Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
heaflow, if you have 10 successfull hives and they are all basically unrelated to each other, I would not bring in any new blood as long as your new daughter queens are peforming as well or better to their mothers. In about 5 to 10 generations you will probably have hives that all behave very similarly to each other because they will all be closely related bees from the original exceptional parental lines (assuming you are far enough removed from other beeks)
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
[QUOTE=rrussell6870;601631]
Both of my parents had blue eyes, both of my wifes have blue eyes, my grandfather on my fathers side had brown eyes, as did my wifes grandmother... I have Blue eyes... my wife has brown... what color eyes do our children have??? My oldest has brown, and both others have blue... nature makes its way... in school the prof hated situations like this... he would just throw up his hands and say "NEW MODEL"... refusing to admit that genetic science has no "true rules", but in reality this world breaks our rules everyday... ANYTHING is possible, the key is not to find the definates, it's to find the probabilities...
This is exactly the statement that I have been waiting for. I fully realize that I can only most of the time understand what you are saying. But from being old and having bred/linebred cattle for a number of years, I fully understand that about the time you think you've got everything under control mother nature will throw you a curve. It is exacerbated by the fact that a colony of bees can have many differient genetics intertwined and fully ready to pass on the same to your neighbors bees thru the drones from each queen in your apiary. Even with the most dominant of genes you can sometimes get a mutation, I assume because of a reccessive gene that won't go away.
With pure Russian bees, I still have varying genetics from every queen, if my understanding is correct. For every % of impurity, which is common, I have a chance, or probability of having, some mutts. Am I thinking right?
So much to learn, so little time!!
You are exactly right. Primorsky are a blend of several breeds themselves... through so many generations that "blend" begins to stick, however, each lineage will variate somewhat, and each generation will produce a slightly different colony.
As a rancher, you can probably compare it to Quarter Horses... Several blended breeds... Adding more Thoroughbred doesnt neccessarily mean it will no longer be a Quarter Horse, but it will MOST LIKELY (theres that "probability over definates" again) be larger, have a little more endurance, and certainly be a little more hard headed...lol... But even though you know what you are mixing, doesnt mean that nature agrees with you... it is still possible that you could get a 14hh, short winded, dead head that is quick out of the gate, but wont stay in front from the first foal, and get what you wanted out of the next...
Does that make better sense?
"bet we just confused a few others though"lol.
Last edited by rrussell6870; 12-16-2010 at 09:19 AM.
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
Yeah, I am just trying to put it in layman terms (me) so that most of us get the idea.
Thanks a million for being here!!!
So much to learn, so little time!!
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
So, instead of starting a new thread, there have been several on this same general topic, what strategies can a small queen breeder use to maintain, or improve, colony vigor?
For example, should I get a "breeder" queen from different strains every other year? How often should I get a queen(s) to raise drones from?
If I only have half the hives in a five mile radius of my mating yard how much can I impact the mating of my virgin queens? Can I do anything to try and maintain my "type"?
Tom
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
My idea of keeping diversity with predictability in your hives is to requeen yearly. I would suggest that if you are getting your queens from a single source that you keep track of what genetics that you have from your breeder so you can select differient genetics, assuming that they have several lines to choose from. I just don't know how often you should rotate the genetics back to where you started. I would think a 5 year cycle should keep inbreeding at bay. Maybe Mr. Russell will bail me out.
So much to learn, so little time!!
Banned
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
We were discussing "Honey Bee" genetics, not the genetics of one queen - then her daughter... The great complexity comes from looking at the colony as a whole unit made up of genetics of different mixtures... The amount of each mixture into the colony as a whole can greatly determine the actions and or main notable "characteristics" of the Colony, as opposed to one bee...
You're correct. We were talking about genetics, which involves trait heritability. What you are talking about is NOT genetics, as traits from certain drones are NOT passed on to subsequent generations. Certain traits a hive possesses right now because of outside paternal influences is analogous to a child dying their hair a different color, and us calling it a genetic condition. Present traits in a hive that are not heritable to subsequent generations are not genetic traits in my mind. They are behavioral traits.
Yes, drones may influence a hive's behavior in this present generation, but it is comparable to the influence of a step-parent in our lives. They may influence the behavior of step-children in this generation, but genetic influences are not passed on because we are genetically unrelated to them. While workers are genetically related to the drone fathers, the workers are incapable of reproduction, which means there is no heritability of drone traits in workers. The only way you get genetic heritability of drone traits is through the single drone father of the laying queen.
