I recently heard a fascinating account of the genetic make-up of Europeans which, I think, might be pertinent to bee breeding. I know I am thin ice here but I would be grateful if the geneticists amongst us would try to follow my logic and comment.

According to this programme Homo sapiens were closely enough related to Neandethals to interbreed. I always thought that the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring was an indication that the two individuals were of the same species. A horse and a donkey can interbreed and so can a lion and a tiger but in both cases the offspring are infertile. However, according to the radio programme this principle is not clear-cut and there can be degrees of fertility in the offspring which indicates the closeness of the 2 species of parents. Apparently those of us with certain Neanderthal genes are less fertile than pure Homo sapiens. These days we have up to 6% Neanderthal in us but this was formerly much higher. Over the generations those with the most Neanderthal have been less successful (fertile) than others and so the Neanderthal genes in the population is slowly declining.

Now we come to bees. I recently read a report on a study of pure carniolans and pure Amm bees in Poland. They allowed virgins of each race to fly in areas where the drones were pure but mixed. When they studied the genetic make-up of the next generation they found that the carniolan queens were laying mixed-race eggs but the Amms were laying pure Amm eggs. Hence they concluded that the bees were somehow being selective. This has been witnessed here, admittedly not in scientific studies, and all sorts of isolation mechanisms have been dreamed up for this such as apiary vicinity mating, cold weather mating etc. If my memory serves me correctly I think the Polish researchers guessed that it could be a mechanical thing such as genetalia sizes. I will not enlarge on that but it seems size does matter and smaller is sometimes better.

Additionally there seems to be a lot of talk about reasons why much of the sperm found in spermatheca is dead these days and people are guessing it's to do with varroacides.

Could it be due to the fact that queens of certain races are unable to support the sperm of foreign drones once deposited in their spermatheca? Perhaps carniolan queens can keep the sperm of Amm alive but Amm queens can't keep carniolan sperm alive. All this could be due to the fact that the two races are almost different species. They have probably been separated for millions of years, perhaps far longer than the separation of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals (whatever species Neanderthals are).

It means that in a mixed population some races are more successful than others because so much of the sperm in their spermatheca is alive. Other race queens are quickly superseded because they start with fewer viable sperm due to the fact that many of them are dead or useless but occupying valuable space. If this lot is true all sorts of breeding strategies can be worked out from it.

Is this another of my mad ideas or has it got legs? Are the PC police on their way?