I was prompted to post this by a discussion on my local bee club's list. In that list, somebody made the statement that aggressiveness is a dominant trait. I have heard that repeated from different sources.
However, there is a section in Breeding Super Queens by Steve Taber (1987) in which he discusses a few studies on the genetics of bee agression. The gist of it was that the people studying the genetics of bee aggression concluded that there were probably 8 different genes involved and that most of the gentle genes were dominant (aggression was not dominant).
To me that makes sense. If aggression were dominant, I would think that we would have a much harder time keeping bees gentle. Seems to me that gentleness is the rule, not the exception, in EHB.
However, the book also stated that the gentleness/aggressiveness issue gets complicated by the fact that having a percentage of agressive bees in a given hive can make the whole hive more agressive. In other words, if you have 10% aggressive bees (have both recessive genes for aggression) in a hive they can get the whole hive worked up and acting aggressive (even their non-aggressive half-sisters get aggitated when some of the aggressive bees get wound up).
My questions:
1. Is the info posted above still considered correct or have they learned new things since 1987?
2. Have any efforts been undertaken to get some AHBs and use artificial inseminsation to breed a gentle AHB line? If so, how'd it work? If not, why not?
3. What has been the actual experience of people who open mate queens in areas when AHB invade? (This is near and dear to us Okies, because we are the latest venue of the AHB travelling roadshow.)
Just to clarify. Dominant traits are easy to breed out as you can tell if the gene is present. Recessive traits are hard to breed out as you cannot tell if the gene is there if it's not expressed. From a breeders point of view this is the reality. Try an example. If white is recessive and black is dominant and I want white chickens, all I have to do is not breed from my black chickens at all, in fact try to get rid of all the black ones and all I'll have are white ones. This is because all the white ones are homozygous. That means they have only one kind of color gene and that is white.
If I want to breed for black ones, however, it's much more difficult. If I only breed from black ones that does not mean I don't have white genes. Some of the black ones are homozygous (have two sets of black genes) while some are heterozygous (have one set of black and one set of white). I have no way of knowing (short of some kind of dna test) which ones are which. So it's virtually impossible for me to breed out the white ones. I can only increase the ODDS of getting black ones.
With bees, of course, we have more control over the queen than the drones, but if we make sure all of our bees have the recessive traits we want and we flood the area with drones with the recessive traits we want (which is easily selected for) then we will get mostly what we are breeding for. But if we want a dominant trait, we don't know what recessive traits are hiding there. So about 1/2 of the ones displaying the trait we want will be heterozygous and 1/2 of the ones displaying the trait we want will be homozygous. When we cross them we will get 1 with the recessive trait, 7 who will carry the recessive trait and 8 who will be homozygous. No matter how many generations we do this the results will be the same and we keep perpetuating the recessive gene.
Let's try it the other way around. If we want a recessive trait, we know know no recessive traits are hiding there. There may be some in the drone supply but there are none in the ones we chose. So all of the ones displaying the trait we want will be homozygous. Assuming we have some control over drones by what we allow to make drones (choosing our recessive trait again) Then the results are totally determined by how much we control the drones. If we have 100% control we get nothing but more homozygous offspring with the trait we want.
Of course we don't have 100% control of drones, but we do have some control.
To me that makes sense. If aggression were dominant, I would think that we would have a much harder time keeping bees gentle. Seems to me that gentleness is the rule, not the exception, in EHB.
Hi Neil. If I understand you correctly, you have a misconception about recessiveness/dominance which is a fairly common one. That is, if a particular phenotype (e.g., aggressiveness) is dominant, that does not mean it will be the most common form in nature. It only means that when an individual possesses both recessive and dominant forms (alleles) of the gene, the dominant form will dominate at the phenotypic level (i.e, the trait we observe in the organism).
A particular recessive form of a gene may be much more advantageous for an individual (or a population) than a a dominant form. In that case, the recessive form of the gene will be more common in nature, and so the recessive phenotype will also be more common.
A particular recessive form of a gene may be much more advantageous for an individual (or a population) than a a dominant form. In that case, the recessive form of the gene will be more common in nature, and so the recessive phenotype will also be more common.
An example of that is the dominance of the polled gene in cattle, under natural selection, with predators present, most of the animals are horned (recessive).
1. Michael, while I understand and agree with your idea that recessive genes are easier to locate in a _closed population_ does the same hold true for an open mated population of honeybees?
2. Woodshedder, I understand that recessive genes can still be common, but in bees that are kept by (or around) people, aggression is not advantageous. Apparently, it is advantageous to have recessive aggression geens if you are a bee in Southern Africa.
3. Anybody know anything about my original questions??? (No offense intended or implied to the posters, who had good and interesting points.)
Thanks,
Neil
P.S. Riki, what's the situation with aggression in AHB down in Brazil??? Please enlighten an Okie who is on the border of AHB territory.
>1. Michael, while I understand and agree with your idea that recessive genes are easier to locate in a _closed population_ does the same hold true for an open mated population of honeybees?
If you had no control over the drone population (but you do) then you'd be closer to breaking even on it. But since you do have SOME control (your drones are out there too) I'd say recessive traits are still easier to breed for. As far as AHB though, you have several other issues. One is that the drones fly longer. But that is probably because they are smaller and more aerodynamic and tire less quickly and can fly faster. This, however, gives them a bigger window to successfully mate. One that you might also get with small cell bees but will not with large cell bees.
>1. Is the info posted above still considered correct or have they learned new things since 1987?
A few. One of them is that a virus causes aggressiveness in bees and indeed may play a part in why bees have guard bees.
>2. Have any efforts been undertaken to get some AHBs and use artificial inseminsation to breed a gentle AHB line? If so, how'd it work? If not, why not?
I think there has been some work in the direction for some time and it did not work out so well. On the other hand, I think the expectation that because it wasn't done in a short time that it couldn't be done in the long run is mistaken and indeed they may already be much calmer.
Mitochondrial DNA plays into the behavioral AHB equation. These are not crossed but are line descended from the mother. An AHB drone or drone of any persuasion contributes no mitochondia dna. ( I think)
NeilV, I live in southestearn Brazil and I'm not sure if the AHB found here around me is the same bee that's knocking at your door. I'm just about 100 km away from the site from where the african bees first escaped, but I think that 50 years of some (very few) selective breeding and natural selection made the bees in my region a little gentler. As far as I know, the bees in the hot semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil are much more defensive than the ones I'm used to.
I started to raise a few queens (open mated) for my use in 2007 and I think I saw some result concerning gentleness though it was not the main goal. I've never worked with european bees, that said, I think my bees are workable, some gentler, some meaner, but most of the time, workable. Harvesting after the end of the flow is not a good idea, so timing is important. I live in a small ranch (about 9 ha, 22 acres) and the hives at my home apiary are set on the pasture, I've found it more dangerous for the bees than for the cattle, sometimes the hives get turned upside down and they really don't like it; I don't let young calves (less than one month) graze around the bees cause if the bees attack, they could keep going in circles and get stung till death, older cattle run away and just get just a few stings. I never had horses nor sheep nor goats.
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