If I only have half the hives in a five mile radius of my mating yard how much can I impact the mating of my virgin queens? Can I do anything to try and maintain my "type"?
You can put more drone comb in the core of the broodnest, encouraging your bees to raise more drone brood. You may not be able to saturate the area with your drones, but you can increase the percentage of drones in the area to be drones from your own hives. For example, you may have half the hives, but 3/4 of the drones in the area are from your hives.
This is were the social order of honey bees makes the difference... Behavior is 99.99% of honey bee genetics... Outside of that you are left with color, size, and markings... thats about it...Originally Posted by Countryboy
Behavior is what we breed for... that is what makes the difference in the function, longevity, resistance, strength, and ability to serve our needs.
Not arguing with you, just trying to help... Honey bees are unlike almost every other creature that breeding practices are studied on, in the fact that it is not one creature that is being bred for... it is a society of creatures made up of several groups of selected purpose and each group can have too few or too many members.
For example... Lets say you have a VSH queen with a very high level of VSH behavioral traits bred into her lineage... Then you mate her with all VSH drones each with very high levels of VSH behavior within their lineage... The result on one hand would be a well bred VSH queen... But the result of the colony would be that productivity has taken a back seat to housekeeping... they would uncap far too much brood, and would build up extra slowly, and would no doubt be the worst honey producers in your yard... most likely this colony would not survive very long... BUT while they were around, they created drones... These drones will have surely met with a vigin queen or two in the area... so now that Colony has passed on the original queens genetic make up to a new generation of bees... Does that make better sense?
"Yes, drones may influence a hive's behavior in this present generation, but it is comparable to the influence of a step-parent in our lives. They may influence the behavior of step-children in this generation, but genetic influences are not passed on because we are genetically unrelated to them. While workers are genetically related to the drone fathers, the workers are incapable of reproduction, which means there is no heritability of drone traits in workers. The only way you get genetic heritability of drone traits is through the single drone father of the laying queen."
The drones produced by each queen are copys "so to speak" of that queen... they do not possess any genetics from any drones that she has mated with... but they do possess the genetics of the drone that her mother mated with, and the one before that, and so... Each time the colony requeens itself, a fertilized egg is used to create the new queen... thus the new queen (and her drones) will be directly influenced by the drone whos sperm was used to fertilize the egg... the new offspring will be the product of both the drone and queen that produced the egg (and the ones that came before them), as well as the drone with whom she mates, and whos sperm is used to fertilize that offsprings egg...
To study one particular offspring would not give you enough insight to tell anything about the likely outcome of the mix... you would need to study the behavior of the colony as a whole to tell if you have created a successful stock... too much of anything is a bad thing, and over breeding in honey bees can ruin your stock... thats why it is important study the colony as one unit, instead of each bee within.
Hope this helps... again, not trying to argue, we usually see eye to eye... just wanted to point out the differences in Honey Bee breeding and that of other creatures... Hope you do not take offense to it...
Banned
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
Behavior is what we breed for... that is what makes the difference in the function, longevity, resistance, strength, and ability to serve our needs.
Are you breeding for heritable behavior, or incidental behavior (from drones of worker fathers, but not queen father) that is not a heritable behavior, and must be re-introduced at every new queen generation?
Hope you do not take offense to it...
No offense taken. You have a lot more experience with bee breeding than I do. I'm just trying to learn, but some stuff you're saying goes against my understanding of genetics and biology. It seems like you are not differentiating between behaviors that are genetically passed on to subsequent generations, and behaviors that are just present in this specific generation in a hive. It seems like you are talking about breeding behaviors into each specific generation, rather than developing lines which pass on behaviors genetically so that you do not have to keep trying to introduce the behavior at each generational mating.
Your example of the VSH queen mating with VSH drones makes sense to me because you are talking about a trait the queen possesses, which is further amplified by VSH drones. But this example is NOT what you have been talking about. An example comparable to what you have been talking about would be a queen that was not VSH mated to VSH drones in order to have a VSH hive. What I am saying is that this works good in THIS present generation. As soon as the queen supercedes, you will either end up with a new queen that had a VSH father, or you will end up with a queen that does not have a VSH father. If you end up with a new queen that did not have a VSH father, the only way the hive will continue to be VSH is if the new queen mates with VSH drones.
Don't get me wrong. It would be a pain to isolate (but still possible) whether or not the queen carried the VSH trait, or if the hive showed the VSH trait due to workers whose fathers were drones. To isolate it, you would have to take the queen daughters and mate them with known non-VSH drones, and then see if the developed hives showed the VSH behavior or not. If the hives do show VSH, you know it is bred into the queen mother, and if it does not show up, we know the VSH behavior was a result of the workers whose drone fathers were VSH and not due to the queen.
