Bibba

[foghornleghorn]

That's fine when working to improve single traits , even complex ones. But try removing chalk brood, aggression, low productivity , swarming and varroa resistance together and you'll have very few stock that will pass assessment for breeding. With other races as I understand it, such work started with a broad gene pool of stock already excelling in the traditional selection criteria and then it was still a decade or so of international cooperation to make significant progress in complex traits like varroa resistance.
In an entirely controlled mating programme they're still the best part of 50yrs behind. I seem to remember reading that assessment of Amm potential in vsh is only just being started, with a view to creating a programme IF suitable potential is found within the race.

Your not looking for perfection to start with. As long as a rating can be given progress can be made. Decide on a weighting for each of those traits and as soon as a few generations performance data has been collected the links through different lines will start to show up differences even if small

 

[drex]

Single drone insemination (sdi) is the quickest route to developing any trait. Essentially, this is because the drone, the product of an unfertilised egg, inherits all of his genetic material from his mother (i.e he has to express all 16 chromosomes because that is all he has). His sperm are all clones so, the only variability (excluding mutation) can come from the egg laid by the queens mother. Testing a number of these combinations allows the breeder to develop a particular trait. That is not to say that other traits are ignored though (or shouldn't be). In beebreed, the total breeding value is comprised of the breeding values in all traits, so, a strength in one trait can be undermined by a weakness in another.

B+, as you know, I know little about breeding, but do raise my own queens, selecting simply for temperament and calmness on the comb. ( open mating ). I have seen improvement in my stock over the last few years.
I thought bees had the highest rate of cross over of chromosomes, hence introducing variability. Does this not therefore affect single drone mating? I ask simply to be educated.

 

[masterBK]

Because Drones are haploid you don't get crossover in the production of drone sperm (or am I missing the point of your question?}

 

[For want of a better word]

Single drone insemination (sdi) is the quickest route to developing any trait. Essentially, this is because the drone, the product of an unfertilised egg, inherits all of his genetic material from his mother (i.e he has to express all 16 chromosomes because that is all he has). His sperm are all clones so, the only variability (excluding mutation) can come from the egg laid by the queens mother. Testing a number of these combinations allows the breeder to develop a particular trait. That is not to say that other traits are ignored though (or shouldn't be). In beebreed, the total breeding value is comprised of the breeding values in all traits, so, a strength in one trait can be undermined by a weakness in another.

Basically you say that single strain mutations can be found by carrying out an infinite number of back matings to select for one trait?

How to you keep viability as you lose *** alleles/

I can see the benefits in selection using II, but to continuously breed using only that methodology must be weakening the bee breed... deaf Dalmatians and hip displacements in German shepherds spring to mind.

Nos da

 

[Beefriendly]

How to you keep viability as you lose *** alleles/

I can see the benefits in selection using II, but to continuously breed using only that methodology must be weakening the bee breed... deaf Dalmatians and hip displacements in German shepherds spring to mind.

Nos da

You don't...select trait (inbred) that is your current interest then breed those bees back into the main lines and select only for those that express the trait to breed further from.

 

[For want of a better word]

You don't...select trait (inbred) that is your current interest then breed those bees back into the main lines and select only for those that express the trait to breed further from.

The way of Brother Adam !

Nos da

 

[drex]

Because Drones are haploid you don't get crossover in the production of drone sperm (or am I missing the point of your question?}

I thought the cross over or recombination happened during egg maturation, introducing the variability. Even though the drones individual sperms are all clones, the queens chromosomes will be shuffled, introducing variability to a single drones female offspring?????
As I implied earlier bee genetics mystifies me.

 

[Beefriendly]

As I implied earlier bee genetics mystifies me.

IT's not easy....but the sperms of a single drone are identical. You cannot get a crossover when you only have one half of a pair of chromosomes present (haploid).
There is no proper meiosis in drone sperm formation.

 

[For want of a better word]

I thought the cross over or recombination happened during egg maturation, introducing the variability. Even though the drones individual sperms are all clones, the queens chromosomes will be shuffled, introducing variability to a single drones female offspring?????
As I implied earlier bee genetics mystifies me.

pairs of nucleotides can and do "flip" ...leading to variation... that is how evolution works.. then selecting for the fittest by natural selection.
I think someone wrote a book about it... but would have been unaware of DNA!

Nos da

 

[justsmith]

What i partly wish for is been able to raise queen bees from my best hive and get them artificial insemination to try to improve the stock in a more controled way than hope they mate well with random locals. I don't have the time or money or skill to be able to collect drones and process them.

Had a few nightmare queens this year for aggression which i will have to sort out next year.

