Joe wrote
> Would you expect to see such poor viability patterns in an area so void of colonies?  Would you expect to see at least some inbreeding in such an environment?


I think I made it clear in my previous post that there are a lot of different causes for spotty brood patterns, inbreeding being only one and not the most likely. I would sooner expect to see it in commercially raised queens than in wild types. 

> Systematic Inbreeding [is] a rare phenomenon in bees which have several adaptations that promote random mating.

 -- Amro Zayed,  "Bee genetics and conservation", Apidologie 40 (2009) 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Access BEE-L directly at:
http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A0=BEE-L