A question about inbreeding

[Chickenpow]

I worked for a commercial beekeeper in Southern California in the mid 90's and they had a bee yard with about 100 hives. The bees in this yard were really aggressive. I would come out of this yard with hundreds of stingers in the cuffs of my gloves. The people I worked for said they were so aggressive because they were inbred bees.
I've recently read through Michael Bush's Website and have tried splits with all my hives without requeening.
Considering all the possible variables does anyone have any thoughts on the potential hotness of these future hives?

Thanks
ChickenPow

[PerryBee]

Isn't that something. I just did the same thing with 7 of my hives, according to M. Bush's website (walk away splits leaving queens behind). I moved most of these splits to another area and then got to thinking that they are all going to have to rely on the drones from those splits for mating the new queens. One of them I put in a friends little apple yard (30 little trees) and later I thought about the fact that the new queen will have to mate with drones from her own hive. Any problems with this?:scratch:

Perry

[Countryboy]

Usually queens try to find drones from a different hive. It is unlikely all the drones in a drone congregation area will be from the same bloodlines unless the area is saturated with that bloodline...the sort of thing you would have if you had 100 hives in a yard, and left them there for several years, and never introduced any new genetics.

[Chickenpow]

So, it's probably not a good idea when I only have 5 hives?

[Countryboy]

So, it's probably not a good idea when I only have 5 hives?

It's probably not a good idea if there are no other bees around for a few miles in any direction.

It's probably not a good idea if you have 100 hives in one location, and have had them there for several years.

Odds are, there are other drones nearby for your queens to mate with.

Are all 5 hives made from one parent hive, allowing the bees to make a new queen every time? Or did you ever buy new queens and make splits, or individual hives? Unless all your hives are from one parent hive, they all should be different genetic lines, so it isn't inbreeding if your new queen mates with a drone from one of your other hives.

[Michael Bush]

I consider my drone supply to be the feral bees.