Data from: Comparison of pooled semen insemination and single colony insemination as sustainable honeybee breeding strategies

Instrumental insemination of honeybees allows for two opposing breeding
strategies. In single colony insemination (SCI), all drones to inseminate
a queen are taken from one colony. In pooled semen insemination (PSI),
sperm of many genetically diverse drones is mixed and queens are
fertilised from the resulting drone pool. While SCI allows for maximum
pedigree control, proponents of PSI claim to reduce inbreeding and
maintain genetic variance. Using stochastic simulation studies, we
compared genetic progress and inbreeding rates in small honeybee
populations under SCI and PSI. Four different selection criteria were
covered: estimated breeding values (EBV), phenotypes, true breeding values
(TBV), and random selection. Under EBV-based truncation selection, SCI
yielded 9.0% to 44.4% higher genetic gain than PSI, but had vastly
increased inbreeding rates. Under phenotypical or TBV selection, the gap
between SCI and PSI in terms of genetic progress narrowed. Throughout, PSI
yielded lower inbreeding rates than SCI, but the differences were only
substantial under EBV truncation selection. As a result, PSI did not
appear as a viable breeding strategy due to its incompatibility with
modern methods of genetic evaluation. Instead, SCI is to be preferred but
instead of strict truncation selection, strategies to avoid inbreeding
need to be installed.