BEES ARE BIODIVERSITY
In the richness of the forms in which the bees has adapted to extremely different environments, there is the genetic heritage useful to help the bees respond to a rapidly changing world.
The Ape Mellifera has evolved by differentiating itself in the subspecies currently known through natural selection, where the maintenance and propagation of the species is and has always been the only goal. All individuals unable to adapt to changing environmental conditions are irreparably doomed to disappear, while those more robust and able to adapt, survive. However, natural selection has never produced animals or plants that meet the needs of breeders and farmers. Some breeders and farmers have thus turned into selectors, and this is how today there are so many "domestic" species, very different from the wild ones they come from.
Inbreeding can be considered as the magic wand of breeding. It is the ideal medium to intensify, stabilize and standardize the desired qualities, and at the same time eliminate or mitigate unwanted ones. It has been used by man for thousands of years in the breeding and selection of all animal and plant species. Even in the vegetable kingdom, nature often makes use of self-fertilization, the most intense form of inbreeding for the reproduction of the species.
In the case of bees, on the other hand, nature innovates in order to avoid inbreeding as much as possible, as shown by the multiple couplings where some can also occur about ten kilometers from the hive.
Speaking of bees, experience always shows that the most serious consequence of an exaggerated inbreeding is a very important reduction of vitality, which touches all the essential survival skills and puts the life of numerous colonies in danger. Although it is an indispensable tool for breeding and selection, for the bees the consanguinity must always be used with the maximum prudence and for the strictly necessary. The catastrophic losses that we hear more and more frequently are often, if not always, the consequence of insufficient vitality. This is a hidden defect, "dormant" but deleterious, which occurs when the climatic and environmental conditions are particularly unfavorable and families with a weaker "constitution" cannot resist. The loss of vitality reduces the constancy with which the nurses take care of the brood, the hygienic and defense behavior, and the combination of these factors increases the sensitivity to diseases. As we have already said, nature works by eliminating unsuitable individuals.
The obstinate search for the pure "race", understood as a group of very homogeneous individuals, not only produces increasingly fragile colonies, but absolutely unsuited to respond and adapt to the changes that have taken place over the last few decades and those that are coming.
However, many beekeepers are terrified of losing the "races" or the local eco-types as they know them (or have known them). They think that the use of other subspecies for the selection of new characteristics, even if indispensable, may in time lead to the loss of particular phenotypes (such as the Ligustica, Carnica, Mellifera, Caucasica, etc.). At the same time, some are under the illusion that certain missing characteristics can be obtained through selection even within a single subspecies. It is clear that selection is useless in the case of hereditary uniform individuals. The intensification and stabilization of qualities, or the elimination of defects and undesirable traits with appropriate selection and targeted mating, are only possible with genetically non-uniform bees. It is not possible to select a different individual, with new features, starting from individuals that are all the same. And you cannot select features that are not present. We need new genes, which can arrive through a mutation (which we do not know if and when it will arrive) or a hybridization with subspecies that already have certain characteristics fixed by natural selection.
But is there really a danger of losing the "races" of bees as we know them? What really happens when we mix different genetics? Simply that we get new combinations of genes, which will manifest themselves through the expression of the characters associated with them. In reality the expression "mix" is misleading, because the hereditary factors transcribed by the genes do not mix like liquids. They remain monolithically intact from one generation to another. The queen bee, in the nature of multiple mating, can be simultaneously fertilized by drones with a different genotype, or with its own. The daughters of this queen will be partly homozygous ("pure" race) and partly heterozygous (hybrid). It is therefore evident that starting from a heterogeneous (hybrid) descent, it will be possible to regain "pure" queens, simply by conducting an appropriate selection.
In an environment that changes quickly, even the bees must change: it is in the richness of the forms in which they themselves have adapted to different environments, that we can find the genetic material to help the bees face the changes.
The Ape Mellifera has evolved by differentiating itself in the subspecies currently known through natural selection, where the maintenance and propagation of the species is and has always been the only goal. All individuals unable to adapt to changing environmental conditions are irreparably doomed to disappear, while those more robust and able to adapt, survive. However, natural selection has never produced animals or plants that meet the needs of breeders and farmers. Some breeders and farmers have thus turned into selectors, and this is how today there are so many "domestic" species, very different from the wild ones they come from.
Inbreeding can be considered as the magic wand of breeding. It is the ideal medium to intensify, stabilize and standardize the desired qualities, and at the same time eliminate or mitigate unwanted ones. It has been used by man for thousands of years in the breeding and selection of all animal and plant species. Even in the vegetable kingdom, nature often makes use of self-fertilization, the most intense form of inbreeding for the reproduction of the species.
In the case of bees, on the other hand, nature innovates in order to avoid inbreeding as much as possible, as shown by the multiple couplings where some can also occur about ten kilometers from the hive.
Speaking of bees, experience always shows that the most serious consequence of an exaggerated inbreeding is a very important reduction of vitality, which touches all the essential survival skills and puts the life of numerous colonies in danger. Although it is an indispensable tool for breeding and selection, for the bees the consanguinity must always be used with the maximum prudence and for the strictly necessary. The catastrophic losses that we hear more and more frequently are often, if not always, the consequence of insufficient vitality. This is a hidden defect, "dormant" but deleterious, which occurs when the climatic and environmental conditions are particularly unfavorable and families with a weaker "constitution" cannot resist. The loss of vitality reduces the constancy with which the nurses take care of the brood, the hygienic and defense behavior, and the combination of these factors increases the sensitivity to diseases. As we have already said, nature works by eliminating unsuitable individuals.
The obstinate search for the pure "race", understood as a group of very homogeneous individuals, not only produces increasingly fragile colonies, but absolutely unsuited to respond and adapt to the changes that have taken place over the last few decades and those that are coming.
However, many beekeepers are terrified of losing the "races" or the local eco-types as they know them (or have known them). They think that the use of other subspecies for the selection of new characteristics, even if indispensable, may in time lead to the loss of particular phenotypes (such as the Ligustica, Carnica, Mellifera, Caucasica, etc.). At the same time, some are under the illusion that certain missing characteristics can be obtained through selection even within a single subspecies. It is clear that selection is useless in the case of hereditary uniform individuals. The intensification and stabilization of qualities, or the elimination of defects and undesirable traits with appropriate selection and targeted mating, are only possible with genetically non-uniform bees. It is not possible to select a different individual, with new features, starting from individuals that are all the same. And you cannot select features that are not present. We need new genes, which can arrive through a mutation (which we do not know if and when it will arrive) or a hybridization with subspecies that already have certain characteristics fixed by natural selection.
But is there really a danger of losing the "races" of bees as we know them? What really happens when we mix different genetics? Simply that we get new combinations of genes, which will manifest themselves through the expression of the characters associated with them. In reality the expression "mix" is misleading, because the hereditary factors transcribed by the genes do not mix like liquids. They remain monolithically intact from one generation to another. The queen bee, in the nature of multiple mating, can be simultaneously fertilized by drones with a different genotype, or with its own. The daughters of this queen will be partly homozygous ("pure" race) and partly heterozygous (hybrid). It is therefore evident that starting from a heterogeneous (hybrid) descent, it will be possible to regain "pure" queens, simply by conducting an appropriate selection.
In an environment that changes quickly, even the bees must change: it is in the richness of the forms in which they themselves have adapted to different environments, that we can find the genetic material to help the bees face the changes.