Native Irish Honey bee Society

[Jon]

The inaugural meeting was held earlier this afternoon with about 80 beekeepers from all over Ireland in attendance.
Quite a few of those who made it over to the Stirling Centenary conference were there.

The main aim is to promote the conservation study and improvement of AMM throughout the island of Ireland.

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[HJBee]

That's good it was so well attended Jon.

[Easy beesy]

Heartening to know the interest is there. Hope the initial enthusiasm continues.

[Jon]

Still in its early stages.
Some broad aims and objectives were agreed and a few regional reps for each of the 4 provinces of Ireland were appointed.
There were a couple of commercial beekeepers present who use AMM as their stock and there was quite of bit of comment about the need to control imports of bees from non native races which wreak havoc with their bee breeding.

Micheál Mac Giolla Coda mentioned that there are over 100 beekeepers involved in the Galtee bee breeding programme and he would like to extend that type of cooperation more widely in Ireland and establish more AMM areas throughout the island.

[mbc]

Excellent ! I wish there was similar cooperation and vision this side of the Irish sea.

[gavin]

Totally agree. The Scots should really get together to try something similar. We don't have a strong centre to try this, although for the Varroa-free west clearly Andrew is it. We could really do with a coordinated effort on the mainland to see what is possible. Or is it too late for much of Scotland and we are doomed to stay with unstable mixes and continual imports?

[greengumbo]

Totally agree. The Scots should really get together to try something similar. We don't have a strong centre to try this, although for the Varroa-free west clearly Andrew is it. We could really do with a coordinated effort on the mainland to see what is possible. Or is it too late for much of Scotland and we are doomed to stay with unstable mixes and continual imports?

Do you think this will be exacerbated by the lack of queens mating this terrible wet summer (on the east coast anyway !)and people buying in mated queens ?

I know I had to after two unsuccessful drone layers. I wasn't aware of the implications back then and was pretty desperate. My original queen was a lovely black queen from a local source but after the bought (from a mixed scottish source!) the winter bees are all yellow. I intend to re-queen asap but at the time needed a stop gap to overwinter the colony with sufficient numbers.

The germans have some amazing bee breeding management. Really top notch.

[prakel]

It's nice to see such cooperation between beekeepers. Anything that encourages people to take a personal interest in the breeding of their own bees has got to be of benefit. Of course, only time will tell how many of the membership will actually want to be 'hands on' to push the project forward compared to the percentage that will just like being associated with the idea.

[gavin]

Do you think this will be exacerbated by the lack of queens mating this terrible wet summer (on the east coast anyway !)and people buying in mated queens ?

Definitely, and further influenced by importing packages to make up for too many empty boxes after what is likely to be a bad winter for honeybee survival.

A sanctuary on Colonsay is great, but only a tiny fraction of the effort we should be making to preserve and improve local types. Repeat importing is just unsustainable - but I do understand why people do it, and I've had all sorts in my apiary in the past (and they are mongrelish now).

We should be aspiring to go some way to matching the German effort to improve stocks of honeybee, but in these conservation-minded times doing so with something close to the native bee has to be the way to go. Especially when major bee farmers report that their bees revert to something like a native type over a few years.

But we have very little of that going on - and the word seems to be (sorry if I'm wrong) that even the Moray initiative, sold to funders on the basis of conserving local stocks, is going to be importing Buckfast bees.

[Jon]

Of course, only time will tell how many of the membership will actually want to be 'hands on'

Any group tends to have a mixture of the givers and the takers but this lot is self selecting so I would expect the interest level to be pretty high. Those of us who attended from the north had a 12 hour round trip including the meeting in the middle. There are a lot of competent well organised beekeepers in ROI, much more so than in the North.
As an example, the Galtee group has had an Instrumental Insemination programme for several years now.

This is the II shed here.

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[prakel]

Makes me wonder why there seems to be so little useful cooperation between beekeepers in England.

[Jon]

The mixture of bee races in England will always make things complicated.
The first step is to get a group together so that queens and queen cells can be produced from the best stock and distributed among the members.
Our group in Belfast BKA has been running for two years now and although we still have details to iron out it is going from strength to strength.
We had people attending from two neighbouring associations and are now hoping to cooperate between these three with regard to standardising nuc production for new beekeepers coming through.

