A reduction in the population is never a good thing. Is this some sort of neo-eugenics viewpoint? Pruning the population will not create some sort of super-bee. That's not how it works.
It will enhance whatever qualities are being selected for, but it will reduce the genetic diversity in the population, making it vulnerable to a hole raft of new diseases and disorders.
Ideally what you want is for the genetic variant that protects against a specific disease to be already within the population and for that variant to simply spread, without any population loss. If you're losing population, that is a BAD thing. That means things are happening too quickly and you're in for a world of hurt in the long-term.
Your genetic variant is positive for what?
If you select for resistance to CCD, other characteristics can (and will) vary negatively. Organisms have a finite amount of energy to grow and breed. If increased energy is channeled into one particular characteristic, then there is less energy for other characteristics.
Eugenics is a philosophy that suggests human breeding should be controlled to select for favored features. It's disfavored for a variety of obvious reasons that connect to our principals about the unique value of human life.
Honey bees are livestock. Livestock has been selectively bred for millennia, and discussions of long-term genetic selection among honey bees is not an indicator that participants believe in eugenics.
There was no question. It was a statement.
> Yours is a needlessly inflammatory response ...
I'm sorry, but what word would you use to describe the theory that selective pressures that decimate a population will eventually result in a superior specimen?
It may be inflammatory, but that's the only word that came to mind.
See also "unnatural selection" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIeYPHCJ1B8
It's no big deal. Helpful tip for future reference: avoid calling people eugenicists.
If you are incapable of it, then eugenics was the right word to use, regardless of your sensibilities. It was not my intention to offend, but to accurately identify. If you have a better word for it, I would certainly like to hear it.
Again: What word would you use to describe the theory that selective pressures that decimate a population will eventually result in a superior specimen?
But ancestor post is also presuming that it is possible for bees to acquire genetic resistance to CCD. As we are not entirely certain about the exact mechanism involved, which may or may not have something to do with pesticides, chemicals in HFCS, dietary deficiency disease, or mites, it's hard to say whether any random mutation could protect against CCD without also making the colony unable to reproduce. For instance, if CCD is caused by a dietary deficiency, a colony is very unlikely to spontaneously acquire the ability to synthesize the missing nutrient, unless the species lost that ability at some point.
For instance, it is far more likely that humans could re-acquire the ability to synthesize ascorbate than it is that we might spontaneously gain the ability to synthesize our own omega-3 fatty acids. E. coli evolution experiments show it is possible, but the selection pressure has to be maintained over thousands of generations.
Applied human brainpower to the specific mechanisms of the threat is going to cure CCD much faster than bee breeding, which in turn is faster than natural bee evolution.
The only good behind the pruning of the population is that it is scaring the human agricultural industry into investing resources to stop further losses.