Mass selection vs individual selection for discussion

[Fusion_power]

Then do some digging around on the net and find references that back up your position. I've shown one fairly good example of mass selection in action and I can find dozens more if needed. I'm not relying on my opinion and neither should you. Back your "opinion" up with solid science. Here are a few terms to start your search.

mass selection, individual selection, recurrent selection, half-sib selection, full-sib selection, progeny selection

The only caution I'll give is that most references will be for plant breeding since far more work has been done with plants than with bees or animals. You know the defining factors for mass selection now so should find it very easy to read an article and figure out which selection type is being described. (Large population, strong selective pressure, breed from the survivors)

Better yet, find a breeder you admire and look at their work. Figure out when they used mass selection vs individual selection. Brother Adam used a combination of mass selection, individual selection, sib selection, and progeny testing. You can find each described in his book Breeding the Honeybee. He did not use fancy names to descibe what he did, he just did it instinctively and documented what worked. Ask these questions: What breeding methods did he use to beat trachea mites? What method did he use in selecting a single French queen to integrate with his basic Italian line? What method did he use when integrating Saharan genetics into his Buckfast strain? Can you see a progression as he learned more and applied more advanced techniques?

When you artificially limit bee breeding to the same methods used for cattle, you are preventing use of some of the most effective breeding tools known.

https://wiki.groenkennisnet.nl/display/TAB/Chapter+8.1.1:+Mass+selection

 

[B+.]

I'm not relying on my opinion and neither should you. Back your "opinion" up with solid science.

If you had been on this forum for more than 5 minutes, you would know that I have already referenced the background to my breeding work.
You seem ignorant of anything that doesn't stem from America so perhaps you could look up the work done by Profs Bienefeld, Ruttner, Brascamp, etc not to mention Dr Ralph Buckler and a host of European scientists who have contributed to the topic of honeybee breeding. Unfortunately, I don't have proper Internet access where I am at the moment so I can't provide links but you will find their work in apimondia, apidologie, etc as well as being cited in Coloss.

 

[Finman]

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When I studied genetics in Helsinki University, I do not remember 'mass selection" term. But we talked about genetic variety in genepool and about size of genepool For example gebard is very narrow genetically. IT has not much them flexibility to adapt into another kind environment.

Buy Fusions story about his anti varroa bees.

- 20 colonies is not a mass.
- evolution does not happen in 10 years
- why hobby beekeepers succeed so well in varroa resistant breeding, and professionals not.

- do not believe on these miracles

I have once bought mite resistant bees, but they had as much mites as usual hives.
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[Fusion_power]

Finman, I referenced an animal breeding text above that explicitly describes mass selection and gives conditions when it works and when other methods should be chosen. Please read it and the parts before and after the reference.

Chapter 8.1.1: Mass selection
The most basic way is to rank the animals according to their phenotype and select the best ones for breeding. This method is also called Mass Selection, or Selection on Own Performance.

I have to counter one of your assumptions. There are far more than just 20 colonies of bees in this area thriving sans treatments for mites. Seven beekeepers in this area have bees from my line totaling over 60 colonies in hives and producing honey. My line is far from the only line available and I am far from the only beekeeper that stopped treating for mites. We have a list of 37 beekeepers in North Alabama who are treatment free for multiple years. There are many more. I met a beekeeper with a dozen colonies last month who lives 35 miles east. He has not treated them in more than 10 years. I have names and addresses of beekeepers within a 200 mile radius totaling over 1000 colonies that are kept entirely treatment free. Most of them fly under the radar with 20 or 30 colonies of bees. This does not have a lot of meaning other than a very general statement that varroa mites are no longer the threat they presented 30 years ago. Don't get hung up on the number of colonies I have.

You seem ignorant of anything that doesn't stem from America

I read Ruttner nearly 30 years ago. I had to borrow the book, I could not afford it at the time. I have over 200 books on bees and bee breeding, paper copies mind you, collected over the last 46 years. Laidlaw and Eckert, Morse, Robertson, Farrer, Taber, Pellett, Dadant, and many others are on my bookshelf with well worn pages. I have over 100 years of Gleanings in Bee Culture magazine dating from 1909 to current. I have about 50 years of American Bee Journal. I have a source to read Apidologie.

"The first tenet of breeding is that it implies improvement in performance." I can't quote this exactly, but it was one of the lines in Ruttner. I can state that my bees have an improvement in performance. They are highly resistant to varroa mites. I can also state that my bees have one huge flaw in their high swarming tendency.

