Nature of offspring of purebred x 'local' bees

[Jimmy]

A request for help:

Which author(s) do I look up for the published work on the characteristics of offspring from purebred x local bees?

Not too wary of specialist genetics literature as would like to read up beyond the anecdotal reports.

 

[mbc]

Ruttner seems the most often quoted author on the subject.

 

[Jimmy]

Thanks

 

[susbees]

Thanks

I tried to drown my copy before it drowned me. It survived. Biology's a piece of cake compared with bee genetics.....

 

[Poly Hive]

In short it is utterly unpredictable. It's your Donald Duck.

PH

 

[Jimmy]

In short it is utterly unpredictable. It's your Donald Duck.

PH

So is it as utterly unpredictable as the characteristics of the offspring of a cross between local bee races

or

do you see more utterly unpredictable extremes when you allow a pure bred x local bee race cross?

(feel like I'm straying into Donald Rumsfeld territory here with known unknowns and unknown unknowns.......)

Or does badmouthing the offspring of pure bred x local bees just suit the agenda of some?

 

[madasafish]

Or does badmouthing the offspring of pure bred x local bees just suit the agenda of some?

A fair number of beekeepers on this forum and others have told me keeping Carniolans will mean I get nasty bad tempered bees from their offspring. Or if not me directly, told others the same.

No "if", or "maybes" but categorical statements that it WOULD happen.

Guess what? I'm in my third year with 3 home grown queens from 2011 and their offspring are as good tempered as their mothers.

One might be chance but three?

I tend to disbelieve a lot of what beekeepers say though as there is little hard evidence for much of it.

Matchsticks anyone?

 

[The Cumbrian]

A fair number of beekeepers on this forum and others have told me keeping Carniolans will mean I get nasty bad tempered bees from their offspring. Or if not me directly, told others the same.

No "if", or "maybes" but categorical statements that it WOULD happen.

Guess what? I'm in my third year with 3 home grown queens from 2011 and their offspring are as good tempered as their mothers.

One might be chance but three?

I tend to disbelieve a lot of what beekeepers say though as there is little hard evidence for much of it.

Matchsticks anyone?

I am not sure I fully understand your situation.

Are you saying the 2011 queens are the first queens from the Carniolans you got 3 years ago?

Or

Did you start with Carniolans 3 years ago and have bred your own replacement queens and re-queened yearly as many recommend?

I ask because under the first scenario we are probably talking about F1 Carniolans but under the second scenario we seem to be well past the F1 stage.

At least that is how I understand it.

 

[mbc]

A fair number of beekeepers on this forum and others have told me keeping Carniolans will mean I get nasty bad tempered bees from their offspring. Or if not me directly, told others the same.

No "if", or "maybes" but categorical statements that it WOULD happen.

Guess what? I'm in my third year with 3 home grown queens from 2011 and their offspring are as good tempered as their mothers.

One might be chance but three?

I tend to disbelieve a lot of what beekeepers say though as there is little hard evidence for much of it.

Matchsticks anyone?

I think the problem lies with people believing what they read in books, and books always try to sell a story, the truth is almost always more moderate.

 

[Finman]

.
Book reading does not help. When you get that "pure" queen, and it mates in our yard, that it is. Nothing to do with books.

It is not a secret. Every year you have in your hands those "pure local crossings", mongrel called.

And what do you do with that knowledge? If it is evil or sick, you change the queen.

Every queen mate with 15 drones. It is quite a mixture.

When you bye a "pure" queen, next generation hive has 50% of original genes and the queen has 100%. Next generation looses so much original genes that you cannot know them any more.

 

[Hivemaker.]

A fair number of beekeepers on this forum and others have told me keeping Carniolans will mean I get nasty bad tempered bees from their offspring. Or if not me directly, told others the same.

Some specifically keep a mixture of Buckfast and Carniolans,rear queens from both,open mate them, and get very good tempered queens fairly consistently.

 

[madasafish]

I am not sure I fully understand your situation.

Are you saying the 2011 queens are the first queens from the Carniolans you got 3 years ago?



.

Yes.

 

[Poly Hive]

it is utterly unpredictable as you have no idea of who has what over the drone range so how can you possibly know which what strain of drone your virgin mates with?

PH

 

[Hivemaker.]

it is utterly unpredictable as you have no idea of who has what over the drone range so how can you possibly know which what strain of drone your virgin mates with?
PH

I agree,it is a lottery for the vast majority.

 

[Norton]

The only way to be sure of the input in natural mating is to use a reliable mating station.

 

[DanBee]

To go back to the OP's question, the most useful descriptions appear to be Br. Adam's In Search of... since it is based upon contemporary reports of the various races encountered in their home settings, and of extensive breeding experiments in a wet and miserable British climate. (With apologies to RoofTops )

As to the crosses and the rule that Carnica x 'native' = trouble...

From Sladen's Queen Rearing in England, 2nd Ed., 1913:

"The bees produced by Carniolan queens mated by English black drones are hardy and good honey gatherers."

Br. Adam asserts that Carniolan queens mated with drones of other races produce aggressive offspring of "little or no economical value", but that Carniolan drones mated with any other race are the preferred basis of any "utility" cross breeding.

 

[For want of a better word]

I have waded my way through a few tomes on genetic selection... not necessarily on insects.

Just about got to grips with Mendel's beans!

It seems that unless you can absolutely control the parent stock of genes the out come of the offspring will be a lottery.

From my own experience I have crossed a bought in Carniolian queen that was good tempered and prolific, brood and honey production wise, with whatever the local population of drones may be ( Possibly my blonde NZ A.ling.?) and produced a colony of she~devils and another of little sweeties.... but then I am NO expert in the black art of queenrearing.... come to think of it I am not an EX anything!

Sometimes I wonder if "nice personality" is genetic...... now can some dreadful mothers have such delightful daughters?

 

[RoofTops]

...in a wet and miserable British climate. (With apologies to RoofTops )

Not just wet, yesterday we had a hailstorm, the view from the house is shown below. I fear getting out the BBQ and the sun-loungers may have been a little premature.

 

[Finman]

.
I can tell that when varroa killed our all "native local black devils", beekeeping has been a pleasant hobby.

 

[Norton]