The VDRB Bee Selection Concept 1995

It became mandatory to find a sort of coexistence for both major races in the VDRB territory. In 1995 the VDRB released a bee selection concept which became the basis for rearing bee queens. Its main elements are: Provide high quality bee queens.
Establish safe mating stations for both races of type A. Within10 km around these stations no other bee races are tolerated. Most of these stations are located in mountain valleys with a natural protection by the surrounding mountains. These stations must be populated with selected, morphologically correct bees. Due to the late spring, these stations open rarely before mid June. Establish mating stations for both races of type B.
These stations are not safe. They are very early in spring time ready and are intended for supplying large number of good quality queens. The drone colonies of these stations should be populated with queens from the A stations.
Definition of race standards. The morphologic characteristics are based on Ruttner's definitions. Within the local bee keepers associations queen breeding groups had to be founded in order to coordinate the specific work. Support is provided for education and contributions for queens.

Selection criteria

The quality of the bees shall continuously be improved and adapted to the local conditions. This is done by selecting the larvas for breeding from colonies which satisfy in 2 respects: Bee colony properties Morphologic aspects.
We will take larvas only from colonies, which show good performance in: Docility good comb sitting: bees shall remain quiet, not fly away and/or run to the edges of the combs Colony size and spring development: Reasonable size due to good wintering and good development in spring time. This criterion is not valid for areas in which there is no nectar from the spring blooming. In such areas a colony should only be ready in early summer. Low swarming tendency Brood combs with a compact brood nest, pollen and good food reserves Health: no “chalkbreed” and lowest Varroa load. Last but not least: good honey harvest. Of course one has to be careful and select from colonies without a heterosis effect. Therefore we never select from the best colony, but from those in the upper mean value of the colonies in the same bee house.
Bee queen breeders have checklists on which the properties of the colonies are judged with marks going from 1 (lowest) to 4 (highest). A colony has to reach over the season a mean value of at least 3 for being considered for breeding.
For a final choice, the colony has also to fulfill morphologic criteria. The morphologic properties are taken by measuring 30 to 50 wings and making a statistical analysis in an Excel file as follows: Cubital index: Mean value 1.7 to 1.8
Mellifera typical: 100 %Discoidal and size (Hantel) indexes [see next site: Flügelindex];
2 dimensional graphic presentation according to Kruber [see next site: Flügelindex]
Mellifera typical: > 60%The bees should be dark and the drones black
Combining these two criteria we expect to obtain best heredity of properties and to exclude to select from hybrids and/or miss-matting. Results and continuous progress are very encouraging.