Allen & All,

Literally, (IMO) Drones REALLY Are The Jokers In The Deck!

AFAIK drones do not pass on mitochrondrial DNA but they carry and pass on
100% of their mother's alleles.  If a AHB drone mates with the daughter of
a Breeder Queen then no amount of Mitochondrial Polymerase Chain Reaction-
DNA (PCR-DNA) testing results will show signs of A. m. scutellata in the
progeny of that breeder queens' grand-daughters. This is also assumed to
be true if the Breeder Queens are allowed to openly mate and are not
fertilized by artificial and controlled methods with known lines of donor
drones. In this case the daughter, a worker, if tested by PCR-DNA methods
will show no presence of A. m. scutellata. Furthermore, since a queen will
openly mate with as many as 15 drones chances are approximately 1 in 15
(based on a good mating flight or flights) that a randomally selected
worker bee would have any alleles of a Drone AHB at all, in this case
there would be a one in fifteen chance that worker bee would turn up
positive for A. m. scutellata in any DNA/RNA format of testing.  In short,
it is MHO that PCR-DNA testing of breeder queen daughters is not a valid
form of testing to assure non-entry of AHB Queens into Canada.

However, you must keep in mind that I am an engineer and not a trained
biologist, entomologist, or geneticist; I am sure that the good folks who
created the CHC PROPOSED IMPORT CONDITIONS knew what they were doing when
they decided to require  Mitochondrial (PCR-DNA) testing  on random
samples of workers representing the progeny of the selected breeder queens
used by the queen producers who will be permitted to supply queens to
Canada from the continental USA. If I am wrong I certainly want to be
corrected, and I would very much like to know about this in detail.

I just hope that the costs associated with such testing as PCR-DNA Testing
will not place any further financial burden on the costs associated with
raising approximately one million(?) additional queens that will hopefully
be crossing the US-Canadian border into Canada in the spring of 2004.
Although I realize the economics of supply and demand I believe that with
carefull planning and reasonable forecasting by the queen breeders
combined with early ordering by the Canadians that the price and
availability of queens in 2004 will continue to be reasonable for ALL
beekeepers. I further hope that ALL respectable queen breeders with all
lines of Russians, SMR's, NWC, and Minn. Hygienic, as well as 'Standard"
Carniolans, Italians, and other honey bees with outfits both big and small
will be able to qualify for shipping their valuable queens into all parts
of Canada so long as the AHB will not gain an aberrant, abridged, or
abbreviated entry into Canada. As far as the Varroa is concerned; that is
for a knight of a different color and perhaps a different deck.

Please see,  http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0311b&L=bee-
l&D=0&P=3258, for further details.

Chuck Norton
Norton's Nut & Honey Farm
Reidsville, NC

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