With regard to winter losses, why don't people carry a load of nucs through the winter as insurance?
At the end of July I had about 30 mated queens in apideas so I made up a load of nucs for want of a better idea.
I have 20 nucs and 7 apideas overwintering and assuming a reasonable percentage of them come through the winter, that is far more than I need myself for next season.
There should be enough to sort out and replace any of my drone laying queens and maybe even supply a few of the beginners.

People want nucs in April rather than July so overwintering is a good option and also demonstrates that the queen is viable.
Lack of nucs in April is one of the main reasons people turn to imports.

[prakel]

The mixture of bee races in England will always make things complicated.
The first step is to get a group together so that queens and queen cells can be produced from the best stock and distributed among the members.
Our group in Belfast BKA has been running for two years now and although we still have details to iron out it is going from strength to strength.
We had people attending from two neighbouring associations and are now hoping to cooperate between these three with regard to standardising nuc production for new beekeepers coming through.

I'm not sure that the mixture of races is too important -unless we restrict ourselves to trying to maintain one specific race which isn't really an important point from my own perspective. I think that it's best just to try and get good bees which we can manage easily and receive a return from at the end of the year.



With regard to winter losses, why don't people carry a load of nucs through the winter as insurance?
At the end of July I had about 30 mated queens in apideas so I made up a load of nucs for want of a better idea.
I have 20 nucs and 7 apideas overwintering and assuming a reasonable percentage of them come through the winter, that is far more than I need myself for next season.
There should be enough to sort out and replace any of my drone laying queens and maybe even supply a few of the beginners.

People want nucs in April rather than July so overwintering is a good option and also demonstrates that the queen is viable.
Lack of nucs in April is one of the main reasons people turn to imports.

We've discussed this one before. I totally agree. It's by far the best way of maintaining operating numbers AND securing increase as well as being the best way I know of getting first class worker comb drawn -quickly.

I do wonder whether some of the issue may be that people are scared of managing nuclei during the summer months (I may be very wrong here, but I've certainly read comments from various sources which seem to imply that making up and running nuclei is some kind of black art suitable only for the 'expert' beekeepers -who in my experience aren't always as expert as they themselves think!) so there's little chance of them wanting to risk overwintering nucs.

[Jon]

I'm not sure that the mixture of races is too important -unless we restrict ourselves to trying to maintain one specific race which isn't really an important point from my own perspective.

You are probably right. I think any mix will settle down over time as long as new genetics is not introduced all the time in an uncontrolled way. I cannot believe that any population of bees in England is lacking in genetic diversity given the amount of queens imported over the years. It would be easier to start with one type and stick to it although that is probably not realistic in most places in England.

[Dan]

I think this is a very interesting thread, and a very positive initiative. I continue to be impressed by how organised and cooperative the Irish beekeepers are, and how queen raising is apparently instilled in beginners as just part of the work of the season. I don't want to read too much into the very scant details I have heard, but I am unsure how this sits with BIBBA. With such an overlap of objectives it could be concluded that the Irish might want to focus on their own activities rather than those of a broader umbrella group.

There's a motion sculling around in BIBBA that was raised at this spring's AGM, relating to amending its purpose to include, where suitable AMM stocks are not available within an area, breeding from the best of the local stocks towards 'native' characteristics. This caused significant debate and I'm still not sure quite where it's got to in terms of committees and wording amendments and actually voting for or against. Some understandably saw it as totally against the ethos of BIBBA; I saw it as constructive and pragmatic, and therefore commendable.

[Black Comb]

There's a motion sculling around in BIBBA that was raised at this spring's AGM, relating to amending its purpose to include, where suitable AMM stocks are not available within an area, breeding from the best of the local stocks towards 'native' characteristics. This caused significant debate and I'm still not sure quite where it's got to in terms of committees and wording amendments and actually voting for or against. Some understandably saw it as totally against the ethos of BIBBA; I saw it as constructive and pragmatic, and therefore commendable.

Two thoughts
1. BIBBA have not exactly been proactive in making AMM stocks available, even as "starters" to get a group going.
2. Terry Claire must have trained hundreds of us to rear our own queens so,I presume he agrees with the above.

[Dan]

1. BIBBA have not exactly been proactive in making AMM stocks available, even as "starters" to get a group going.

Aye - and that's after a nearly 50 year history. They still appear to be at the proposal stage with much of the advanced stuff. Good ideas, like posting virgins for mating, but still just proposals. What the GBBG have achieved in 20 years appears a lot more tangible by comparison, principally because material is apparently readily available to those who request it.

