Poicession, Thanks for the Al quote, and for starting this topic. I'm new to the BFI and I'm hoping the BFI may help me to apply and clear my eccentric mind. I just recently took an interest in keeping bees and I'm planning to start my first colony(s) in the spring of 2010. I have learned a lot from a class I just completed, and I'm intrigued by bee genetics. Though I'm generally a believer in the bees knowing best, there seems to be a lot of subscription to careful breeding of queen bees, to suit the needs of bee keepers. The varieties seem to be specialized for various purposes. Another take on bee breeding places importance on specializing queens for various regions/weather patterns. Another take is that there are good and bad queens within all subsets or breeds and that human specified queen genetics don't truly implicate or guarantee good or bad traits.

Personally, I believe that increased genetic mixing generally promotes a stronger population. Honey bees of a colony are genetically identical. If a new queen is fertilized by a brother drone, there are no new genes and another identical colony may grow. Part of me wants to believe that a lack of honey bee genetic mixing contributes to some of the aliments we see in modern hives. The long lifespan(years) of the queen honey bee and identical colony could reduce genetic mixing. The controlled nature of conventional bee keeping (swarm prevention) may also prevent some genetic mixing. Are bees dying because the world is over? Are modern bee keepers a little too anal compulsive and/or controlling for honey bee style? The several native (annual, greater gene mixing) bee species don't reportedly suffer from all the troubles(nosema, mites, CCD) of the captive (perrenial) honey bees. Any thoughts on this?