Steve Noble wrote:

> Peter, although this does not necessarily contradict the point you were
> making, it does seem to indicate that a lot of diversity could be
> incorporated into 800 queens or maybe even less.

Perhaps so, I am not a geneticist, but we were talking about 50 - not 800.

> Presumably a breeding program of any kind would have a certain goal; most 
> likely to produce a few
> good queens.

This breeding programme seemed to have the goal of replacing the entire 
genetic stock of a nation with the progeny of 50 queens - or did I read it 
incorrectly?

> But starting from a broad field and narrowing it down to just
> a select few, the question becomes how much in the way of diversity is
> completely lost?  How may [should that be many?]genes drop out of the 
> pool?

No idea.  Perhaps we would need to know how many genes are being carried by 
the current number of breeders and how many of those are not being carried 
in the 50 queens.  I suspect that this is a large number - and they would be 
lost forever.

Any geneticists out there who can shed some light and put numbers to it?

Peter 

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