What's the best way to get pure bees when breeding? I had a cultivated princess which was pure as far as cultivated goes, but the life-span was shortest and shorter. The queen that produced it also produced 3 pure drones, but 2 of them were shortest and shorter and the 3rd one was shorter life-span for both. So I put that one and the princess back in to breed again with normal impregnated frames, but I've now got another pure princess shortest and shorter, and the 2x shorter drone has been lost and I've got another shortest and shorter one. What am I doing wrong here please? I want to get them so they're pure and all the info matches. Thanks.
Bee breeding question
- Thread starter baw179
- Start date
There is always luck involved. One thing to remember, if my memory serves right: The resulting bee will pick the left allele from one parent and the right allele from the other parent, but not both times the left one or both times the right one. (If I'm talking bullsh** here and anyone knows better from experience: please correct me.)
Also use 3 Chocolate Frames while purifying, because then everything will be faster (the queen dies faster with these frames).
Also use 3 Chocolate Frames while purifying, because then everything will be faster (the queen dies faster with these frames).
When a mutation happens and you get a new breed, such as Cultivated in this case there is a chance that some of the traits are from either parent and not fully of the new species. I had this same problem when I tried to make Heroic bees, I got the breed but the Heroic effect was not present. What you need to do is get another Common and Hive bee mutation and hope that it includes the Fast Productivity trait. It's all random number generation. That is why I breed in pairs because that gives me more chances to promote the traits I want to see in the new bee. You can set those other cultivated aside and breed them in later if you just need a Cultivated be and don't care about the production trait.
As MilConDoin said once you have the breed you want but the traits aren't stable Chocolate frames help you speed up the process by having the Queen die faster and you can recombine with what traits you want.
As MilConDoin said once you have the breed you want but the traits aren't stable Chocolate frames help you speed up the process by having the Queen die faster and you can recombine with what traits you want.
So there's no way to get this cultivated pair have the same speed on both sides then? Am I understanding that right? I thought that you kept "recycling" them through the apiary and eventually you'll get the best you can, but that's not the case then? And I now need to roll back to another common pair and start over?
I had a good pure cultivated drone to begin with which had 2x shorter, but that got messed up when I bred it with a common cultivated princess.
I'm still unclear at what point in the process you can "recycle" them to get them fully pure with balanced traits and what point you have to roll back to the previous bee and start over. I do have the nessirogaming site bookmarked but it's more of a simple look-up reference for bee species and bee items than a breeding guide unfortunately. If you know of any good breeding guides with all the do's and don'ts I'd appreciate the link.
I had a good pure cultivated drone to begin with which had 2x shorter, but that got messed up when I bred it with a common cultivated princess.
I'm still unclear at what point in the process you can "recycle" them to get them fully pure with balanced traits and what point you have to roll back to the previous bee and start over. I do have the nessirogaming site bookmarked but it's more of a simple look-up reference for bee species and bee items than a breeding guide unfortunately. If you know of any good breeding guides with all the do's and don'ts I'd appreciate the link.
The problem is, in order to purify them, you have to put them through many many cycles. When looking at their genome, you also have to look at pages 2, 3, and 4. (There might be a page 5.) If any single trait is different, your queen will not be pure.
Yeah, that's how I know that they're not pure from looking at the other pages. So you advise recycling them over and over to get them pure rather than rolling back to commons?
But what happens if the cultivated princess is shortest and shorter and the drone is also shortest and shorter? From Mil's comment above "The resulting bee will pick the left allele from one parent and the right allele from the other parent, but not both times the left one or both times the right one." I would surely never get 2x shorter because the right allele can only be chosen once, so it would always be shortest + shorter or vv. ?
Well, technically, the drones will stack even if the traits are shortest shorter. And I am pretty sure traits can be chosen twice.
OK, well I'll try recycling them a few more times as they are with chocolate frames and see if I can get them balanced out. I'll report back in a bit.
whizzball1 you are partially right.
When a hybrid mutates you might get a Cultivated rather than a Common/Forest for instance. During that mutation there is a chance that each trait might either be of the hybrid, or the mutant which in this case is the Cultivated. If you are unlucky you might not get the trait you want. In this case the Fast Production. If you don't see the trait you want you need to keep mutating hybrids until you get the desired traits.
When you "purify" a breed or change a princess over to another type you recycle several drones of the same type. What happens here is when they combine the offspring will have a mixture of the two parents in the traits. When you mix that again with another bee of the desired type you are making a stronger chance of it having that drone's same traits.
A Punnet square helps illustrate this.
