Striving for racial purity in bees a pointless, counter productive, seriously bad idea?

[Wilco]

Like this....

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-10-03/inbred-tassie-devils-face-extinction-study/688530https://peerj.com/preprints/27985/

Generally nothing good unless they adapt to survive the genetic bottleneck like many small-island based species have historically (not really applicable to bees in the UK at the present time). It is possible for species to get through the inbreeding and survive as a species but not guaranteed.

 

[BugsInABox]

Are we saying (I'm only about 80% kidding) the Tudors are the Tew-das? <ADD>Almost Tudors of Penmynydd - Wikipedia Well: live and learn!</ADD>

I struggled to choose a single like emoji option. So:

 

[BugsInABox]

[

What I would like to understand is why, after you get a queen from a commercial breeder, (which produces calm workers), do the bees tend to turn nasty down the track.... a few generations of new queens from the original one? What causes that?

Isnt it hybrid vigor, and almost inevitable whatever the qualities of pure(ish)bred parents?
B+, please help us on this point. I really want to get it? Am I just wrong in beating this drum?

 

[BugsInABox]

Presumably the offspring will be a Cocka cocka poo poo .... has a certain meliflous ring to it though ? (That's melifluous not melliferous BTW).

Sounds like a Rolf Harris hit.
But now do that for the tenth generation.

 

[B+.]

Isnt it hybrid vigor, and almost inevitable whatever the qualities of pure(ish)bred parents?
B+, please help us on this point. I really want to get it? Am I just wrong in beating this drum?

The term "hybrid vigour", or "heterosis" to give it it's correct name, is the effect that occurs when two lines are crossed. The progeny performs outside the range (better or worse) than the parents.

If you google "heterosis" you'll find examples that talk about plant breeding which, I think, might be easier than thinking about bees.
One example looks at two pure strain corn plants which are the same height. The progeny is at least 50% taller. This is heterosis

 

[Finman]

I understand Italians don't adapt well to UK winters - raising lots of bees and eating all their stores- but I would have thought after a few generations has mated with local bees - or died out - the net result would be a locally adapted bee?

Out of Finnish bee races Italians are 90%. They do well here and over winter well.

The Italian race is a vast scale of strains.
Tens of strains or hundreds.

 

[B+.]

Out of Finnish bee races Italians are 90%. They do well here and over winter well.

The Italian race is a vast scale of strains.
Tens of strains or hundreds.

I seem to remember that Dr Buchler talked about a carnica line that performed better in Finland than the Italians you prefer. However, Mike was talking about their performance here in the UK, not in Finland.

 

[BugsInABox]

The term "hybrid vigour", or "heterosis" to give it it's correct name, is the effect that occurs when two lines are crossed. The progeny performs outside the range (better or worse) than the parents.

If you google "heterosis" you'll find examples that talk about plant breeding which, I think, might be easier than thinking about bees.
One example looks at two pure strain corn plants which are the same height. The progeny is at least 50% taller. This is heterosis

I think I thought I new what it is and why it happens from the point of view of heterozygous alleles. Taking this idea and combine Finny's about evolved direction in nature not neccesarily being in the same direction as in cultivation. Is 'heterosis' the explanation for Antipodes' observation?

What I would like to understand is why, after you get a queen from a commercial breeder, (which produces calm workers), do the bees tend to turn nasty down the track.... a few generations of new queens from the original one? What causes that?

ie the advcie when what Antipodes describes happnes should/could be - "Chill it's just heterosis your decent genes are still in there mostly, give it another couple of generations? You'll see those traits again when your stock is a bit more mongrolly". Especially when the triat, such as calmness, is one that nature might not selct for.**
And further, we can say this observation is an almost inevitable occurance if you start with pure(ish) stock - which presumably you did if you bought in a queen with reliable traits.

**though this leads to another question - why should the phenotypes that result from heterosis be ones that favour nature rather than domestication?

 

[BugsInABox]

Duplicate error

 

[B+.]

