Breeding for Gentleness

[Scot Mc Pherson]

How much effect do a drone's genetic contribution have to the gentleness of a hive? I have a hive with a queen which is laying a most gentle stock of bees, and I wanted to raise queens from this hive. How important is the gentleness of the drones' hive to the gentleness of the young queens progeny?

------------------
Scot Mc Pherson
Foundationless Small Cell Top Bar Hives
BeeWiki: http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/

[Michael Bush]

I'd say the drones are just as important as the queen. Of course they each contribute 50% of the genes, but it's just luck which ones get expressed from which side.

[WineMan]

i recall reading something from osterlund or adam that the outcome regardless of the initial disposition of the mother is roughly a bell curve distribution. some will be gentle, some super aggressive and alot right in the middle.