[Jon]

The Galtee group produce plenty of queens but only distribute them in Ireland.
That makes sense - as if you want to improve your background drone population there is no point in distributing queens here there and everywhere.
The holy grail of bee breeding is to have a situation where open mating from queens grafted off your best stock should give good results.
The Galtee queens really are very good. I have not bought one myself but I have introduced 3 daughters over the past 3 seasons and been very happy with their grafted offspring.
They are very good tempered which gives the lie to those who repeat the mantra about black bees putting you out of the garden.
Any bee race should give good results if you breed from the best and avoid crosses with other races.
I can never understand why people buy in queens of different races and strains every year. You will never get anywhere with bee breeding if you do that. You need to pick one race or strain and stick with it and try to ensure that all your beekeeping neighbours are working with the same race. That's why it is better done through an association or a breeding group as opposed to an everyone for himself attitude. The other thing is, trying to browbeat people will not work as there is no law against importing and no law against keeping any race you want. The trick is to win people over by letting them see that your bees are better than theirs.

[Jon]

The Irish Native Honey Bee Society
Apis mellifera mellifera
By Aoife Nic Giolla Coda, P.R.O.

The gathering in Portlaoise on Sunday 25th November turned out to be a momentous occasion. It was the inaugural meeting of a society which was to be named on the day - ‘The Native Irish Honey Bee Society (Apis mellifera mellifera)'. The room was overflowing with people. This very much demonstrated the general desire for its establishment. The number in attendance was just a fraction of those around the country interested in the formation of this organisation.

Without taking away from the important developments and decisions which were made at the meeting, the whole area of what name would be givern to the new organisation, caused a bit of controversy. Suggestions from the floor consisted of variations of the final name. After much discussion and a bit of consternation, it came to a vote and the final name was decided upon.

The Acting Chairperson, Pat Deasy and Acting Secretary Colette O'Connell were elected Honorary Chairperson and Honorary Secretary respectively. They did an excellent job for the rest of the day, which would prove to be both interesting and informative with plenty of contributions from the floor. Sean Ó Fiannachta was elected Honorary Treasurer and Aoife Nic Giolla Coda was elected Honorary PRO.

The aims and objectives were decided upon and finalised:

Aims
To promote the conservation, study, improvement and reintroduction of Apis mellifera mellifera, (Native Irish Honey Bee), throughout the island of Ireland.
To establish areas of conservation throughout the island for the Native Irish Honey Bee.
To promote the formation of Bee Improvement groups.
To provide education on bee improvement and to increase public awareness of the values of the Native Irish Honey Bee.
To act in an advisory capacity to groups and individuals who wish to promote the Native Irish Honey Bee.
To co-operate with other bee-keeping organisations with similar aims.
To seek the help of the scientific community and other stakeholders in achieving our aims and objectives.

Objectives
- To help establish areas of conservation throughout the island to preserve the Native Irish Honey Bee.
- To liaise with bee-keepers with a view to establishing bee improvement groups.
- To advise and encourage bee-keepers to promote our aims and objectives.
- To establish a website which promotes our aims and objectives with links to organisations promoting similar aims and objectives
- Where possible to provide information, leaflets, press releases etc.
- To provide information as to where local improvement groups are established.
- To provide information about ongoing events.

A programme for 2013, was established which includes, bee improvement workshops, queen rearing, provision of nuclei, recruitment of members, vigilance of imports into areas particularly possible conservation areas and publicity.

A Steering Committee was elected with representatives from each province. There was no shortage of nominations put forward and in some provinces the amount of committee positions was extended four and five. The committee consists of the following:

Ulster: Jonathan Getty, David Dumican, William Blakely

Connaught: Pat Finnegan, Mary Hyland, Gerard Coyne, Sean Osborne

Munster: Jerry Cronin, Liam Rice, Frank Considine, Micheál Mac Giolla Coda, PJ Curran

Leinster: Eoghan Mac Giolla Coda, John Summerville, Kieth Pierce, John Morgan

The committee would urge those interested, to join - whether they are a member of a local bee breeding group, an individual beekeeper interested in breeding or just someone with an interest in conservation of Apis mellifera mellifera. There is power in numbers and it is essential that these numbers demonstrate their support for the various local strains of the Native Irish Honey Bee, (Apis mellifera mellifera) which is under threat and always will be under threat due to potential importations from around the world. This is also the position in a few other regions in Europe which still retain their owns strains of Apis mellifera mellifera. The society is open to all - whether they are a member of a beekeeping association or not. It is also an All-Ireland society - open to beekeepers from Northern Ireland. The society also hopes to form a good relationship with other national and international beekeeping organisations including FIBKA, UBKA, BIBBA, and SICAMM.