I think I thought I new what it is and why it happens from the point of view of heterozygous alleles. Taking this idea and combine Finny's about evolved direction in nature not neccesarily being in the same direction as in cultivation. Is 'heterosis' the explanation for Antipodes' observation?


ie the advcie when what Antipodes describes happnes should/could be - "Chill it's just heterosis your decent genes are still in there mostly, give it another couple of generations? You'll see them again when your stock is a bit more mongrolly"
And further, we can say this observation is an almost inevitable occurance if you start with pure(ish) stock - which presumably you did if you bought in a queen with reliable traits.

If a breeder is doing his job properly, he's working with P(arent) level that breed true. However, when they open-mate, there is no control over which drones they mate with. This makes the F1 only suitable as drone mothers or production colonies. You can't, or perhaps I should say shouldn't use the F1 as dams for further propagation. Any gardener will tell you that you don't save the seed from F1 seeds. You just use them and buy more - that's why you go into any garden centre and see lots of seeds for sale.
Now, that isn't completely true with honeybees. An F1 is the product of a pure Parent so you can still use it as a drone mother because the drone comes from an unfertilsed egg so receives all of its genetic material from its mother. I wouldn't like to say this is true of Buckfast though, since they are already the product of hybridisation.

 

[madasafish]

Now I DO raise Queens from FI queens - even Buckfast ones - and open mate them.
Not a lot - small scale 15-30 a year.
Generally the results in terms of behaviour and yields are acceptable. Approx 90% of the first generation are perfectly fine.
I cull the nasty/runny ones.

I try to produce as many of my own bees' drones to reduce the impact of " locally adapted" horrible nasty bees.

For a hobby beekeeper it keeps my costs down and the results are perfectly usable. But try that with the following generation and failure rates rise from around 10% to around 40% so it's time to buy another couple of F1 Qs - and raise Qs from the better of the two.

It's not breeding - I have far too few hives and not enough skills/equipment but it keeps me in usable Qs with minimal cost and maximum pleasure.

If anyone suggests I try breeding from our local stock, my answer is I'll be too old and incapable of beekeeping or be dead before I get any good ones.

 

[BugsInABox]

If a breeder is doing his job properly, he's working with P(arent) level that breed true. However, when they open-mate, there is no control over which drones they mate with. This makes the F1 only suitable as drone mothers or production colonies. You can't, or perhaps I should say shouldn't use the F1 as dams for further propagation. Any gardener will tell you that you don't save the seed from F1 seeds. You just use them and buy more - that's why you go into any garden centre and see lots of seeds for sale.
Now, that isn't completely true with honeybees. An F1 is the product of a pure Parent so you can still use it as a drone mother because the drone comes from an unfertilsed egg so receives all of its genetic material from its mother. I wouldn't like to say this is true of Buckfast though, since they are already the product of hybridisation.

That does all make sense. But does heterosis kick in in a meaningful way at or maybe shortly after F1. Should we accepting we are just observing heterosis at these early hybrid generations rather than as some seem to suggest the invasion of bad wild local gene traits.

 

[BugsInABox]

Now I DO raise Queens from FI queens - even Buckfast ones - and open mate them.
Not a lot - small scale 15-30 a year.
Generally the results in terms of behaviour and yields are acceptable. Approx 90% of the first generation are perfectly fine.
I cull the nasty/runny ones.

I try to produce as many of my own bees' drones to reduce the impact of " locally adapted" horrible nasty bees.

For a hobby beekeeper it keeps my costs down and the results are perfectly usable. But try that with the following generation and failure rates rise from around 10% to around 40% so it's time to buy another couple of F1 Qs - and raise Qs from the better of the two.

It's not breeding - I have far too few hives and not enough skills/equipment but it keeps me in usable Qs with minimal cost and maximum pleasure.

If anyone suggests I try breeding from our local stock, my answer is I'll be too old and incapable of beekeeping or be dead before I get any good ones.

Sorry madasa I think we crossed posts. Not at all meaning any one individual when I said

seem to suggest the invasion of bad wild local gene traits

but it does illustrate my point. If you fairly regularly buy in a pure(ish) queen how do you know your observations of nasty local bees are not actually observations of perfectly nice local bees going through a temporary heterosis generation?
Madasa you'll likely have a perfectly obvious and practical and correct answer, but B+, does what I'm saying at least make sense form a genetics point of view? Or have I got hold of the wrong end of a straw?

