The cordovan color variation does not constitute a different race and is not known to be inherently linked with any other physical characteristic or behavior. In fact, any stock can be transformed to cordovan color in two generations of a cross and backcross to cordovan drones. The effectiveness of the natural mating area can be assessed simply by observing the percentage of cordovan workers in the hives. This quantity corresponds to the percentage of cordovan drones mated with a cordovan queen. The single recessive gene that determines the cordovan color, works on the same principle that blue and brown eye color operates in people.
Every person has a pair of genes that determine their eye color, one from each parent.
Since the brown color is dominant over the blue, if either parent contributes a brown gene, their child's eyes will be brown. Only if both parents contribute the recessive blue genes will their child's eyes be blue. It is possible for two brown eyed parents to have a blue eyed child, but only if they are both carriers of blue genes. Similarly, in bees, only if the queen and a drone she mated with both contribute cordovan genes, will the workers or queens be cordovan. Drones are hatched from unfertilized eggs so they will always be cordovan, if laid by a cordovan queen, since she is the only parent.