From morphometry results carried out by Galtee Bee Breeding Group of over 1000 representative samples taken from nearly every county in Ireland, it has been proven that there are large populations of the Native Irish Honey Bee throughout the island of Ireland. Through the DNA samples carried out by Copenhagen University in 2000, it has been proven that we have a variety of strains of the Native Irish Honey Bee. Preserving these various strains throughout the country is of the utmost importance for the sake of future generations. We know that their traits are adapted to our environment and essential for the longterm sustainability of the honey bee in Ireland. To lose these traits in the future due to being overwhelmed by imported strains of honey bee would be devastating. Through the formation of this society, another step has been taken in its conservation and improvement. Membership is 20 euro for the year. If you wish to join, contact the secretary Colette O' Connell, Email: irishnativehoneybee@yahoo.com

[Poly Hive]

Good luck to the Irish and yes they seem very organised.

In Scotland though there is a major problem namely Perthshire mainly. There is a concentration of Bee Farmers there and they will continue to import I suspect for valid financial reasons.

Being blessed with numerous islands a breeding program should be more than feasible.

BIBBA. A complete waste of space.

PH

[Jon]

We had another committee meeting yesterday.

There is a facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Native-Irish-Honey-Bee-Society/523689337655182) with a few photos

[madasafish]

Good luck to the Irish and yes they seem very organised.

In Scotland though there is a major problem namely Perthshire mainly. There is a concentration of Bee Farmers there and they will continue to import I suspect for valid financial reasons.

Being blessed with numerous islands a breeding program should be more than feasible.

BIBBA. A complete waste of space.

PH

Aftr my first year beekeeping, I thought that native bees were the way to go. I found BIBBA a waste of time.. Why bother trying to reintroduce AMM if you have no queens available.

Way to go is flood England with free - or cheap AMM queens in my view... (Ain't going to happen)

[Jon]

I don't agree that Bibba is a waste of time but there is definitely a demand for AMM queens which is not being met.
Bibba tries to promote the establishment of queen rearing groups and that is the best way to get queens in volume.
If you graft from a couple of different queens every year you should be able to produce some decent stock.
But if your surrounding population is mainly Buckfast or Carnica or some sort of a mixture there is no point in working with AMM unless you intend to requeen on a regular basis to avoid hybrids.

You could try and rope in a few of your neighbouring beekeepers and get a group going.

[drumgerry]

Don't quite know why I haven't caught up with this thread yet but here goes.

I think it's pretty easy to attack BIBBA as not having done enough. The answer is simple - if you want native queens get together with a few like minds, pool your resources and rear them yourselves - Jon manages to do it in Belfast so why not elsewhere?

I'd imagine in most of Scotland we have native-ish queens as a general rule. Certainly here in Moray and from my knowledge of Aberdeenshire most of the queens I've seen are dark. Whether they're AMM-based dark queens could be easily found out although I suspect most are.

Some of you may know that we're about to hold an inaugural meeting here in Speyside for a new association - Spey Beekeepers Association. It's my fervent hope that, in our constitution, we take a stance against imports and make the rearing and improvement of native queens our central founding principle. To my mind it's the only sensible and sustainable way forward for beekeepers who operate in our marginal Highland climate. It's going to be a struggle I suspect especially when just down the road Moray Beekeepers have £40K+ to play with and have decided to provide their beginners course participants in 2013 with a nuc headed by a Buckfast cross queen from Ged Marshall. Quite the opportunity missed if you ask me to make a real difference.

But all we can do is the best for our own members (assuming we get any at the meeting on 30th January!). I don't see why other associations in Scotland can't do the same. Queen rearing isn't rocket science!

[Jon]

Murray McGregor always says that Buckfast do not do well in Scotland and he has tried them in the past, so maybe your local problem will sort itself out sooner than you think.
Heaven help the beginners 2 years down the line when they have Buckfast origin stock hybridised with black drones. Might need to spend a good chunk of that 40k on body armour.