 

[For want of a better word]

What i partly wish for is been able to raise queen bees from my best hive and get them artificial insemination to try to improve the stock in a more controled way than hope they mate well with random locals. I don't have the time or money or skill to be able to collect drones and process them.

Had a few nightmare queens this year for aggression which i will have to sort out next year.

Raising drones for sperm collection is probably as easy as rearing queens... look at B+.s IWF videos.
The expensive bit is all the AI kit!!

 

[Finman]

Raising drones for sperm collection is probably as easy as rearing queens... look at B+.s IWF videos.
The expensive bit is all the AI kit!!

Easier is wait for random nucleotides and wait that evolution does its job.

Irish beekeepers' money will not last long in this breeding project.

 

[For want of a better word]

Raising drones for sperm collection is probably as easy as rearing queens... look at B+.s IWF videos.
The expensive bit is all the AI kit!!

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Join Date: Jan 2015
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Default IWF Videos
Hivemaker referred to the old IWF videos in another thread and I wondered how many people had seen them.

Here is a link to C1801 "Rearing of queen bees". Its in five parts due to the way Youtube splits up videos into manageable chunks

Part 1 of 5 https://youtu.be/8yN5qM2Et6w?list=PL...RXQ4T8yS5LgDt6
Part 2 of 5 https://youtu.be/huvRlpuQpTw?list=PL...RXQ4T8yS5LgDt6
Part 3 of 5 https://youtu.be/-DuL4ViHXxQ
Part 4 of 5 https://youtu.be/djR1nkCGbK0
Part 5 of 5 https://youtu.be/JX8gSkRHGts

Don't take too much notice of the Snow Pixie... he has Russian bees bred on his Stepps!

 

[B+.]

Here is a link to C1801 "Rearing of queen bees". Its in five parts due to the way Youtube splits up videos into manageable chunks

I have all the IWF videos on my YouTube channel. C1801 Rearing of queen bees (the whole video) is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyzAS5eZ2xA

 

[TooBee...]

I have all the IWF videos on my YouTube channel. C1801 Rearing of queen bees (the whole video) is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyzAS5eZ2xA

This really is fabulous stuff!

Now that I've actually raised a Queen (well the bees did everything, I just moved some frames and a box) this year for my second hive, all this seems much easier to follow and understand.

I've order my Nicot system and have just taken delivery of Drone foundation, I'm really looking forward to next year: Although II is a few years away still :-(

 

[TooBee...]

What i partly wish for is been able to raise queen bees from my best hive and get them artificial insemination to try to improve the stock in a more controled way than hope they mate well with random locals. I don't have the time or money or skill to be able to collect drones and process them.

My understanding is that you can increase the likelihood of your Virgin Queens mating with your preferred Drones by placing a Drone frame in the hive you want your Virgin to mate with.

Just make sure that you place the Drone foundation in the hive before you start Queen rearing, the best way would be to confine the Queen on to the Drone foundation (you can make one yourself or buy it from Thornes, etc.)

I have also thought that maybe a reverse Drone Trap (sometimes called Queen Trap) could also help in culling the 'local' Drones in the month before your Drones emerge, but not sure about the mechanics of it.

 

[B+.]

I have also thought that maybe a reverse Drone Trap (sometimes called Queen Trap) could also help in culling the 'local' Drones in the month before your Drones emerge, but not sure about the mechanics of it.

The colony will still make drones. However, they won't be able to get out and your queen excluder will just get blocked with dead drones trying to get out.

 

[For want of a better word]

graft sister queens to provide your drone stock
feed well and give 2 frames of drone foundation per colony
start this a month + before queen rearing
If you have somewhere a bit isolated from other colonies ( I wish) put the drone providers and to be mated queens in mating nucs there... feed feed feed!

Good Luck

 

[TooBee...]

The colony will still make drones. However, they won't be able to get out and your queen excluder will just get blocked with dead drones trying to get out.

Sorry I meant before one's own Drones emerge, so that the beekeeper could capture Drones visiting their hives, thus reducing the amount of undesirable Drones in the immediate area.

I've seen a Drone leave one of my beehives and go straight into the adjacent beehive, without being challenged by the Guard bees, so I assume that Drones must visit nearby hives?

There would still be non-beekeepers Drones in the area, but there would be a reduced amount; err, hope I haven't annoyed you (or other more knowledgeable members) with my newbie ideas (rantings)

 

[Quis Custodiet]

I've seen a Drone leave one of my beehives .........:

There are such niceties as drone traps and drone barriers ( similar to a wire queen excluder, but with a wider spacing.....from memory 5.2 MM). Both of these are used to good effect to minimise the introgression of genes from undesirable drones.