Principal:
poor temper
slow spring build-up
Secondary:
acarine susceptibility
small population
That's all part of the selection and improvement!!!
I've worked plenty of well tempered Amm.
You just eliminate the poor temper.
Same for any strain.
We just aim to improve the desired characteristics.
And I don't think it's implausible or difficult to select for good temper and a quick Spring build up (if that's what you want.) Within any strain there is diversity. You just select for your best characteristics from your best colonies. You work with what you've got and I don't think any bee is perfect.
One problem you will have is that if your chosen bee performs poorly as a farmed bee, particularly in terms of health, as a honey gatherer, or in terms of its temper or swarminess, you will find that those who keep bees for some or all of their income will be unwilling to adopt it.
Well, again, that's the whole point of 'Bee Improvement'.
To help it perform well.
It's continually evolving and I don't ever think it will be perfect.
If something is poor, we won't breed from it.
People don't have to adopt it if they don't want to.
Unless you can demonstrate that your bee is equal or superior to what they currently have, you will always be in the position of having a large but different genetic pool on your doorstep.
I/we have no agenda or imperative to demonsatrate, that 'our' bee is superior.
That is simply not the correct stance for anyone to take. And is asking for people to shoot the group down.
Anyone can pick holes in anyones plans and intentions.
Our aim is to work with and improve our native bee.
The group will present their research and talk about our aims and intentions, but there is no agenda to make people convert.
If people like the ideas and are on board, great, if not, then at the very least one hopes people will select to improve their own stock, over and against importing anything.
My argument is that the current 'mongrel' bee reflects this gene pool and this reality; bee farmers do not change breed of bee on a whim. Thus starting from the best of the local bee and improving from there will be more prone to successful adoption and successful propagation than actively starting from somewhere else.