[drumgerry]

I'm not going to bank on it Jon. Just have to do our best with what we do. I have a dream (just call me MLK!) that one day we'll have a network of queen breeders/groups/associations all working towards the same end - which is an improved native bee - and that we can trade genetic material for everybody's benefit. Pretty much what your new Irish organisation is trying to achieve. But at least you lot are heading down the road. We haven't even opened the route map!

[Peter]

Hi Everyone

As a BIBBA committee member I feel that I ought to respond - but note that this is not an 'official' BIBBA response.

I have been a BIBBA member for many years and was also a little disenchanted; it seemed odd to join an association that simply told you to go and breed from the best of what you could find locally. Problem was that here in the Midlands there was not a great deal of good material available, so I was looking to BIBBA to help me find something better to help augment the gene pool. At that point I found that BIBBA tended to fall into two camps - one that was totally against 'importing' from other areas, believing that silk purses could be made from sow's ears, and the other who felt that we would never live long enough to make significant progress unless we could find some decent genetic material. At that point I joined the committee so that I could see what was going on, and also contribute what I could.

For so many years, BIBBA seems to have been paralysed by endless wrangling over these issues. Progress has been made in setting up local breeding groups and they are seen as key players in making further progress. Locally, we have a number of interested members who are working hard to multiply up what we have been able to obtain through various contacts and we working hard to flood areas with good drones. All good stuff, but we still need better genetic material to enlarge the local A.m.m. gene pool.

Perhaps few people realise that BIBBA has undergone some radical changes on the past couple of years with some fairly major changes on the committee. Project Discovery is at last making progress in identifying the location of good stock and we are working with top players at the NBU and Universities, and with a major sponsor.

All this should improve the availability of quality A.m.m. stock in the near future. This is likely to be made available to our Breeding Groups who will then have the task of multiplying it up and making it available to others. Clearly, the first task will be for chosen groups to ensure that they flood their own area to ensure good mating and I guess that some may use instrumental insemination to aid their work.

These are exciting times for BIBBA - a major breakthrough after so many years of non-achievement. So, for all the doubters out there I would say, just stop running BIBBA down, give us a chance to get this right, and if you can help then please join in - you might find it more rewarding than just moaning.

[drumgerry]

I couldn't agree more Peter. I sometimes think people expect to have the work done for them and enjoy having a moan at the easiest target in this area - BIBBA. The reality is that we, as beekeepers, have to do the work ourselves.

It sounds like BIBBA are doing a lot behind the scenes. You just have to blow your own trumpet a bit more. I think that communication with the wider beekeeping world is one area that I would suggest BIBBA could improve. To that end is there any prospect of the website being modernised? If so please incorporate a regularly updated news section. Static websites went out with the ark!

[Jon]

A lot of the people having a dig at Bibba are using imported queens - and it seems to me that having a pop at Bibba for not having native queens on tap is a convoluted way of shifting the blame for the possible consequences of their own actions.

If beekeepers get together to form local breeding groups it is straightforward to produce a lot of queens.
You need one or maybe two queens to graft from and a site with drone colonies where you have a reasonable chance of getting good matings.

You don't need dozens of queens to start off.
In year one you graft from a pure race queen and requeen as many colonies as possible with her daughters.
Don't worry about what they mate with as you are only interested in their drones.
The drones these daughters produce will be pure race. (assuming the mother was pure race!)
In year 2 graft from a different queen and let her daughters mate with the drones from the year one queen's daughters.
Requeen everything again and repeat in year 3 with an unrelated queen.
You need one or two queens per year and you don't get inbreeding problems.

PS. Bibba membership was due for renewal on Jan 1st. Just remembered and stuck a cheque in the post.

[Beefever]

At last! BIBBA have been spurred into action by their funders, eh?
I think the Irish idea of leading by example rather than pushing small groups to do it for themselves has proved more workable. I feel the Irish have left BIBBA behind long ago, hence the need for their own society and good look to ‘em. Maybe this will spur BIBBA into pro-action and I won’t have to feel apologetic for being an AMM fancier.

[Peter]

At last! BIBBA have been spurred into action by their funders, eh?
I think the Irish idea of leading by example rather than pushing small groups to do it for themselves has proved more workable. I feel the Irish have left BIBBA behind long ago, hence the need for their own society and good look to ‘em. Maybe this will spur BIBBA into pro-action and I won’t have to feel apologetic for being an AMM fancier.

