Ah, the tribulations of sticking your head up above the parapet.

You need a thick skin, but it does get tiresome.

Last year I made a proposal for a bee research project, and asked Eric McArthur as organiser of the CABA apiary at the time if he would cooperate in this. He agreed and so I wrote this into the proposal:

'As part of a survey of the degree of genetic mixing of races, the opportunity will be taken to assess diversity at the csd locus, the major driver of reduced fitness in inbred stocks of honeybee. An assessment will be made of progress being made by a beekeepers group in the west of Scotland to counter inbreeding by the exchange of stocks from isolated locations into and out from a shared apiary site.'

It was a small part of a larger proposal, but it shows how seriously I regard the need for diversity at the csd locus (=gene). Didn't get the money of course.

And yet tonight he wrote this in an email to me:

>From: apisscot <eric@XXX.XXX.com>
>To: Gavin Ramsay <diseases@scottishbXXkeepers.org.uk>
>Sent: Tuesday, 7 September, 2010 16:17:31
>Subject: Radio 2 Tuesday 9th Sept 2010
>
>
> Hi Gavin
>
> I saw this and thought of you! Stick with it! One day you
> might just learn something from your more informed and
> open-minded peers! Only a fool would deny the outcome of a
> closed population - as YOU did! No apology required!
> "Facts are chiels that winnae ding"!
>
> Best regards
>
> Eric

He was referring to this news item:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-en...ry_continues_1

and attached to the email was a copy of an article he published first in the Beekeepers Quarterly then the Scottish Beekeeper. I'll let you all see the article which he has kindly scanned for you all (Inbreeding limit&#9.jpg).

So here is the puzzle. Eric's BKQ/SB piece where he lays out his theory for why bees are doomed due to inbreeding (where he insults 'dogmatists', meaning me I think) contains some utter nonsense about the loss of alleles at a crucial locus. Surely it is just commonsense, or do you need a scientific background to see just how flawed his arguments are?

Some background information first. The 'csd' locus is the 'complementary sex determination' gene. If you have two different versions ('alleles') then you are female (if you are a bee). Just one, and you are a (haploid) male from an unfertilised egg. If you have two the same then you should have been a worker but the lack of difference between the two copies of the gene mean that you are functionally male. These 'diploid drones' in worker cells are usually removed at an early stage and are a major drain on the colony.

There is said to be around 19 different alleles of this gene in honeybee populations. So let's go with Eric's 16 different csd alleles, it isn't far from the truth. Perhaps you could also assume that each virgin mates with 15 random drones. Now consider an isolated apiary of 10 unrelated colonies. See if Eric's scheme shows any signs of being linked to reality, and if not where has he gone wrong?

Gavin