To J. Waggle I saw your open question on this Bee-List. I think I know a person who made a great contribution: Ludwig Armbruster. He was a priest but also a scholar. In 1919 he published a book "Bienenzüchtungskunde" (the art of bee breeding in genetic sense). This book is only known in German-speaking countries. This book is the first one about genetics in husbandry and applied to honey bees according to the three genetic laws of Gregor Mendel, discovered around 1865 en re-discovered in 1900. This book tells about the application of these laws. Armbruster was also the founder of mating stations for honey bees in the most south-western part of Germany around 1919. His book was based upon the experience with these mating stations. Later on he became a professor in beekeeping in Berlin. In 1933/34 he was fired because of his pro-Jewish connections (as happend to lots of his colleagues). After WWII he was not rehabilitated unto a couple of years ago. For Brother Adam (the "founder" of the famous buckfast bee) from the Buckfast Abbey in South-West England the book written by Armbruster was a real eye-opener. He started in 1919/20 a period of 70 years of beebreeding - and with great succes. The reason that Armbruster and his book are really unknown in the English-speaking world is very simple: the language barrier. In those times scientific articles and books were published in the own language (often English or German) and people with that language often were not able to speak or read the other language. with best regards, Ko de Witt, The Netherlands. *********************************************** 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