Far from it! BIBBA managed to get funding for Project Discovery - BIBBA driven, not funder driven.

I agree that the Irish have done well - Micheal Mac has been a shining example - but it could be argued that the rest of us might have done equally well if we had started from the same position i.e. virtually wall-to-wall A.m.m. What luxury that would have been!

BIBBA also played a significant role in helping the Irish in the early days.

[Jon]

Micheál Mac Giolla Coda is still very supportive of Bibba and he makes that clear.
Bibba members get a 10% discount on his queens.

Peter, we don't have wall to wall AMM in the North of Ireland.
Most people around Belfast have swarmy yellowish mongrels and there are still imports of Buckfast and Carnica coming in here.
In my opinion the swarminess is a legacy of bee supply being based on distributing swarms and queen rearing being based on whatever queen cells appear - so effectively there has been a selection pressure in favour of swarmy bees
There was a lot of Buckfast came in during the 70s and 80s and it was being actively promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture at that time.

My stock is a mixture of bees I got from my father, a couple of swarms I collected locally and more recently some Galtee genetics via a couple of swaps.
You have to work hard to keep your stock pure and make sure you have a mating site swamped with your drones.
I have not had to purchase a queen bee yet although I am going to buy some Galtee queens this year for members of the queen rearing group.

[Peter]

Hi Jon

Yes, I know he is very supportive and that is very much appreciated by all of us.

Sorry - was not suggesting that the situation in the North is easy, I was thinking of the huge survey that Galtee did on wing morphometry in their early days - quite an amazing exercise and it showed that there was a great deal of good stock available. I go green everytime that I think of it!

Of course, the situation is probably much the same in large areas of Scotland and in parts of Wales, but the situation in much of England should ring alarm bells for eveoryone.

What I just do not understand is why in parts of Europe the government controls the type of bee kept in certain areas, hence preserving their native stock - yet the UK government seems paralysed into inactivity.

[Beefever]

BIBBA driven, not funder driven.
Thanks for correcting me on that Peter. I’m pleased things are moving in a forwards direction, whoever initiated it.
I must be at the “disenchanted” stage in my membership!
But I won't give up!

[Jon]

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Two of the native bee mafia with the new banner at the UBKA conference at Greenmount.

[brothermoo]

Are they trying to hide behind the banner? :D

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[Jon]

They were hiding behind it and came out when they thought I had finished taking photos.

[keith pierce]

two handsome looking chaps

[gavin]

But we have very little of that going on - and the word seems to be (sorry if I'm wrong) that even the Moray initiative, sold to funders on the basis of conserving local stocks, is going to be importing Buckfast bees.

Well, it seems that I wasn't entirely right there and so I'd like to apologise to the Moray beekeepers. I'm assured that they are intending to breed from local (but not Amm) stocks, and will be buying additional commercial nucs that have a UK origin .... plus Buckfast queens for their association apiary. That last bit in particular I still think is unwise and may ultimately lead to worse (bee!) temper as they mix with other local stocks (and vice versa, as always), but hey!, I'm trying to apologise for implying that the Moray initiative is switching to Buckfast breeding.

[brothermoo]

I'm assured that they are intending to breed from local (but not Amm) stocks, and will be buying additional commercial nucs that have a UK origin .... plus Buckfast queens for their association apiary.

How far from their breeding site is the association apiary? If they have a remote area it might work, bit to what end if they aren't wanting to replace current stocks with local bees?



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[drumgerry]

Well, it seems that I wasn't entirely right there and so I'd like to apologise to the Moray beekeepers. I'm assured that they are intending to breed from local (but not Amm) stocks, and will be buying additional commercial nucs that have a UK origin .... plus Buckfast queens for their association apiary. That last bit in particular I still think is unwise and may ultimately lead to worse (bee!) temper as they mix with other local stocks (and vice versa, as always), but hey!, I'm trying to apologise for implying that the Moray initiative is switching to Buckfast breeding.

I'd be interested to know if Moray are still providing the new beekeepers on their beginners courses with nucs headed by Buckfast queens and sourced from Ged Marshall. Who of course sources his breeder queens from Keld Brandstrup in Denmark and breeds F1 queens from them for sale in the UK. So in effect we have imported bees but one stage removed.