I think I see where the confusion is coming from... I believe that we are on the same page, just looking at different levels of scope.
My views of studying the colony, and breeding for a healthy mix of stock within that colony are ultimately in order to pass genetics from a large number of fertilized eggs from within that colony on to other colonies within a separate area, and drones from the original queen are not as important as those from subsequent queens from within that colony, because the later generations from this productive colony will in turn possess small amounts of the multiple traits that make up the colony...
In a commercial breeding operation, this is the goal... select from the best overall colonies and spread those genetics as best as possible.
When you graft 88 cells from this productive hive, you are not taking a single mix of the queen and one drone... you are taking a mix of the queen and all of her mates several times over... thus these queens can either be mated in areas heavy with drones of equally impressive stock or be mated to certain stock in order to better the weakest points of the grafted colony through II.
The key element is to produce as many generations as possible to blend as many of the desired stocks as you can into one solid hereditary line...
In my operation drones stock is controlled, as is my queen stock... I can trace the lineages of my II breeders back multiple generations with exact accuracy, and isolated mating yards are not too far behind... thus when I speak of a colony having hereditary genetics... this is what I am referring to.
Hope this helps.
Last edited by rrussell6870; 12-17-2010 at 12:04 AM.
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
Now this really helps! I have had a hard time of looking at the colony as a whole. My training in horticulture and experience breeding dogs has caused me to look at desirable individuals, breed the best to the best so to speak. In the case of breeding production queens you want the best of several types/traits to get the most desirable balance.
This was a very helpful post for me!
Tom
Banned
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
In a commercial breeding operation, this is the goal... select from the best overall colonies and spread those genetics as best as possible.
So in a smaller operation where you don't have as much influence and control, how would you improve quality?
The way I see it, if you can raise quality queens, the drones you produce will be good also. I think I should worry about queen quality (much easier for me to control) with drone quality being secondary and incidental. With multiple drones having influence on a hive, I can obtain benefits from the drones, even if their specific trait in not being inherited. I feel that if I can develop good individual queens, mated to who knows what, I have a better chance of developing a better hive. My good queen brings 50% of genetic traits (or 43% as you suggest) but it only takes one good drone out of 20 to bring beneficial traits. (Which makes me ask, what is the difference in hive quality if your queen mates with one good drone and the rest normal drones, versus 17 good drones? Say one drone is VSH, versus all drones being VSH - do the extra VSH drones amplify VSH effect, possibly to the detriment of the hive?)
It almost sounds like you are encouraging developing drones, and I will result in better hives. (less emphasis on individual queen quality.) Is this correct?
The key element is to produce as many generations as possible to blend as many of the desired stocks as you can into one solid hereditary line...
We're definitely on the same page on this.
In a small operation you need to start out with the highest quality queens that you van and raise drones from the very best of those hives... in a large commercial operation there is the advantage of having thousands of hives to pick from and multiple lines of stock to blend for selective traits...
Yes... you should focus on raising the very best drones that you possibly can... it takes many good drones to mate quality queens... quality queens can be grafted from just one hive for a small operation... but they still have to be mated with unrelated, quality drones before they can produce a viable colony of their own...
Each drone that mates with a queen will represent a percentage of the hive... if your queen only mates with one good drone and 16 poor drones... your hive will be poor... no matter what quality the queen was.
As a queen breeder the product that you sell is not merely a mated queen, it is a well bred queen that will produce a productive, disease resistant, gentle colony.... this can not happen unless the queen has mated with top quality drones... only.
Last edited by rrussell6870; 12-18-2010 at 02:43 PM.
Let's break it down using the vsh model... but let's add early build-up (ebu), calm nature (cn), further foraging distance (ffd), cooler temperature foraging (ctf), low propolis use (Lou), and cordovan color (cc)...
If your queen was grafted from stock that possesses all of these traits, and she is mated with feral drones that do not possess any of these traits, your hive will be made up of very poorly bred stock... as each bee within will be a little more than half feral and only have tiny portions of the traits that you desired.
The only thing beneficial about this colony would be its drones... it would be useless to graft from it and they would not be productive for any thing else... the only thing you could do is put drone comb in it and prop it up when it falls behind, and pray that she doesn't swarm, because the new queen would be less than half of what the first was.
But if you can find colonies with queens that possess one or more of these traits, and use them to each produce the drones in your mating yard, then graft from a decent hive that carries a good size, color, heavy laying line of traits, then you have a well rounded production.
