Bees do drift a great deal - and not just within the apiary. Of course, if you have mostly the same type of bee in your area then you might not notice the interlopers!
Yes, I was puzzled by Roger's tests - especially as he intervened manually thus, I would suggest, invalidating the whole thing. I have repeated the tests, with better control, but the errors are similar. I agree that the errors introduced by the scanner (there are none introduced by the software) are not significant, although it is possible to produce some quite large errors by incorrect placing of the landmarks. For me, the most important thing is the grouping.
My selection is based on a whole raft of traits (some would say too many!) and morphometry is just one more tool in the box; and because of the time required it is the last tool to be used and then only on colonies that look promising.
I had not seen the Moritz paper. I did not see it as trying to invalidate wing morphometry, rather trying to show that the German breeding programme has failed.
Of course, our aims are very different to those in Germany - we are trying to eliminate the exotic species - not our native bees! Certainly shows that we have an uphill struggle on our hands.
I did not follow Richard Bache's posts as I found his attitude rather unpleasant.
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