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Author Topic: Genetic engineered queen bee??  (Read 1886 times)

Van, Arkansas, USA

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Genetic engineered queen bee??
« on: August 04, 2017, 08:10:57 pm »
A drone is a haploid creature.  That is a drone bee contains only one half the DNA compared to a queen or worker.  Theoretically, then if a drone egg were transposed (insertion of DNA) with a compliment of "different" dDNA, a fertile queen or worker should develope as the egg would then be diploid.  However diploid drones are known to exist and this is a lethal condition.  However, a diploid lethal drone has two copies of the same DNA from one queen. 

I am thinking of a diploid drone using only half DNA from a queen and the complementary dDNA from a different bee with hygienic qualities.  Not altering the molecular nature of the DNA.  Thus a diploid, just like a worker or queen with different DNA from two individuals.

It is OK to express opinion contrary.  I fully understand a fear of meddling with Mother Nature.  However if we could better control the breeding of honey bees, we could take natural traits and proliferate the offspring.

However, consider we are talking a venomous insect, quarantine would be advisable.   Since I do not have an isolated island close by,,,, I believe I will just text my thoughts: as a retired genetic engineer I was trained very well to consider the outcome, which is not exactly known.  Is venom a quantitative trait, how about aggression??  Transposing a haploid egg might be easier than most of you realize.
This text is made with my iPhone, with autocorrect.  Please excuse typos.
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Offline eltalia

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Re: Genetic engineered queen bee??
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2017, 08:46:00 pm »
For those who do indeed subscribe in faith to a Superior Being, Van...
I could only implore those to worship heavily in efforts to "save our bees"
the day we engineer the stingless Apis.*. :rolleyes:

For the record, I remain in two minds as to engineering a VM 'immune'  strain as there are so many other pests/diseases influencing colonies today, and likely others yet to come.
Put it this way... if in the 50's Man had the ability to geneticly select it is very likely yours truly would not have gotten to suck oxygen!!

Cheers.

Bill
 

Offline Eric Bosworth

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Re: Genetic engineered queen bee??
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2017, 12:02:56 am »
I think I would be more interested in genetic engineering to make them survive winters better. I don't mind getting stung once in awhile

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All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns; that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party. ---Mao Tse Tung

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. ---Benjamin Franklin

Offline little john

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Re: Genetic engineered queen bee??
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2017, 04:44:49 am »
I sit firmly 'on the fence' where such engineering is concerned - and you only have to visualise someone actually perched astride a fence to appreciate just how eye-wateringly uncomfortable adopting that position can be ...

I wear two hats, and frequently swap them over.  One has the word 'clever' written on it, the other is marked with the word 'wise'.

Today I'm wearing the 'clever' hat, because I'm currently working on a method of mass-producing nucleus colonies without ever making a single split, and which has the potential of rendering the package-bee industry obsolete.  From time to time I also get to do work on my Captive Mating Chamber project, which I also do whilst wearing my 'clever' hat.

But then there are other days, when I get to wear my 'wise' hat instead and question whether I should even be working on these projects: should we (over-brained monkeys) even be attempting to take control over natural mating processes which have worked so well for millennia ?  Are other creatures present on this planet only to serve the needs of human beings ?

It's when I begin to direct such questions towards my own modest ambitions that I'm reminded of something which the Nobel prize-winner Macfarlane Burnet said:
Quote
"... the scientific technological materialist approach - which is responsible for our exponential impossibilities - is traceable to the intensely anthropomorphic concept of God in the Judaeo-Christian religions from which our civilization has drawn its central concepts.
In both Graeco-Roman and Oriental religions, animals, trees and rivers could have divine or spiritual significance, as well as humans. The Jewish monotheism quite unequivocally adopted an anthropomorphic God - with all the characteristics of a dominant male tribal chief. Christianity, still further, shifted religion to an exclusive concern with human beings by regarding Christ as a fusion of man and God.
Christianity and the two Judaeo-Christian heresies, as White calls them, of Islam and Marxism are all wholly concerned with man, with interactions between men and with human attitudes toward a personified God, or its equivalent, and a human go-between - Christ, Mahomet or Marx. All three religions are dominated by a faith in perpetual human progress - and a lack of interest in the rest of the living world."

