We are working with an organization called ABC Bees to develop an educational document on queen breeding in Alberta. Our hope is to develop a program that will educate beekeepers on how to rear and overwinter their own queens. As I am sure you are aware, the industry demand for queens in the spring is currently not met by local production. We are currently creating an annotated bibliography on best apiary management practices. With our project's goal of making queen breeding more attainable to the average beekeeper, we have been looking for ways to standardize selection. We hope to find a simple way of standardization that can be done realistically in the field by someone without a science background.

We are hoping to use a sort of 'negative selection' process whereby hives with disease loads over threshold or negative traits like aggressiveness are removed from the selection stock. This would remove abnormalities in the apiary. Then one could further their selection process by using a pass/fail system for other traits. If a hive was average or better for a given trait, that hive would 'pass' and if that hive was below average (bottom 5-10%) than that hive would 'fail.' A hive could therefore be scored based on the number of traits which passed. 

We are aware that beekeepers which generate income from different sources (honey production, queen and nuc production, pollination, etc.), have different values in terms of trait selection and that North America is lacking in its ability to standardize selection and sell queens/nucs based on the needs of beekeepers. 

In your opinion, how does one approach this issue and what are your thoughts on our process of selection?

Our second question has to do with what traits should be focused on in selection considering that some traits are more heritable than others. There would be no point in selecting on traits that have a low heritability. We have found the research that is accessible online to vary quite a bit. 

In our opinion so far, 5 major traits to focus on would be honey production, gentleness, overwintering success, spring brood increase, and hygienic behavior. We are worried that some of these traits may be counter-intuitive to select upon as aggressiveness for example, tends to be correlated with honey production. 

We would love to have your insight on these questions.

Thank you so much for your time,

Eliese Watson and Cara Johnson



Sincerely,
Eliese Watson

Founder
Apiaries & Bees for Communities
ABC Bees
[log in to unmask]
www.abcbees.ca


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