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🧬 Marker-Assisted Selection: DNA Tools for Honey Bee Breeding

How microsatellites and SNP markers let breeders verify parentage, track disease-resistance genes, and select traits in honey bees before they ever appear in the colony.

Entomology & Insect Behaviour3DModerate60 FPS

A rotating DNA double helix marks the genotyping assay while a live honey bee pedigree — one queen, a drone pool, and eight daughters — shows how a single marker locus lets breeders sort favourable genotypes before any trait is ever observed in the colony.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Each daughter inherits one allele from the queen and one haploid allele from a drone. Colour-coded genotypes (green/amber/red) show exactly what a marker test would report, and raising selection intensity culls low-scoring daughters before they can be observed as adults.

🎮 How to Use

Pick a marker type, set the drone pool's favourable-allele frequency and the selection intensity, then click Advance Generation to mate the best daughter forward and watch the pedigree and glowing marker locus update.

💡 Did You Know?

Because drone bees are haploid, they carry only one copy of each allele — making marker genotyping in honey bees unusually unambiguous compared with diploid livestock breeding.

⚙ Under the hood

An interactive Three.js scene pairing a glowing DNA double helix marker locus with a live honey bee pedigree — sliders for drone-pool allele frequency and selection intensity drive real Mendelian inheritance that colors each daughter bee's genotype and lets you advance generations to watch selection concentrate a favorable allele.

geneticsbreedingdna-markersmarker-assisted-selectionvarroa-resistancequeen-rearing

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install