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Date: | Mon, 23 Jan 2006 11:42:14 +0000 |
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Hi all
On a slightly separate tack, wherever the Africanised genes come from,
it should be possible to reduce them by judicial re-queening, of course
you have to establish the non-African nature of the stocks used for
re-queening, but that is not difficult.
When Apis Mellifera bees were introduced to the American continent, the
vast majority were AMM types (Western European mtDNA). The selection
that has gone on during the last 100 or so years has changed that
drastically, with only 3% [Beltsville 1995] representation of AMM, most
of the rest being Eastern European mtDNA types and a percentage of
African types (I do not know these percentages).
Surely it follows that by using the same methods, the African genes can
be also be reduced.
> The notion that marked queens are liable to be superseded
> is plain nonsense. I know this from 30 years of experience.
> The primary cause of supersedure is junk queens.
I would like to change the emphasis of Peter's statement away from the
'junk' aspect which has connotations of poor quality, it may be that the
quality is good, but not appropriate (according to the bees).
I reckon that the cause of the supersedure of many introduced queens, is
to do with the difference in genetic make-up between the bees in the
colony and the introduced queen. I also think that the degree of
difference in genes has a bearing on the likelihood of supersedure
taking place.
I use the term 'supersedure' in the American sense, whereby replacement
is implied.
The answer to this dilution of AHB lies in the recent thread about
producing queens locally to suit the conditions that pertain locally and
in doing the necessary morphomeric and DNA work to establish the
credibility and suitability of the gene pool being utilised. (once again
things that have been discussed recently)
Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable)
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