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In this book, published in 1983 and continuously reprinted, Father Adam addresses one of the crucial problems for every breeder: genetic selection and queen fertilization. This moment is crucial in defining the character, qualities and performance of bees. What are the practical basics of queen selection? Father Adam, in this book born of his very long experience, addresses this question from the roots. In the first part of the book he explains, on the basis of Mendel's laws, the particular workings of genetics in the bee; in the second part he describes what are the practical possibilities for intervention in its characteristics; in the third part he describes breed by breed the characteristics of usefulness and disadvantage to the beekeeper, suggesting crosses and results for constant and lasting improvement. "Our investigations have given us reliable information on the value that each individual breed and each local variety has for selection, on the genetic relationship existing among the different groups of breeds, on the morphological and physiological aspects that distinguish them, and on the extent of their variability. For such decisive details we previously had little or no superficial interest. Yet only this precise knowledge can be the basis for creating crosses or selection by combination that are reliable." "Few beekeepers are able to practice pure selection: the greater number must resort to mixed or crossbreeding, and to some extent to crossbreeding between breeds, whether they realize it or not. These outcross matings between individuals of the same or different breeds are mostly, if not exclusively, random crosses. For the effective study of breeds, however, precise knowledge of their origins is imperative, except when making simple utility crosses. Yet selecting from safe breeding stock and making matings in isolation can provide the beekeeper, without great expense, with all the practical and economic advantages of a pure variety developed at great expense and effort by a specialist." Father Adam