Test of mating for a honeybee line of known quantitative characteristics

Drones had been selected for special features of their wing structure. Afterwards they were mated, by means of artificial insemination, with queen carrying similar wing features. The line "Trifolium", bred by this method, showed several characteristics with little variability. Eighteen offspring-queens of this line were placed in a mating-yard, which had no other colonies in a circle of 5.6km diameters, with carefully selected drones. Using the wing-structure as criterion one was able to demonstrate that only queens (15%) had mated with the desired drones, while the remaining queens had mated with drones of unknown origin. In an inbred-line it also might be possible to draw conclusions about the inherance of proboscis-lengh on the basis of wing-characteristics. One has not yet succeeded in the direct selection in drones for outstanding proboscis-lengh