Sometimes (like now) Mother Nature allows us to push the edges of the season. The last few months in Victoria have built fat and happy bees that are still carrying drones in late April and will tolerate a few cells being reared. We are taking full advantage of this golden Autumn to shore up replicates of breeding lines!
These drones are from some of the top performing hives in this commercial apiary and we are simply privileged to have access to this hard-working stock. This post is titled "living the dream" because this is the stuff genetic improvement is made of!
On May 20, 2022 I will be speaking at the Victorian Apiarists Association AGM please come if you are able. The talk is titled "Queen Bee Breeding", however, what I will really be sharing is the shortened version (30 minutes) of hundreds of hours of conversation between David and myself about the commercial reality of genuine genetic improvement of our honey bee stocks. If you can't make it, we will record the presentation and make it available here by mid June, so please check back.
I won't spoil the plot, but I can tease this:
Queen Bee Breeding
What is the value of a well-bred queen?
What is Queen Bee Breeding? It is a term widely used in the beekeeping industry but elusively, the definition depends on the context and the specific outcome being referred to. Sometimes queen bee breeding is the process of producing production queens for sale. Other times queen bee breeding requires some sort of controlled mating to maintain breeding lines with the goal of breeding better bees.
Regardless, Queen Bee Breeding is not really what we need to be talking about because the mechanics of raising queens or controlled mating through artificial insemination or alternative process is the simple part, however daunting the processes may seem. The heart of “Queen Bee Breeding” is genetic improvement: deciding what to breed for and measuring progress toward breeding goals.
The real challenge of genetic improvement is how to fit in all of the selection, evaluation, data collection, and replication necessary to validate progress toward breeding goals whilst raising cells, mating queens and chasing honey- the stuff necessary to actually keep a business afloat.
This presentation will introduce the mechanics of controlled mating through artificial insemination, discuss real-world challenges to genetic improvement, and propose a de-centralised approach to bee breeding where profit margin gains can be measured in commercial apiaries.