Buckfast F2 .... are they as bad as I'm reading about on the web??

[drdrday]

You're almost right: the F1 queen is a product of it's parents mating. Not the local drones.

I am aware. The point I was making was that the F1 queen most people begin with was usually locally mated wherever she was raised, so that there was little (if any) control over the drones with which she mated and therefore the genetics of her offspring. The strain is already diluted (for better or worse).
I'm well aware that mating programmes (making use of II or island mating stations) exist as I already mentioned in my previous post (and indeed I'm well aware that this is your focus) - however this is largely irrelevant to the average hobby beekeeper who is at the mercy of the local gene pool and is simply considering how their own F3 and subsequent generations might be affected.

The average beekeeper, as a livestock breeder, is in a rather unique position. Unlike breeding in all of the other organisms I can think of at the moment (I'm sure there's other exceptions!) a beekeeper is valiantly trying to improve/maintain desirable phenotypes with control over only half of the genotype. Dog breeders, chicken breeders, pigeon breeders etc. etc. can select both the male and female parents, ensuring the mating they desire. The hobby beekeeper is at the whim of 'wild' matings.

 

[BugsInABox]

Hybrid vigour is only a thing when you are talking about crossing two inbred lines.

I keep raising this subject for which apologies. I’m slowly understanding it (I think). If I’m right vigour (maybe it’s strictly speaking wrong to call it hybrid vigour) results from heterozygous alleles replacing the homozygous ones found to some degree in pure lines. I can’t work out why this wouldn’t happen between a single pure line and mongrels?

 

[BugsInABox]

and therefore the genetics of her offspring.

I’m thinking only true of the worker offspring not the haploid drones.
?

 

[drdrday]

I’m thinking only true of the worker offspring not the haploid drones.
?

I was keeping things simple! But it is the phenotype of the worker bees that we most often recognise as having good or bad traits (defensiveness, productivity etc.).

 

[B+.]

I was keeping things simple! But it is the phenotype of the worker bees that we most often recognise as having good or bad traits (defensiveness, productivity etc.).

Although swarming/aggression is related to inbreeding in the queen or her workers

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Hybrid vigour is only a thing when you are talking about crossing two inbred lines.

You been looking at my family tree?!

 

[B+.]

You been looking at my family tree?!

Are you casting nasturtiums about your ancestry?

 

[gmonag]

The average beekeeper, as a livestock breeder, is in a rather unique position. Unlike breeding in all of the other organisms I can think of at the moment (I'm sure there's other exceptions!) a beekeeper is valiantly trying to improve/maintain desirable phenotypes with control over only half of the genotype. Dog breeders, chicken breeders, pigeon breeders etc. etc. can select both the male and female parents, ensuring the mating they desire. The hobby beekeeper is at the whim of 'wild' matings.

I'm afraid it is even worse than that. If some local beekeeper decides that he is going to "improve" the local stock by drone-flooding his "better" strain of bee, then all your patient work is undone. I doubt that a dog, chicken or pigeon breeder would be pleased if I tainted his stock by running in a "better" dog, cockerel or cock pigeon.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Are you casting nasturtiums about your ancestry?

certainly not - they were just very particular with who they reproduced with. Just didn't like travelling far from home

 

[Brian Bush]

Why does everybody forget that Buckfasts are mongrels from the outset. They are a created bee. According to a quick internet search they have genes from A. m. cypria, A. m. carnica, A. m. cecropia, A. m. meda (Iraqi and Iranian strains), A. m. sahariensis, A. m. anatoliaca (Turkish and Armenian strains), A. m. caucasica, A. m. lamarckii, A. m. monticola (Mount Elgon strain), A. m. adami and A. m. macedonica (Mount Athos strain).[4]
In pure Buckfasts the positive traits have been selectively selected in th breeding program. Mix them with local mongrels and/or other sub-species the unwanted traits often emerge. As others have commented on this thread if you wish to aid production of good F1 and even F2 queens you have to pay as much attnetion to the drones and encourage the production of good drones. The habit od drone culling, without good reason, is a contributing factor in the production of poor queens. Good queens produce good drones who in turn produce good queens and bees.

