Rearing Drone Brood

[B+.]

Correct me if I'm wrong.

The queen receives half of her genetic material from her mother and half from the drone (or, more precisely, the queen who laid the egg that became the drone). The drone receives all of his genetic material from the queen that laid the egg.
Let me give you an example. I have tested VSH queens which I received from the Netherlands in August. One of them is identified by its studbook number 55-2-70-2016 (http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/album.php?albumid=751&pictureid=3761). Now, assuming this queen tests well for honey production, swarming, etc in 2017, I might decide to raise queens from it in 2018. It can only support a limited number of drones itself, but, I could take frames of sealed drone brood from it and transfer them to foster colonies that had all of its own drone brood removed (just as you would do in the starter finisher method of queen rearing). This is one way of increasing the genetic influence of the selected queen on the environment (although I would more likely cage them for use in instrumental insemination). Another way would be to raise a number of daughters from this selected queen (which is an island mated pure Carniolan queen with an extensive pedigree). The daughter queens would all be the product of that mating on Vlieland between the virgin queen 55-2-70-2016 (1a on the pedigree) and the drone producing queen 18-26-7268-2013 (4a on the pedigree) as they are genetically no different to the workers she produced. Even if these daughter queens were open mated, the drones would still be pure carniolan because they inherit all of their genetic material from their mother. This is another way of saturating an area with many colonies containing desirable genetic material.

 

[Zante]

Agreed. I was just taking into consideration those who open mate their queens without isolating them only with desirable drones. The average beekeeper that has to take whatever drones are in the area.

If everyone were to breed drones from favourite hives, not making a special effort, but as was mentioned above with a single frame of drone foundation (which is more or less the proportion the bees would raise anyway), the average quality of the drones in the area would rise.

You might get the great great grandson of one of your queens to mate with one of your virgins, or maybe a drone with the good genetics from two neighboring beekeepers.

I understand that professional breeders literally choose the drones to inseminate a queen, but I'm talking about improving the "open stock" if you see what I mean.

Interesting how this is quite a unique thing to beekeeping, as breeders of other livestock have much more control over which female breeds with which male.

 

[B+.]

If everyone were to breed drones from favourite hives, not making a special effort, but as was mentioned above with a single frame of drone foundation (which is more or less the proportion the bees would raise anyway), the average quality of the drones in the area would rise.

To raise the mean "open stock", virgins would have to consistently mate with drones which were significantly above the mean for many generations. Unfortunately, merely increasing the number of drones from a favourite colony is not enough because the queen mates with multiple drones and this would tend to reduce the gain to the mean for the area (i.e. heritability is never 100%). It is also not enough to merely increase the number of drones unless the mother colony has been subject to some sort of testing to show that the queen is worth propagating.
Inbreeding would also play a part if you relied too much on a stable drone population