Rate this bumblebee.

[rabernet]

I have to disagree with you on that. Selective breeding is a gamble, not a gurantee. And nor does it increase the chances significantly. For instance: just because you buy 1.1 pied (high-white) then you're not guranteed to get offspring that has 85 - 95% white on their body. It is a gamble and just because the parents are nice then that doesn't mean that the offspring is going to look even better than them. It varies through generations. One day you're lucky and vice versa.

I've got a few grown-up G-stripes - females of course. One of them has some partial breaks here and there on her stripe, and yet her parents had complete fading stripes. I don't care about that as long as the genes are what they're supossed to be, and that the animal in question is healthy and works fine.

You can try and stirve for perfection but it is so unlikey that one may have the champion of for instance pastels. Some like blush while some like clean. Some like reduced while other like busy. Some like bright while some like dark. As long as the owner is satisfied then he/she shouldn't care about people opinions.

Would you rather pick the handsome looking but poor feeding VPI axanthic or the average looking but terrific feeder VPI axanthic? Health and genes come before looks in my world.

Sorry - but I have to disagree with YOU. That thinking is exactly why there are so many ugly dog turd brown pastels out there that look like normals? Because too many breeders cared more about producing as many pastels as they could, regardless of selectively breeding them to the brightest and nicest normals that they could.

We all know that piebald level of white is random and doesn't have anything to do with selective breeding. It's a pattern mutation.

But color mutations absolutely can be enhanced by working with the best quality animals that you can.

I paid premium dollars for my pastel back in 2006, and he was worth every dime. I've been offered a lot of money since then for him and have turned down every offer.



I selectively bred him to one of my lightest females and produced this girl - who's brighter than he is.



You can't convince me that selective breeding is a wasted effort. It may actually be more ***gasp*** WORK to selectively breed. But my goals are to produce the nicest babies that I can, because that's what I want in my collection.

Ask some of my customers if they had to sacrifice health or feeding issues to get a quality animal. I can't think of a single one who hasn't had their animals pounding food just as hard as they did with me. I don't let them go until they're pounding food.

If you are more concerned with just getting the gene to say you have a pastel (or any other morph) and don't care how ugly it is - more power to you!

Yeah, I'm a wee bit passionate about producing selectively bred quality animals.

To the OP - he may brown out more - but I don't think by a lot. It's a fantastic looking animal!