Yesterdays conference of german Bee-Research Institutes had three
interesting project reports in this direction.
1. Progress report on establishing a cryobank.
2. Further development of "moonshine mating" variants in A.mellifera
mellifera breeding.
I find these to be promising approaches for conservation efforts in "open
populations"
In Austria and Slovenia there are legislative approaches in certain regions
to make use of one type of bee mandatory. In Austria this has led to
disaster in my opinion and has created a lot of bad blood, lawsuits and
much drama in the beekeeping community.
For isolated populations on islands it's a different situation. Malta is
home to A.m. ruttneri. They showed that it is superior in almost every
regard compared to ligustica in their climate, but there is no extension
program on that island and so beekeepers are buying what they have access
to: ligustica from Italy. For these types of closed populations a
conservation effort makes sense. But probably creating an extension program
offering local ruttneri queens would lead to better results than a pure
legal approach.
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