Extreme polyandrous mating guarantees a queen will carry huge levels of genetic diversity, but also means that alleles with low prevalence in the population will only come to the forefront when something takes the rest of the genetics out of the mating poo
bingo, if people would pinch 80%+of the survived queens and replace them with better ones we could weed out the week and improve Resistance with improved queens, and more importantly improved drones . My suggestion is "death" has not proved strong enough negative pressure, too many "poor" drones for the "lucky" remain, even in the TF pool (standard bell curve stuff)
MSL, the sad thing is that you can see where we need to go, but it does not sound like you are actively trying to get there.
what makes you say that? I am just asking the TF message to meet reailty 1/2 way... that same message I give the OAV "vape heads" and there 20 tx a year "success"
the death cult model used by some to predict stock improvement from losses and splits would also predict stock improvement from treated loses and splits at the scale they are taking(40+%), but neither move forward with splits
. and yes I use JWC's language for this "death cult" misinformation . I don't mean TF, I don't mean true bond were you clear a path for further selection and propagation. I mean the split what lives.
long and short of it is TF or TX there are those who can see what needs to be done, and those that don't.... the problem is no one wants to pay $$
cards on the table...
a true TF breeder queen, A queen that's offspring could rival the 5% mite loses of SA, would be worth $2-4K maybe more, sell 200 of them .
...
I would buy her now, graft 10,000 cells sell them at $10 each and change the world and make a 100X return :lpf:
sell me that queen with a garenteen on performance and your argument ends, sell those 200 to people like me and we have changed the US bee genetics.
but
Such a (EHB) bee dose not exist. And will not even come close till people are wiling to pay a premium for those queens
something takes the rest of the genetics out of the mating pool
my response is simple, it maters not what dies, it matters not what lives
it maters what takes its place.
yes crofter is right, we need a culture shift.
Its time to rethink the issue
We know from the late 1800s Italian craze what it takes to shift a stock. Requening every year or 2 with "pure" for many years.
Start of the 1860s langstroth was selling queens for $20 ($620 in todays money!!!), 20 years later the trade papers were full of adds for "dollar queens" (about $25).
At the moment resistant queens don't fetch a premium price, indicating that the market doesn't value them, and their lies the problem.
My area Nucs are all ready preselling at $195+ and Packages $140
The hobiest market, rather then demanding a bee more suited to thier needs( and getting it!) Is grabing up what ever is available, now, before there is none left.
no incentive for producers to change. And the TF message of "do it your self" stops people from supporting those who have resistant genetics for sale.....
The 1st and foremost step to enacting change is BYBK's keeping there bees alive and overwintering a spare nuc per hive in case they or some one near them loses one.
Once there is not a desperate yearly rush to import replacements, people will be willing to be picky, and demand better queens, and or be willing to wait till later in the season for better/local queens to be available.
then you can start to shift an areas genetics, and as the DNA work on the Arnot forest bees shows, you don't have to have a massive aria to set up a genetic island... a town/city/county would work.
The problem as aways is distribution of improved genetics(it maters not what dies, it matters not what lives
it maters what takes its place. ). I feel that 48 hour cells are a good choice and am working to that end
Yes I am out there working for change, about this time last year I realized no progress was ever going to happen on a forum
So I turned my sites locally, pushing for change with my club
Teaching, writing a biweekly queen rearing column fro the club news letter and proofing some nontraditional methods that are suited to the BYBK at a club level.
Sadly I found out I wasn't a big enough producer to qualified for the SARE grant app I had been working on, so the grand scheme has been throttled back to a personalty funded club level test run for this year
The gole of witch is to develop a culture/market of using 48/ripe cells/virgins along with increasing the number of self made cells
Once there is a market and I am pumping 100 or so in to the local club at maby $5 a piece for 48s the purchase of a II breeder becomes a reality.
once that happens its far easer to market to other clubs, selling 48s by the bar for them to take home, finish, and distribute to thier members. at an up charge of course... they buy the 48s for $5, member get the cells for $10 or so... $$ makes the world go round... and member get cheap queens that will throw pure trait drones. Now rotate the breeder queen traits yearly (VSH,MBB, Russtian, etc) This is how you take back the DCAs, one club at a time.
Easy peizy to graft 3 bars on Friday night and have 40+ 48 hour cells ready for pick up on Sunday afternoon. With an 8 week season that's 320 cells X $5 = $1600, and that's just one person with one strong hive. Imagine one or 2 people like this per club!
I suggest the problem in most areas is NOT the big commercial operations, Its the BYBK! its the little guy. I truly feel the finger is being pointed in the wrong direction. WE as beekeepers are at fault, not "them"
WE can take back many/most of our DCAs, WE are just choosing not to.
It just takes the understanding that for most of us, we can buy much better bees then we can select for given our small size, and we need to do that on a semi regulator basis till an areas traits are shifted and the drone stock has been improved. Then as a group select high performance local queens as breeders
WE can do this cheaply and easy with 48s, so we should.
but that sounds like work and beekeeping.... something that the " TF Gurus" and "OAVape Heads" push back against in an attempt to gain membership
Middle ground,elbow grease, future that is