Naturally bred queens and races

[MsCarol]

I am the queen of off the wall questions, so please be patient with me,

Rattling around in the archives answered my question that different races of honey bees can cross. OK, if a queen mates with several drones in her mating flight, what is the results if she should mate with two different races of drones?? Won't the hive members show differences depending on who "dad" is?

Has anyone seen this in their own hives??

[OldMech]

Yes.. I believe they will mate with up to 14/15 different drones, so in effect, there will be that many different fathers.  I have bees in a single colony that go from the brilliant yellow of the local feral bees to all black stripes with no yellow, and everything in between. it can be seen just watching the landing board of your hive entrances.
   I am of the opinion that this is a good thing. The genetic diversity is what will eventually allow us to make bees that can resist the problems that currently plague them.
   I also have some hope that it is this diversity that will protect us from the AHB. The AHB will continue to move north, but to do so it has to adapt, breeding with local bees.. with luck, our local bees will DUMB down the aggressiveness, and eventually the genetics will reverse, and start moving south with calmer bees...   No scientific data for this, just a personal hope that in 15 years I don't have to deal with aggressive AHB.

[Michael Bush]

>Won't the hive members show differences depending on who "dad" is?

Yes.

>Has anyone seen this in their own hives??

All the time.  I don't think I've ever NOT seen it in one of my hives...

[Joe D]

When I got my bees, there were some that were mostly black, and some that were just Italian.  Last year I bought one Cardovan Queen, now you can see a little influence of her in all my hives (5).  I think crossing is a good thing.
Good luck to you and your bees.



Joe

[sc-bee]

Yes

And on a side note. If mother mates with AHB drones and she is Italian, the genetics of the AHB drones may show up when the Italian queen lays her eggs. The reason I mention this is, later if the hive requeens itself and some of the queen cells pulled are from the AHB trait eggs that queen could possibly hatch before the Italian influence cells because AHB queens hatch earlier. This is one way AHB spreads itself rapidly.