X |A | a
B |AB|aB
b |Ab|ab
Say I want to turn a Common bee into a Forest bee
X | Common | Common
Forest | Common/Forest | Common/Forest
Forest | Common/Forest | Common/Forest
This is the first mix now for the second attempt with the same drone
X | Common | Forest
Forest | Common\Forest | Forest\Forest
Forest | Common\Forest | Forest\Forest
Now the Princess has a chance of being either a hybrid or a Forest Princess
This same approach is taken with traits. Hybrids will always be a mix of the traits between the two and by analyzing each bee and mixing the traits you want to carry forward you can ensure you are stacking the random number generator in your favor. But this method will only work with the stats of the parents present. The only time new traits get created such as Fast Production or Heroic effect is when a mutation happens of a certain pair. In the Cultivated instance it is like a 10% chance or something like that when you have a Common/Hive mix.
I hope this explains the difference between mutations and making a stable bee strain. True Pure bees sometimes don't always happen but you get enough of the traits that matter and most apiarists' call it good.
This was a quick explanation and honestly might be easier in a video with better illustrations.
When a hybrid mutates you might get a Cultivated rather than a Common/Forest for instance. During that mutation there is a chance that each trait might either be of the hybrid, or the mutant which in this case is the Cultivated. If you are unlucky you might not get the trait you want. In this case the Fast Production. If you don't see the trait you want you need to keep mutating hybrids until you get the desired traits.
When you "purify" a breed or change a princess over to another type you recycle several drones of the same type. What happens here is when they combine the offspring will have a mixture of the two parents in the traits. When you mix that again with another bee of the desired type you are making a stronger chance of it having that drone's same traits.
A Punnet square helps illustrate this.
X |A | a
B |AB|aB
b |Ab|ab
Say I want to turn a Common bee into a Forest bee
X | Common | Common
Forest | Common/Forest | Common/Forest
Forest | Common/Forest | Common/Forest
This is the first mix now for the second attempt with the same drone
X | Common | Forest
Forest | Common\Forest | Forest\Forest
Forest | Common\Forest | Forest\Forest
Now the Princess has a chance of being either a hybrid or a Forest Princess
This same approach is taken with traits. Hybrids will always be a mix of the traits between the two and by analyzing each bee and mixing the traits you want to carry forward you can ensure you are stacking the random number generator in your favor. But this method will only work with the stats of the parents present. The only time new traits get created such as Fast Production or Heroic effect is when a mutation happens of a certain pair. In the Cultivated instance it is like a 10% chance or something like that when you have a Common/Hive mix.
I hope this explains the difference between mutations and making a stable bee strain. True Pure bees sometimes don't always happen but you get enough of the traits that matter and most apiarists' call it good.
This was a quick explanation and honestly might be easier in a video with better illustrations.
@ Maldroth I didn't really understand it tbh, but I'm thanking you for making the effort nonetheless.
So back to these cultivateds - I put them through again (pure princess, shortest & shorter, with pure drone, shortest and shorter) and I now have a pure princess 2x shorter, and 2 drones both 2x shortest. So they're still not balanced across the family, but each individual bee is balanced, if that makes sense?
Anyway I was thinking to myself does any of this matter? I was only trying to get them pure because DW20 said that this is what you need to do in his LP a few weeks back, but I'm aiming for the diligent and noble for royal jelly so does it matter than some of their traits are unbalanced? I'm thinking that I'll wind up with some more non-pure and unbalanced ones as I start cross-breeding them to get to diligent/noble anyway.
Is there a good bee breeding guide that covers all this stuff?
So back to these cultivateds - I put them through again (pure princess, shortest & shorter, with pure drone, shortest and shorter) and I now have a pure princess 2x shorter, and 2 drones both 2x shortest. So they're still not balanced across the family, but each individual bee is balanced, if that makes sense?
Anyway I was thinking to myself does any of this matter? I was only trying to get them pure because DW20 said that this is what you need to do in his LP a few weeks back, but I'm aiming for the diligent and noble for royal jelly so does it matter than some of their traits are unbalanced? I'm thinking that I'll wind up with some more non-pure and unbalanced ones as I start cross-breeding them to get to diligent/noble anyway.
Is there a good bee breeding guide that covers all this stuff?
Baw179,
when you analyze a bee you will see that you have Active and Inactive traits. From the sounds of it the Active trait of one is Slow and the Inactive is Slowest. Or the other way around. At any rate, the parents produce the same bee every time. That is what we would call a stable strain of bee. So yes for what DireWolf said this would be what he was getting at. Since you are going to use these bees to get the others down the line the stats of them really don't matter as long as you can get them stable and stock up on a couple dozen drones, since you will need them for the other breeds. The fact that a mutation occurs and can add random new stats getting a bee breed truly "pure" doesn't matter as much as getting them stable.
