees due it being abnormal.  The if a queen mates with her brother the chances of some of her eggs being fertilized with sperm that contains the same sex gene form that her eggs does is pretty great and will result in a significant portion of her eggs being non viable in the hive - we see a spotty brood pattern - and the hive never being able to develop the population it needs to function properly.  This effect is much greater that the damage due to inbreeding in other animals and is one of the factors that makes breeding honey bees much more of a challenge.  To increase expression of a trait in a line of bees the simplest method ( as in other animals and plants ) is to inbreed but very quickly in the honey bee you end up with colonies that cannot sustain themselves due to the sex determination problem.  You need to select a larger number of colonies and take measures to preserve enough genetic diversity to prevent sex determination problems in the strain of bees you are developing.  ( Note this is a great simplification and may have lost accuracy )  In short you will have major problems with inbreeding in honey bees due to the sex determination system in these insects long before other damaging effects of inbreeding are seen because this effect is so damaging so quickly.

Hope this is somewhat clear Brother Adam is really much better at explaining this in his book.

FWIW

blane




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Blane White
MN Dept of Agriculture
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