See where the importance of stronger selection of the drones comes in?
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
No (thp)? that would be top honey producer? Oh yeah...you did say you don't produce honey. d:-)
Moderator
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
Of course there are two very different views about this. As with dog breeding, there has been a very real tendency to "select" so much that we end up with a freak. Traits that you think are important (low propolis use, early build up, cordovan color, etc.) hold very little value to some (me). I can see where to a queen breeder it would be considered "very poorly bred stock" as you are trying to maintain stock that would otherwise go a different direction naturally. The Lusby's have intentionally injected "feral" stock into their operation, as have others. I myself do not want to be dependent on a breeder for the health and success of my bees. I'll work with the local feral stock.
Just another pov.
Regards, Barry
The sad truth is that I actually make most of these post from my cell phone while "Doing" something else.... The ones in this thread were while my wife loaded the shopping cart that I was pushing. lol.
I am trying to cut down the length of my postsbut it isnt easy... So if you see the truck with the BEEMAN tag parked on the side of the road while the driver types on his phone....just give me a friendly honk and say "Wrap It Up"!
Barry, I agree with their reasons for using feral stock... we do the same... we have kept an isolated location of "Mississippi Natives" since the late 50s... We know now that these are simply mixed up Italians, but they survived for a reason... Adapability... This is why we raise them and cross them into our Italian stock... They have never been treated, and even though half of them were wiped out in 98 from VD, the other half quickly began to show VSH behavior...
You bring up a great point though, that I think I should make a note of for those who are wanting to start breeding... (someone just honked..lol)...
Breeding is only a means of blending the desired traits that you have found... Selection is far more important... once you get the hang of breeding, you will be able to start mixing your best stock to continue those traits within your operation... BE CAREFUL to keep the lineages mixed, but continue to Selectively breed each season... This is how your queen stock gets ALL of the Desired traits within their lineage... Study, Study, Study your colonies... this is the only way that you will know which hives can provide which traits...
That said for queens... the opposite holds true for drones... In breeding, traits are highlighted by drones with more of one trait than that of a drone with a mixture of traits... By selecting colonies for each particular trait that you wish to focus on, you can produce drones that each carry higher amounts of genes that promote each trait...
Ok, say you want to breed for Top Honey Production (thp)
Locate your (thp) colonies and place them in your mating yard (before the season) with drone combs in them... These drones should NOT be the only ones around... Diversity is more important...Dont over do it... It takes time to do it right, but it is well worth it in the end...
Let me go back to "Selection" and "Queens" real quick (wife has just filled the SECOND shopping cart with toys...And she is going to grab a 3rd!!!
Using the same (thp) model... You want to start producing queens that create (thp) colonies... you study all of your colonies, and select 5-10 of the very best honey producers that you have... Can you graft from half of those hives and put drone comb in the other half and start producing (thp) queens... sort of... The queens that are in these colonies may not actually possess much of the (thp) traits that you see coming out in the colony... these traits could be mainly from the drones that she originally mated with...Causing the traits to show in their offspring (or a percentage of it)... This can be confusing at times... if the queen has a low amount of the traits, her drones will as well... even though the "Colony" as a whole is (thp) heavy, this is why you need to use several colonies and select from what you make off of them, then repeat again, and again.
Here is how you make this work... Graft large numbers of cells from each, place drone comb in the rest, let the new queens mate and watch what happens... after studying the new colonies, you will need to pick the best (thp) hives once again... then repeat the process again and again... I would also suggest using different drone colonies each time... this will assist you in keeping things mixed up... You graft from the next generation of queens that shows the most (thp)... and mate those new queens to the best (thp) drones from your yards...
Just a reminder... DONT select for just one trait!!! I am just using this as an example... You need to select the best of the best... if you have an area that you wish to build in, you still select the best over all, but you choose the highest scoring in that area out of the best over all... (third cart is full and headed to check out... PRAY FOR ME!!!)
Last edited by rrussell6870; 12-18-2010 at 11:24 AM.
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
I'd like an explanation of the math here. Why is a bee "a little more than half feral"? Does that mean the drone contributes "a little more than half" the genetic material? How do you figure that???
Re: Hybrid Vigor vs. Natural Vigor
Hybridisation between two closely related species is actually a common occurrence in nature. Many hybrid zones are known where the ranges of two species meet, and hybrids are continually produced in great numbers. These hybrid zones are useful as biological model systems for studying the mechanisms of speciation (Hybrid speciation).
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