Wow a lively debate.
I am not in BIBBA but have been reading BA and watching lectures from Michael Palmer, Tom Seeley,, John Chambers and Roger Patterson and in the round find they put forward a compelling case for breeding your own locally adapted bees.
I know a commercial beekeeper with almost 1000 hives who produces his own queens from his local bees so it is possible.
I have been able to graft and rear plenty of queens without any major hassle and just having learned from youtube, so its not that difficult and not beyond anyone.
Sucess rates are approximately 50% of the grafts accepted and 50% successful matings in late spring mixed weather. I expect this can be kmproved with more practice. I then use the queens if required or otherwise keep them in nucs in case i need them in the spring. Hence I have good laying queens even before the first impoerts come in in April.
These have been more sucessful than any queens I have bought, which seem to be superseded in the autumn, but you do have to cull queens heading colonies with undesirable traits such as winter brood rearing, unreasonable aggression, running on the comb, robbing, laziness or following. Those with traits I like that perform well I give a drone frame so that they can further spread their genetics in the local population.
It seems that years ago before mass hybridisation, bees were not generally unduly agressive and most were well adapted to their environments. Left to their own devices, most populations apparently revert to something like the AMM. Would this not be a good start to work on local bees instead of continually importing them and messing up the gene pool with unsuitable genes?