 

[madasafish]

Why does everybody forget that Buckfasts are mongrels from the outset. They are a created bee. According to a quick internet search they have genes from A. m. cypria, A. m. carnica, A. m. cecropia, A. m. meda (Iraqi and Iranian strains), A. m. sahariensis, A. m. anatoliaca (Turkish and Armenian strains), A. m. caucasica, A. m. lamarckii, A. m. monticola (Mount Elgon strain), A. m. adami and A. m. macedonica (Mount Athos strain).[4]
In pure Buckfasts the positive traits have been selectively selected in th breeding program. Mix them with local mongrels and/or other sub-species the unwanted traits often emerge. As others have commented on this thread if you wish to aid production of good F1 and even F2 queens you have to pay as much attnetion to the drones and encourage the production of good drones. The habit od drone culling, without good reason, is a contributing factor in the production of poor queens. Good queens produce good drones who in turn produce good queens and bees.

ALL local Bees are mongrels.
Breeding from mongrels has been promoted by BIBBA - the supporters of a pure breed

 

[ChrisS]

Jo Widdicombe has written some interesting comments on this subject in NatBIP News NatBIP News No6 - BIBBA .

 

[madasafish]

Jo Widdicombe has written some interesting comments on this subject in NatBIP News NatBIP News No6 - BIBBA .

I quote what he says " ultimately, for bee improvement, we need to go down the easiest route. " in his third paragraph.

Breeding local bees cannot be described - by any stretch of logic or English - as the "easiest route".

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Depends on your interpretation of the word 'interesting'

 

[Hebeegeebee]

So the answer to the original question is "sometimes yes, sometimes no"
We do hear of strories of nasty, veil-pinging, wrist-burrowing bees that greet you >50 yards away from the hive. Thankfully these are very rare. We do hear of beekeepers who can't understand that a new nuc starts to get aggressive a few weeks after purchase - as the introduced queen's daughters start to dominate. (The only two queens I have ever bought turned out like that whch is why I decided to do my own). We also see beekeepers on the forums who have a colony in spring which is unpleasant and 'hopes' they will improve when it's are very unlikely to. What's the percentage of colonies like this? 5% or less? From the swarms I have been asked to collect (I try not to), most are reasonable - in my part of the world at least.

 

[B+.]

ALL local Bees are mongrels.
Breeding from mongrels has been promoted by BIBBA - the supporters of a pure breed

There are a lot of very strange things said by groups that are supposed to be experts.

 

[Brewer24]

F1, F2 & F3 from a brilliant laying bought in B/fast Queen + Dorset based. So the environment must be conducive to good behaviour, or we have some fields of medicinal poppies. So I may just have a bunch drug addicts!

 

[Finman]

When it is F2 Buckfast, only 25 % are original buckfast genes. 75,% is something else and surely rules the temperament of the colony.

Then the queen has mated with 15 drones and and each drone gives a mixture on vast variation of genes. You need only one very angry drone and it makes an illusion on very angry colony.

F3 has only 13% original genes.

 

[B+.]

When it is F2 Buckfast, only 25 % are original buckfast genes. 75,% is something else and surely rules the temperament of the colony.

Then the queen has mated with 15 drones and and each drone gives a mixture on vast variation of genes. You need only one very angry drone and it makes an illusion on very angry colony.

F3 has only 13% original genes.

We all know that the "Buckfast Bee" is a synthetic multi-racial hybrid that acquires it's traits from the original race that Br Adam (and others) used to develop it. It is not a race so, I wonder, what are these "original Buckfast genes"?

 

[Finman]

We all know that the "Buckfast Bee" . It is not a race so, I wonder, what are these "original Buckfast genes"?

They are those genes, which you bought from the queen seller. If you count from Brother Adams, perhaps we have now F 50+

B+, When you have those special Carniolan bees, they either have "original genes".

Of course we can calculate that when a human and a simpanzee genes have 1,2 % difference, we can draw a conclusion that Buckfast and Carniolan genes do not have much difference.

Somebody like to play this smart game.