A note in response to Peter Kevan's note on commercial rearing of Bombus.  It
certainly seems as if the technical aspects of providing colonies year-round
for glasshouse pollination HAVE been satisfactorily met in North America. I
just received a beautiful B. impatiens colony from Chris Plowright's
commercial rearing operation (Bees Under Glass), and I understand that he has
processed some hundreds of colonies over the last month or two.  Although I
don't know anything about the "maintenance of genetic quality", my impression
is that new queens are collected from the wild each year, so there would be no
need to maintain stocks for long periods of time unless one were trying to
select for particular characteristics...
Although Bombus colonies aren't being produced for this purpose, researchers
should be aware of the opportunity for year-round studies that has recently
developed.  Colonies are not particularly hard to get in summer, but it can be
very convenient to simply buy one in the winter.
James Thomson