Tom Seeley - Darwinian Beekeeping

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So do Nothing has become a scientific method.
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Like Matthew said 2000 years ago: Look at birds of sky. They do not harvest and they do not store. They migrate.
 
A small correction - Darwinism is not about the 'strongest' surviving, it's about the 'fittest' surviving. Being 'fitter' than the competition could - for example - involve having higher intelligence, or having a better form of camouflage to avoid predation.

It's worth bearing in mind that Darwinism is a theory, and one with lots of 'holes' in it. It's a plausible theory when considering (say) the longer tail-length of a fish, which might help it to swim faster and thus evade predation, so that increased numbers of longer-tailed fish then survive to breed, and eventually whose numbers eclipse those of shorter-tailed fish.

But although Darwin's theory works reasonably well when considering such a gradual development (rendering that species increasingly 'fitter' as the process proceeds), it falls over badly when considering abrupt physiological changes such as the initial development of wings, for example. Until wings are fully functional, along with the required muscles, controlling nerves and a higher nervous system to provide the necessary coordination, a 'wing-in-development' offers no advantage whatsoever, and indeed presents as a liability rendering the organism far more likely to be predated than if the stub wing did not exist. The same argument applies to vestigial eyes and other abrupt embryonic physiological developments.

And - most importantly - Adaptation by Natural Selection requires fecundity. Fish, as mentioned earlier, have such fecundity: thousands of female 'gene-carriers' - each of which can go on to produce thousands more of their kind - can be produced from the survival of just one more-successful (i.e. 'fitter') individual. But honey bees are NOT fecund. Huge numbers of female individuals may indeed be produced in the life of a colony, but they are all (except for new queens) genetically sterile and therefore cannot pass on their genes in the large numbers required for Natural Selection. Fecundity is a female-based dynamic - and as we know, honey bees spread their genes via drones.

But it is ONLY in the formation of a new Queen that a new genetic phenotype can be expressed - and new queens occur in very small numbers indeed. It is this absence of fecundity which is, I would suggest, the very reason why the honey bee has not changed significantly over millions of years.
LJ



Well said. This thread is about breeding and has nothing to do with evolution. The traits are there in the bees already, we are just selecting for them in our choices.

Only need to look at pedigree dogs to see how that can end up if done wrong.


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Only need to look at pedigree dogs to see how that can end up if done wrong.

That only applies to some breeds where dubious traits are selected or where the breed standard, which is there to ensure the breed is properly balanced for its role, is completely ignore.. as in the case last year for the German Shepard which won "best of breed" and should never have won the challenge certificates to get to crufts in the first place.

Remember what we now call "pedigree" breeds were mongrels/Darwinian breeds at one point in their life and most dogs breeds have evolved over the past 100,000 years.. whether we domesticed dogs or dogs domesticated us is a topic for a completely different discussion.
 
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Yeah! Darwinian dog breeding. IT really happens among feral dogs of many towns around the world.

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Does anyone else get the irony of a clearly expert scientist talking about bee behaviour and "natural beekeeping" having done the vast majority of his studies on a invasive species (European Honey bee) in an alien environment they should never have been in the first place (North America)?
 
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That only applies to some breeds where dubious traits are selected or where the breed standard, which is there to ensure the breed is properly balanced for its role, is completely ignore.. as in the case last year for the German Shepard which won "best of breed" and should never have won the challenge certificates to get to crufts in the first place.



Remember what we now call "pedigree" breeds were mongrels/Darwinian breeds at one point in their life and most dogs breeds have evolved over the past 100,000 years.. whether we domesticed dogs or dogs domesticated us is a topic for a completely different discussion.



Are you a dog breeder? Just that you missed the significance of the "if", and as a result missed my point completely.

There are a large number of breeds (I would disagree with "some") of dogs where our selective breeding for "desirable" traits have led to concurrent selection of covert undesirable and sometimes downright unpleasant breed related behaviours, illnesses and suffering.

I deal with them every day that I am at work.

I would reverse the emphasis and say "some" breeds don't have issues as a result of our selections [emoji6]

But we have drifted from topic [emoji106]


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Are you a dog breeder? Just that you missed the significance of the "if", and as a result missed my point completely.

There are a large number of breeds (I would disagree with "some") of dogs where our selective breeding for "desirable" traits have led to concurrent selection of covert undesirable and sometimes downright unpleasant breed related behaviours, illnesses and suffering.

I deal with them every day that I am at work.

I would reverse the emphasis and say "some" breeds don't have issues as a result of our selections [emoji6]

But we have drifted from topic [emoji106]

It's through selective breeding that we have the multitude of dog breeds. Selected and bred for function. Not many 'genetic mutations' would have lasted long at their chosen function. The vast majority of the problems present today are due to that function no longer being performed and the dogs, instead, being bred for and paraded around a show ring. Breed standards do precious little to help any breed as they are all up for different interpretation by both show judge and breeder. I won't even begin with placing for favours which does a great deal to affect the future of the breed. One only has to take a look at early photos from Crufts to see that many of the modern dogs are exaggerated and quite different to their forbears. As with many things, the modern approach is not always better.
 
It's through selective breeding that we have the multitude of dog breeds. Selected and bred for function. Not many 'genetic mutations' would have lasted long at their chosen function. The vast majority of the problems present today are due to that function no longer being performed and the dogs, instead, being bred for and paraded around a show ring. Breed standards do precious little to help any breed as they are all up for different interpretation by both show judge and breeder. I won't even begin with placing for favours which does a great deal to affect the future of the breed. One only has to take a look at early photos from Crufts to see that many of the modern dogs are exaggerated and quite different to their forbears. As with many things, the modern approach is not always better.



I agree completely that is why I am saying we are breeding bees/dogs/hamsters. This is not evolution so Darwinism is a misnomer. We cannot hope that our bees or dogs will evolve. There is no species shift which is why our bees and dogs can interbreed between subspecies. They are not evolving. Not in our lifetime. So until we can commit a couple of hundred millennia to the process Darwinism is an unhelpful concept.
When we selective breed we are just as likely to find problems as solve them. That was why I raised the dog issue, everyone is aware of recent show winners that would probably fail to breed without human assistance.


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Does anyone else get the irony of a clearly expert scientist talking about bee behaviour and "natural beekeeping" having done the vast majority of his studies on a invasive species (European Honey bee) in an alien environment they should never have been in the first place (North America)?

As bees are not domesticated, then "Natural" beekeeping should mean raising trees in cracks in the rocks or holes in trees.

NO hive of any shape is "natural" to an undomesticated insect.

But then I question the judgement of many - NOT all - who practise it.
Note I said "judgement", not sanity or morals or...

Sorry rant over.

Yes you're correct. It IS ironic.. That's humans for you. Natural humans would be naked somewhere warm killing wild animals for food......that's how they grew big brains.
 
Interesting that he makes no mention of aggression when beekeepers are universally breeding for non defensive bees.
And conveniently forgets he was out chain sawing down their natural habitats in his earlier days to find out how big their homes were....he must have had an epiphany....or just loosing his marbles.
Interesting article though....and well done Derek, he even reckons insulation in hives is one area that really needs looking into.
"Use hives whose walls provide good insulation. These might be hives built of thick lumber, or they might be hives made of plastic foam. We urgently need research on how much insulation is best for colonies in different climates, and how it is best provided."
 
We urgently need research on how much insulation is best for colonies in different climates, and how it is best provided."

So, in USA they need knowledge, how much insulation beehives need in different places.
That had been known exactly in Europe 100 years.

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