Hello Waldemar & All.

Bee breeding is one of the most ( if not the most complicated aspect) of
beekeeping.

If we had a few days and sheets of paper for me to draw on and several
beekeeping books to reference then I think you would see what I am talking
about. Even advanced queen producers (those we get production queens  from)
are reluctant to produce inbred/hybrid bees like the Midnight/Starline
program.


>is it sufficient to cross between two distinct populations of bees within
the same race

Kind of a gray area but would work in a situation (in my opinion) which Dann
Purvis is working on. Australian Italian bees & U.S. Italian bees. Dann
Purvis traveled to Australia and set up a closed population instrumantal
insemination II system. He II queens and those queens were shipped into
Kansas City last year. We reshipped to Georgia.

I believe the U.S. Italian gene pool is is such I do not believe (my
opinion) you could use say Italian queens from a California breeder and a
Georgia breeder and have luck at seeing true heterosis.

> or do you have to
have genes from different races to see the marked hybrid vigor
increase?

Two different races or strains works best in simple terms.

using II improves the results

Using traits from those races through inbreeding (using II)adds the frosting
to the cake.

>If you have to have different races how do you go about stipulating which
combinations of races will give the greatest effect?

"greatest effect"?

This is where you need instrumental insemination (II). The simple would be a
closed breeding program and several pure races/strains to draw from and use
II>
The next step complicated would be incorperating inbred lines from different
races/strains. Maintaining these lines sounds easy but you can ask Lionel
and he will quickly say maintaining the inbred lines is what fell apart in
Florida.

  Is it
trial and error?

 Waldemar you have really learned since you came on BEE_L. You ask the best
questions. Trail & error for sure with a bit of luck tossed in. Perhaps one
day my friend Dr. Connor will share what he knows about the lines involved
when he ran the project Lionel ran.

What would I like to know from Larry or Lionel?

What inbred *traits* were maintained in what races?

 In other  words a particular trait of say gentleness in the inbred
Caucasian be might yield a bee so gentle you could brush the bees off comb
without aggression. However the hive might not( for example only )gather
honey and need fed to survive. If you follow my drift Waldemar I think you
will see each inbred bee added a piece to the Midnight puzzle.
To Lionel:
I think the gentleness of the Midnight came from the Caucasian bee. Come on
Lionel throw us a bone? Am I right or way off?

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

" not a queen breeder by any stretch of the imagination but is knowledgeable
on bee breeding"


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