Hi Jim and All

Inbreeding as an issue has been much exaggerated in some quarters. Sure, if you have a really small number of colonies at an isolated site then you may have problems. However 35 colonies is a big number and the diversity stored in that number could be huge if the founding colonies were also diverse. Just one colony (queen and the sperm she carries) could have most of the diversity present in the area - but take one queen to one daughter and repeat, and you will have serious inbreeding issues.

Queen-swapping could be one of the big benefits of a forum like this.

Jim, in your situation - where you would expect some fairly pure Amm to turn up - I'd rely on wing morphometry as a first means of selection. It is straightforward, and relies on several genes. To do the job properly you might like to follow Peter Edwards' stud book criteria where a range of Amm traits are used. He has done marvellous things with Amm in Warwickshire.

G.