Brascamp's work is primarily along the lines of establishing breeding values for an animal model. It provides scoring models and underlying math to allow honeybees to be selected similar to the way other animals can be selected. Yes, I've read several articles by Brascamp and Bijma.

Now lets get back to the topic. I named and described use of the oldest and most fundamental of all breeding methods and your opinion is "I don't see how this can be described as selection. Selection for what? Based on what? Tested how? Measured how?" I clearly stated that it is a different method than individual selection and that it gives a different outcome. The primary advantage is that it avoids inbreeding. The second major advantage is that it can concentrate small effect genes in a way that cannot be done with other selection methods. I smiled when I read Derekm's first post. He clearly recognized that mass selection is just a human directed version of survival of the fittest.

 

[Finman]

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I have enough genetic knowledge to understand Queen breeding.

During decades I have seen how beebreeding is better and better.

What USA needs is that they have climate zone adapted bee stocks from Florida to Alaska. Then USA needs insulated hives.

Now in coldest parts of USA beekeepers use 50 kg winter food and 3 langstroth boxes to over winter . We use on average 20 kg and in one box.

When I look a big picture and mass beekeeping in USA, I think that Europe does not have much to learn nowadays from USA. I have been enough on US beekeeping forums to see, how things go there.

Beekeeping is not so difficult that ordinary people cannot keep bees succesfully.
.they just do it without mass selection knowledge.
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[Finman]

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Tupla
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[B+.]

Don't get hung up on the number of colonies I have.

I clearly stated that it is a different method than individual selection and that it gives a different outcome. The primary advantage is that it avoids inbreeding. The second major advantage is that it can concentrate small effect genes in a way that cannot be done with other selection methods

A large population doesn't necessarily avoid inbreeding but you can choose to believe anything you like so long as you don't test the colonies and compare the results.
If you did that, at the very least, I would be prepared to continue the discussion. Without it, you have no evidence for your position.

 

[Fusion_power]

Without it, you have no evidence for your position.

My position? Your position has been to deny the oldest and most proven breeding method known to man even exists. All that has been presented so far is your "opinion". I posted a clear example of mass selection being used in France and I posted a link to a text on animal breeding and I posted a list of several breeding methods of which mass selection is just one. I clearly stated that each is just a tool in the hands of the breeder. Each stands in its own right and can achieve certain results.

Please tell of a time when a large population does not necessarily prevent inbreeding. I can name one though it would surely be just a play on words. What would yours be?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

But b*gger all about bees, and certainly nothing of note on your 'system'

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Please tell of a time when a large population does not necessarily prevent inbreeding.

I think you're better located to tell us that

 

[Finman]

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What ever but in such 20 hive population, what you have, harmfull inbreeding is only matter of time.

Your yields already tell, that it has happened. IT is not perhaps varroa, which makes your colonies small.

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[Finman]

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You have not told, how you make difference between good and poor varroa resistancy, when you rear new queen's.

According to my experience it is very difficult to find mother queen from 20 hive population. That is why I buy mother queens from outside. When you take daughters from best hive, next year you are in deep way to inbreeding. You must get a good mother queen from somewhere else

As far as I understood, you do not execute selektion in your yard. The Mother Nature does it. And that is not selection or breeding. It is drifting like on Isle of Gotland. IT is slow evolution and drifting towards unknow destiny. To keep only bees alive, is nothing level.
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18 years Mother Nature has worked in Gotland and what she has hot is, that there are alive colonies on the Isle.

To get 150 kg honey from hives, or keep hives alive, it is a big difference. And to keep only part of hives alive.

IT has taken 50 years from me to raise average yield from 40 kg/hive to 80 kg/hive.

And now I should take a new goal, and in the end I get 20 kg/hive. I started from there 54 years ago. It was year zero, when I knew nothing about beekeeping.

A Promised Land. A splended future 50 years behind me. I think that I have found wrong Jesus, who said that "sell all off and follow me"

Pargyle said that same to me with his two months experience when he had 6 frames in his first swarm.
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I have active beekeeping years any more under 10, and now I should change my way, because I do not know any more, what I am doing.

My boy was worried, have I bought right fuel to my Diesel car. And my wife added, is it better to buy Diesel, because it is cheaper? I could save money?. I bought diesel car to save fuel, but have I forgotten it now in half year?

IT seems, that Mother Nature has started working on me to get to myself a happy end. A splended future behind me and I see already personal assistants in front of me.
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