As for guides look in the guides thread of this forum and there are a few in there to cover the basics.
But so far it sounds like you are on the right track beginning bee breeding can be a bit confusing at first don't worry you will get the hang of it. Keep working to get an Imperial bee and Industrious bee and then you can make your Alvearies.
when you analyze a bee you will see that you have Active and Inactive traits. From the sounds of it the Active trait of one is Slow and the Inactive is Slowest. Or the other way around. At any rate, the parents produce the same bee every time. That is what we would call a stable strain of bee. So yes for what DireWolf said this would be what he was getting at. Since you are going to use these bees to get the others down the line the stats of them really don't matter as long as you can get them stable and stock up on a couple dozen drones, since you will need them for the other breeds. The fact that a mutation occurs and can add random new stats getting a bee breed truly "pure" doesn't matter as much as getting them stable.
As for guides look in the guides thread of this forum and there are a few in there to cover the basics.
But so far it sounds like you are on the right track beginning bee breeding can be a bit confusing at first don't worry you will get the hang of it. Keep working to get an Imperial bee and Industrious bee and then you can make your Alvearies.
@ Maldroth I didn't really understand it tbh, but I'm thanking you for making the effort nonetheless.
So back to these cultivateds - I put them through again (pure princess, shortest & shorter, with pure drone, shortest and shorter) and I now have a pure princess 2x shorter, and 2 drones both 2x shortest. So they're still not balanced across the family, but each individual bee is balanced, if that makes sense?
Anyway I was thinking to myself does any of this matter? I was only trying to get them pure because DW20 said that this is what you need to do in his LP a few weeks back, but I'm aiming for the diligent and noble for royal jelly so does it matter than some of their traits are unbalanced? I'm thinking that I'll wind up with some more non-pure and unbalanced ones as I start cross-breeding them to get to diligent/noble anyway.
Is there a good bee breeding guide that covers all this stuff?
Purity matters; stat balance does not when breeding for new species. What is happening when you get a new species is that you have a small percentage chance of specific mutation with each given "hybrid". For example, if you would normally have a Cultivated/Common drone, there is a chance that it will instead turn magically into a diligent drone. Each time a mutation occurs the bees stats are wiped out and a fresh set based on the normal stats for that species get put into the drone. I have a set of 'super' bees with temp_2+humid_2+nocturnal+flyer+max fertility that I use for breeding but every time I get a new species out of them, I have to re-engineer the special traits back in.
As you can tell, having "pure" bees makes it much easier to get the "correct" hybrid for that mutation. So if you want diligents, crossing a Cultivated/Cultivated with a Common/Common will make every offspring into a Cultivated/Common and give you a chance on every offspring for the diligent mutation.
However, you DO want to make a special note of any really good traits, because you will eventually want them. So if you get a "fast" drone, don't just blindly toss it back in for breeding, keep it special so you can breed more when you get a fast princess and trying to isolate out the fast trait with an Extra Bees inoculator. I made the mistake of not doing this with my cultivateds and I had to go back and rebreed common+hive a few times for that mutation even after I'd already gotten my imperials and industrious bees going.
No. Simply no.
When a "side" of a bee mutates, it adopts every trait of the new breed. Sometimes these traits are recessive, and they will appear to be on the right if the mutated side is on the left, but the trait is still actually in the expected place. Occasionally, you will get a bee with both "sides" mutated simultaneously. Such a bee will 100% be the new breed.
While attempting to isolate the breed, you may lose specific traits that were there, but I guarantee they were there at the time of mutation.
Are you 100% sure on this? When I was creating my Heroic bees my first mutation showed up and they didn't have the Heroic effect so I had to force another mutation. I have some other bees that I'm breeding tonight so I can test and confirm that if the mutation comes in on the recessive side you might not get everything. I'm only going off of my personal experience but if it's documented else where I'd love to take a look so I'm not giving incorrect information.
I can say that in weeks, and having gotten all the bees except dyes in my last world, I have never seen a partial mutation.
What probably happened (and I've had the same experience) is that he got a hybrid first, like a Common/Cultivated that was then bred with another hybrid to got the final purebred Cultivated pair. The cultivated traits would have shown up in the second generation hybrids as recessive but been weeded out in the final generation by bad luck.
One thing that really helps with any breeding goal you might have is to get the high fertility. With four drones and a princess in every batch, your chances of getting the genotype you want will be that much higher.