 

[BugsInABox]

Sorry madasa I think we crossed posts. Not at all meaning any one individual when I said
but it does illustrate my point. If you fairly regularly buy in a pure(ish) queen how do you know your observations of nasty local bees are not actually observations of perfectly nice local bees going through a temporary heterosis generation?
Madasa you'll likely have a perfectly obvious and practical and correct answer, but B+, does what I'm saying at least make sense form a genetics point of view? Or have I got hold of the wrong end of a straw?

So critiquing my own position. Am I wrong to assume that hybrid vigor occurs to some extent between a pure parent and mongrel. F1/2 if you will. Does it only happens between 2 pures?

 

[madasafish]

Sorry madasa I think we crossed posts. Not at all meaning any one individual when I said
but it does illustrate my point. If you fairly regularly buy in a pure(ish) queen how do you know your observations of nasty local bees are not actually observations of perfectly nice local bees going through a temporary heterosis generation?
Madasa you'll likely have a perfectly obvious and practical and correct answer, but B+, does what I'm saying at least make sense form a genetics point of view? Or have I got hold of the wrong end of a straw?

If by "temporary " you mean lasting a decade.. I don't

 

[B+.]

That does all make sense. But does heterosis kick in in a meaningful way at or maybe shortly after F1. Should we accepting we are just observing heterosis at these early hybrid generations rather than as some seem to suggest the invasion of bad wild local gene traits.

You will see variation in all things, even pure stock. That is the basis of selection. If there was no difference between individuals, there'd be no point in selecting since one individual would be just the same as another. However, in pure stock, performance is predictable i.e. I can look at a dam with a breeding value of 110 and a sire with a breeding value of 113 and calculate an expected breeding value for the progeny under controlled conditions ( Integer[(110+113)/2]) or 111. There will still be some variation about this figure - some may be 112 or 113 - others may be 110, or 109 - but you could draw a line of best fit between all of the progeny to give the expected value of 111. Now, if I suddenly got 150, I would think something was wrong. That would be a statistical outlier which is quite far from the expected value.
Hybridisation will do weird things. In statistics, one of the pre-conditions of a sample is that it represents the population from which it is drawn. Ask yourself, does a single hybridised sample represent a population?
I prefer to work within a pure race.

 

[BugsInABox]

You will see variation in all things, even pure stock. That is the basis of selection. If there was no difference between individuals, there'd be no point in selecting since one individual would be just the same as another. However, in pure stock, performance is predictable i.e. I can look at a dam with a breeding value of 110 and a sire with a breeding value of 113 and calculate an expected breeding value for the progeny under controlled conditions ( Integer[(110+113)/2]) or 111. There will still be some variation about this figure - some may be 112 or 113 - others may be 110, or 109 - but you could draw a line of best fit between all of the progeny to give the expected value of 111. Now, if I suddenly got 150, I would think something was wrong. That would be a statistical outlier which is quite far from the expected value.
Hybridisation will do weird things. In statistics, one of the pre-conditions of a sample is that it represents the population from which it is drawn. Ask yourself, does a single hybridised sample represent a population?
I prefer to work within a pure race.

 

[BugsInABox]

Ask yourself, does a single hybridised sample represent a population?

So maybe in rergard to single beekeeper single observations this might be the take home? What is beign observed could be 'just' heterosis but if the behaviour is ....

... lasting a decade ...

... generation after generation it probably wasnt.
So I think(!) I can still tell people complaining about their agressive 1st or 2nd genration offspring from pricey, so called pedigree, stock it is at least as likely hybrid vigor as evidence their local bees are hopeless cases. Stop me now if that would just be wrong.
With thanks for sharing
BIAB

 

[B+.]

So I think(!) I can still tell people complaining about their agressive 1st or 2nd genration offspring from pricey, so called pedigree, stock it is at least as likely hybrid vigor as evidence their local bees are hopeless cases. Stop me now if that would just be wrong.

No. Heritability determines the transference of a quality from one generation to the next.
I don't know why you're so fixated on heterosis.
I'd really like to see this pedigree before commenting further

 

[Finman]

I seem to remember that Dr Buchler talked about a carnica line that performed better in Finland

How he measured that performing, I wonder.

Carnica has been in Finland 35 years . Finnish beekeepers have such opinion that Italian bee is best. German Black bee is very rare, because varroa killed those bees.