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Thread: Your gallery of 2D plots

  1. #11
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I only have the one apiary. I take drone brood from preferred colonies and put it in others where I don't want them making drones.
    This year I am hoping to link up with Ulster Bee Improvement Group.
    Their mating apiary is only 7 miles from me and they have some Galtee queens so I hope to take some of my Apideas there. Some of my queens probably come into contact with those drones anyway given the relatively short distance involved.

    Gavin - maybe you could make a few comments about the dangers of inbreeding and steps you can take to avoid it. I know there are also caveats attached to selecting on DrawWing plots alone.

  2. #12
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Hi Guys

    I suspect that Jim knows what he's doing. The risks of inbreeding are real but are sometimes exaggerated. Eric may have an opinion on that subject! If Jim's five unrelated queens really are unrelated ... then they may carry all of the diversity available in the region.* Building up from five unrelated queens to a larger population would be wise, as each generation offers a bottleneck particularly on the male side and you have one generation to convert all that diversity stored in the queen's spermatheca into the next generation of queens.

    cheers

    G.

    * One queen has 2 alleles at the sex determination locus csd herself, and will carry sperm from maybe 10 drones. If the drones come from a well-mixed population then in one hive you can have most of the alleles in the whole local area (2+10 in theory).

    However that queen will only produce drones with the two alleles she carries. Only her daughters benefit from that diversity she holds in her spermatheca. So start from 5, but try to go to many more queens in the next generation. Then you'll have a sustainable population. Of course you are probably not that isolated so diversity will come in each year from other males each year.

    Have I lost everyone now?!

  3. #13
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I suspect that Jim knows what he's doing.
    I am sure he does, it's me I was worried about!
    My queens are probably quite closely related as I built up from 3 colonies and a swarm I collected.
    I like the idea of bringing in some fresh blood/genes/alleles whatever, from good AMM stock.

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    Hi Gavin/Jon

    Good example and no you have not lost me. Inbreeding is in my opinion a bit over exaggerated but good on Eric for making people aware of the possibility. I have experienced pepper pot on sealed brood however it was due to the age of the Queen (she was into her 3rd year and starting to fail). If I was to suspect inbreeding I would just bring in new queens from other beekeepers on the Peninsula. At present there are 10 beekeepers and about 35 -40 colonies. All have been checked with Drawwing and show various amounts of AMM charateristics. Our long term aim is to have the Rosneath Peninsula a pure black AMM area and to produce AMM for other beekeepers (We have a few years to go yet!)
    Jon, my day job is working on large scale human population genetics and I am familiar with molecular biology techniques. As an academic excercise I extracted Genomic DNA from a bees head over one lunch break, however I need to find somebody to put the DNA through their DNA analyser as all our equipment is set up for human studies.

    Jimbo

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Two geneticists on the one forum then - good to have the expertise here.

    I extracted Genomic DNA from a bees head over one lunch break
    That made me laugh. Most people have a sandwich.

    Out of curiosity, How do you use DNA to determine AMM purity. Are there particular sequences which are known to be reliable markers for AMM or how does it work in practice?

  6. #16
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    Hi Jon,

    It is quite complex to explain. Basically quantify your extracted DNA, dilute to the required concentration for PCR reaction, which makes lots of copies of the DNA sequence you are interested in and separate the bands either using gel electrophoresis or a DNA sequencer ( if you have a spare £3/4 M)
    It may sound simple but there is a lot of work in getting the conditions correct to make it work, therefore it is best to send it to somebody who has already set it up and does it as routine.

    Jimbo

  7. #17
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    ... and yes, there are some bits of DNA which people can use to determine racial grouping. SSRs (simple sequence repeats aka microsatellites) have been used for this - they have the property of getting slightly longer or shorter than most stretches of DNA relatively quickly. Make a mix of a few of the ones known to differ between bee types, and Bob's yer Uncle! (I think).

    G.

  8. #18
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    So who does this sort of analysis in the UK?

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Leeds? York? Can't remember but there is a lab somewhere in England doing this I believe. We had a PhD student in our lab (not my student) looking at the csd locus in other hymenopterans. We hooked up with her supervisor (in Dundee University) and others for a proposal for the Insect Pollinators Initiative, but didn't get anywhere with it.

    Anyone with a DNA lab and access to a sequencing or genotyping service could do it if they had the funds.

  10. #20
    Banned Stromnessbees's Avatar
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    Gavin, do you mean funds like this one?

    http://www.hlf.org.uk/news/Pages/Fun...ityin2010.aspx

    Surely our Amm would count as part of our biodiversity?

    Doris

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