> >Using these simple techniques we were able to virtually eliminate bad
> temper - a primary aim - within two seasons.  We even made a huge
> difference in just the first season.


Peter, I've had similar experiences with breeding (at different times) for
color, temperament, freeze-killed hygiene, productivity, and tracheal mite
resistance.  Although I'd hesitate to suggest that those selected traits
became "genetically fixed" in my breeding population, substantial progress
came quickly, and could be easily sustained with strong culling and
selection of breeder stock.

Some years ago, Dr Eric Mussen was relating to me that when the Calif queen
producers (most centered in a relatively small geographical area) held
breeder queen auctions--showing off their stock in observation hives--that
breeders could easily identify to him each different breeder's stock by
various visual aspects of the bees and brood (including cell cappings, etc)
in the obs hives.  Each breeder is able to maintain distinctive stock,
despite being surrounded by other breeders.

I'm in complete agreement with Pete Borst on the difficulty of fixing
genetic traits in a breeding population.  But the on-the-ground evidence
supports that it is relatively easy to shift observable phenotypic traits
in a breeding population.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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