I make a distinction between cleverness and wisdom: cleverness is about solving short-term problems - it's about inventing, the finding of ingenious solutions to any obstacles which present themselves within our lives.  But then there's wisdom: having the ability to forsee the possible long-term consequences of our actions.

We humans are pretty good at cleverness, but wisdom really isn't our strong suite - in particular, we've increased our numbers at the expense of all other creatures on this planet, which we view as being completely subservient to us, in part because of the words written in an ancient Jewish manuscript.  If we can't even control the size of our own human population here on Earth, what right do we have to be exerting control over the population of other creatures ?

Ah well - time to climb back onto that fence again, as I'll be wearing my 'clever' hat for the rest of today ...
LJ
A Heretics Guide to Beekeeping - http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com

Offline eltalia

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Re: Genetic engineered queen bee??
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2017, 09:58:24 pm »

Somehow the seepage of a sense of social failure sometimes grips
that remote corner of the cerebral which holds the "care mode"
as I realise I never got past my sixteenth birtday during which my first drone experience didst play out. Failure as I realise never will I be that white haired bushy bearded pipe smoking sage society demands of ol' furts of note.
The smile has never left my countenance as I mull over those petite white pointers shadowed under a full moon... so very very long ago :-)

Go well...

Bill

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Genetic engineered queen bee??
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2017, 07:37:00 am »
Stingless bees were selected out a long time ago. The problem was that the bees produce so much high quality food that since they could not defend it they could not keep it and hence could not survive.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Online Michael Bush

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Re: Genetic engineered queen bee??
« Reply #6 on: August 07, 2017, 04:52:17 pm »
> However diploid drones are known to exist and this is a lethal condition.  However, a diploid lethal drone has two copies of the same DNA from one queen. 

This is not true.  A diploid drone is caused by a match in the sex determination alleles between the sperm and the egg.  The sperm is from a drone that is too closely related to the queen fertilizing an egg from the queen.  They are not identical, just the sex alleles are.
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
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Van, Arkansas, USA

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Re: Genetic engineered queen bee??
« Reply #7 on: August 07, 2017, 06:51:44 pm »
Mr. Bush: you may have a point.  I remember studying an assay:  queen mated to sons produced diploid drones.  Not 100%, I don't know the %. These diploid drones were canabalized by the workers.  The study was to determine how the workers knew the drone was diploid (lethal.). The study conducted was trying to determine if a scent was produced by the drones.

I well remember the point that inbreeding in honey bees was lethal, a must know if one plans on artificial inseminated (AI) queens.  Your statement is specific "matched sex alleles....." where as I stated generally speaking two matched....  Bush, you remind me of some professor(s) I studied under, specific correction is a good thing.

I had one professor that would go ape on the words "disassociation" vrs "dissociation" they mean different things, go figure.  As a noted speaker and author, Mr. Bush, I understand and appreciate your correction.
Blessings

Online Michael Bush

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Re: Genetic engineered queen bee??
« Reply #8 on: August 08, 2017, 02:26:26 pm »
I know I asked the question of one of the bee scientists whether or not the diploid drones could live and mate and if I remember the answer right  and they said it would be possible if it weren't that the workers remove the eggs and will not raise the larvae.  It was quite some time ago, but I seem to remember that someone had fed some with larval food stolen from larvae in a hive and raised some of the diploid males to maturity.  What they couldn't tell was if they could mate or not.  But it's just an experiment for curiosity sake since the bees won't let them get to maturity anyway.  I suppose the next question is if their sperm is haploid when they are diploid...

It sounds like a fun experiment if I had time.
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
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Van, Arkansas, USA

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Re: Genetic engineered queen bee??
« Reply #9 on: August 11, 2017, 11:24:22 am »
"asked the question of one of the bee scientists "

Would that scientist happen to be Dr. Joe Latshaw??

Online Michael Bush

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Re: Genetic engineered queen bee??
« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2017, 10:07:34 am »
>Would that scientist happen to be Dr. Joe Latshaw??

It wasn't, but he would probably give you the same answer... :)
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
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Offline Acebird

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Re: Genetic engineered queen bee??
« Reply #11 on: August 15, 2017, 09:16:05 am »
Stingless bees were selected out a long time ago. The problem was that the bees produce so much high quality food that since they could not defend it they could not keep it and hence could not survive.
Nature will balance all the human mistakes eventually.
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