Apimondia press release.

[Greengage]

Apimondia announces Open Source License to enable the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Bee Genetic Resources, What does this mean in simple terms?
https://www.apimondia.com/documents/gmo/apimondia_press_release_license.pdf

[gavin]

Interesting. Echoes of issues around crop (and other) plant intellectual property/open access - which impinged on my work in science for many years.

I suppose that this is a laudable attempt to ensure that honey bee genetics remain available to all and not tied up in restrictive ownership issues. It is hard to see how effective it will be, or whether there really is a need for any action like this - but the intention is to ensure that no-one will stop you using or buying any currently existing type of honey bee.

In crops, companies and sometimes academic institutions put money into developing what they saw as superior varieties. Plant Breeders Rights allow for licencing of the sale of seed or plants and so the breeder gets financial return for a defined period. Right away the use by others in breeding was allowed and trade gave the owner a cut. When biotechnology came along, the organisations involved wanted greater control to protect their often greater investment in new technology. Then the GMO wars came along which obscured and conflated public good, commercial greed, corporate control of food systems, resource ownership, real and perceived risk and a whole lot more.

Plant genetic resources were and are still are a hot potato (in a manner of speaking ;)). Who owns stuff - the descendents of indigenous farmers who domesticated the crops, the countries that hosted them, early modern breeders who improved stock, high tech breeders using aids to help breeding, companies developing GMO and quasi-GMO varieties? Who owns genes and products with pharmaceutical value held in collections of genetic resources? Who shares in the spoils from any of this work? Not easy to answer, which is why decades were spent developing international agreements that could never make everyone happy.

Maybe the time is right for something similar for honey bees. There is talk of GM honey bees in some quarters. While I'm not enthusiastic about that it does make sense to at least consider whether all the froth in crop plant circles will spill over to domesticated animals, including our favourite one which does have a tendency to spread its genes around the area quite a bit.

I realise that I've raised issues that usually get consigned to the box under the stairs, so don't be too surprised if this thread goes down there before long.

However, to answer your question, I think that they want to ensure that current types of honey bee get preserved (as in gene banks) and remain available for use without restriction in future. Not sure how they want to tackle the issue of benefit sharing, if at all. In the plant genetics world that would mean originating countries gaining some benefit if, in the future, Global Bee Genetics Corp bred some high value bee that, say, was all the rage in the US commercial beekeeping community. Only the US is always slow to ratify this type of international agreement. For commercial benefit from 'food and agriculture' use of plant genetic resources there would need to be an agreement signed which binds the user to return a small percentage (1% or 2%, something like that) to an international system which returns benefit to donating countries (could be Ireland and Scotland if Amm genes were used). Haven't checked to see if the Apimondia proposal goes that far, but I can't see how that would work without near-global agreements in place. I suspect that for now they just want to preserve and make available genetic lines.

[Thymallus]

IF they ever make transgenic bees that have commercial properties I'm sure it will be reflected in the price of the queens.
Even using conventional breeding techniques LASI seem able to ask £500 for a proven hygienic queen (http://onlineshop.sussex.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=1&deptid=30&catid=144&prodvarid=192). Interestingly they provide no information about their honey gathering abilities. Possibly not good as they are likely to spend a lot of time uncapping and removing. Perhaps better than the groomers whose queens come complete with vanity mirror.:cool:

[Greengage]

Thanks for that info I now understand a little more, I have just finished reading The Botany of Desire by Micheal Pollan.
"very schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: the bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship". I thought it was a fascinating read.
https://www.amazon.com/Botany-Desire-Plants-Eye-View-World/dp/1501245759