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Race or Breed influenced by Drone

2K views 12 replies 8 participants last post by  GregB 
#1 ·
I'm sure this has been discussed before but I did not know how to word the search. So here goes. A virgin Carnolian Queen, visits the Drone Congregating Area and Breeds with several Drones. My neighbor on one side has Italians, the neighbor on the other side has Russians, another had Buckfast and so forth and so on. What breed or race will my next queen or queens bee?
 
#3 ·
Each egg laid by the "virgin Carnolian Queen" will be - 50% her egg and 50% of the exact sperm cell used to fertilized that egg.

Since your queen sperm cells came from up to 20 individual drones, your next queen(s) will be 50% of your current queen and 50% of one of those ~20 drones. AFAIK, no way to know which one exact drone will the father of each exact fertilized egg.
Could have mutt queen of these types - Carni/Ita, Carni/Rus, Carni/Buc, Carni/Carni, Carni/uknown.
Probability of each to happen is unknown.
 
#5 ·
Your explanation is exactly what I have been taught to believe. With this understanding, how does anyone who raises queens, in an open environment, advertise a specific race of Queen for sale ?
I lost my entire apiary over a two year period and am building up again wanting Carnolian Queens to split a swarm I've overwintered. One was light like an Italian or Carolinian and the other is very dark. I started with Nuc's from the Fat bee man. Gentle to a fault. By the time my hive built up enough to split he was sold out of Queens.
 
#7 · (Edited)
.......how does anyone who raises queens, in an open environment, advertise a specific race of Queen for sale .
Yep.
IF understood exactly - that is a non-sense.

However, with bees you must think of a locality and associated bee population.
That is what you buy when talking of "open mating" - a chunk of genes from a specific locality.

For example, if you buy a TF queen from a known TF person - you get a sample of genes from his locale (with a chance of getting the desired trait formed in that locale by some natural selection).

Pretty much if a seller controls the local population to some degree, the seller may have some say in what is for sale.
But who can claim they control the local population?
I don't know such people in my area (outside of regular package re-seller who brings hundreds of some random packages annually from someone - thusly impacting the area in some random way every year).

But all in all - for 20-50 bucks, do not expect to buy anything certified to have a specific race.
It does not exist, IMHO.

When buying open mated material - you must know exactly what you mean by this purchase - bringing some random gene package from a location you want (for whatever reason).
Or just buy whatever and don't worry.
Or better yet catch locally flying swarms and have fun playing the lottery.
 
#8 ·
while I whole heartily agree with Greg and Juhani
It should not be inferred that (mostly) controlled mating and closed mating operations don't exist (or did)

Midnight/Starline, New World Carniolan, Canadian Buckfast, Russian Honey Bee Breeders Association all come to mind and of course AHB, for other reasons ..lol

that aside, yes most bees in the US are a mix of the genetic tool kit, selected for color and traits, but not really "race"... Bees don't care, they rearrange, recombine, and out cross with what they can find

when we talk "race" we really are thinking standards
a line item of expectations
if looks like x and behaves like YZ, it must = A
if it looks like a yellow lab, and it acts like a yellow lab, do I realy care about the ratio of German Shepherd to Chihuahua to Labrador DNA if I have no way to breed it to an anouther yellow lab?
 
#13 ·
Good mother with desirable traits is the key. New queen will be 80% traits of old mother and only 20% of drones.
Is this a verified fact?
I'd like to see the support materials.

Do realize - if true, this is a big deal.
I somehow don't know if this statement is true.
Both mother and father have equal power to define the traits of a resulting bee - if you ask me.
No difference.
It is just some traits are more obvious/more important to the subjective observer.
 
#10 ·
>What breed or race will my next queen or queens bee?

Each queen, as stated already, will be 50% from the mother queen and 50% whatever drone provided the sperm that fertilized that particular egg. There is a lot of things about bee genetics that are not intuitively obvious. Each drone the queen mates with has a lot of sperm and all of them from that drone are identical. The drone only has one set of genes so every sperm has exactly that set of genes. This is quite different from diploid males of other species where each sperm is a random set from two sets. This results in sub families within the colony that are more closely related than full siblings. All the offspring from one drone have the same set of genes from that side, while the set from the mother's side are randomly selected.
 
#11 ·
You also need to factor-in the time of day of the mating, and also (perhaps ?) the phenomenon of Apiary Vicinity Mating.

With regard to timing - Joe Horner managed to achieve an acceptable level of 'purity of mating' by controlling the time of day when his bees were released.

I also seem to remember reading about an observation (scientific) of natural segregation which occurred in an area where two distinctly different sub-species of bees were present. I believe this was also put down to mating occurring at different times of the day.

Some folk believe passionately in AVM - some rubbish the idea. Me ? I've no strong feelings either way ...
LJ
 
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