[gavin]

How far from their breeding site is the association apiary? If they have a remote area it might work, bit to what end if they aren't wanting to replace current stocks with local bees?

Don't know the distances, but they plan the buckfasts to be a short-term fix for less than peaceable bees at their association apiary. It concerns me that such short-term fixes can turn into long-term problems (I've experienced that myself from imports made by a neighbour) but perhaps they have a plan for that.


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[drumgerry]

The breeding site is their association apiary unless things have changed since my time. So not sure how they'll avoid unruly crosses.

[brothermoo]

II? Mad
I think here in Belfast we are trying to get as many people involved in queen rearing so as to 1. Increase the overall stock we can breed from but 2. Have the locality flooded with drones of the right make up. Perhaps a map of where beekeepers are would be handy and sightings of congregation zones recorded to pinpoint where best to place mating hives

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[Jon]

sightings of congregation zones
Young Mr Moo. I have witnessed a queen mating right above the site at Minnowburn and several at my allotment site.
I don't know what percentage of queens fly to drone congregation areas but quite a few of mine seem to mate above the apiary itself.

[brothermoo]

I remember you saying that at one point, was that due to bad weather that they were just happy to mate there or is that quite common?
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[Jon]

When I saw this happen the weather was perfect, blue skies and over 20c.
I know Beowulf Cooper says this is supposed to happen in bad weather when queens can't fly to DCAs but that is not what I have seen.
I reckon I have seen this a few times as there are times when I have over 50 virgin queens in apideas so statistically I have a better chance of stumbling upon this than someone with just a hive or two.
You could miss it easily enough as there is a mating swarm with the queen comprised of the contents of the apidea, just a few hundred bees.

I wrote about it at the time (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?579-witnessed-a-mating-swarm)

[brothermoo]

Cool... As they say the bees don't read the books. I suppose we can't all be lucky enough to have matings over our apiary Jon!
Whenever I set up my mating site I shall be expecting to see it :D

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[Dark Bee]

I wonder how DCA's have been effected by the virtual elimination of wild colonies and the reduction in the numbers of colonies kept in hives?
It is quite a few years now since I last heard "a sound of summer".

[Jon]

I wonder how DCA's have been effected by the virtual elimination of wild colonies and the reduction in the numbers of colonies kept in hives?
It is quite a few years now since I last heard "a sound of summer".

No idea but that could certainly be a factor.
A virgin queen mating above an apiary with a dozen colonies in it is guaranteed to have drones present.

[Jon]

DB.
Are you in any of the photos from the Galtee group queen rearing day (http://nihbs.org/?p=487) last Sunday?

[Dark Bee]

DB.
Are you in any of the photos from the Galtee group queen rearing day (http://nihbs.org/?p=487) last Sunday?

No Jon, It was however a pleasure to meet some of your neighbours from Dromore. I recall exchanging pleasantries with the gentleman 2nd from left at the back.


In the photo of Aoife and Pat there is a green hive framed between them. The hive is not in use but if one wished it could be fitted with frames as it is a recognised type.
Who can name this hive and say what type of honey production it was noted for? :cool:

[The Drone Ranger]

Is it a Wormit hive DB ?

[Jon]

That's Willy Blakely a mate of mine in the back row. He is on the NIHBS committee same as myself. Very good beekeeper and queen rearer.
Dromore is the best organised association in the North.
We are trying to coordinate queen rearing and nuc supply between 3 local UBKA associations, Dromore, Belfast and Killinchy.

Don't ask me about hive types. I use nationals and have a scant knowledge of the other stuff on the market.
I think Micheál Mac uses commercials.

[Dark Bee]

Is it a Wormit hive DB ?

NO and a £1 in the poor box please:)

[The Drone Ranger]

NO and a £1 in the poor box please:)
Gracias
I am the poor box recipient
I will spend it on cough mixture :)

Is it something Irish specifically ?

[Jon]

Is it a CDB?

[gavin]

Is it a CDB?

Does have that sort of look about it - but maybe with the sloping sides of the lifts of a WBC. Here's a Congested Districts Board Hive:

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/jpg/cdbhive.jpg

A Cottager doesn't look so different from that either.

[Dark Bee]

Is it a CDB?

Congratulations, you are correct. It is indeed a CDB hive.
The second part of the question is still to be answered; for what type of honey production did it excell, what was it's outstanding feature?

[drumgerry]

Looks an unwieldy beastie! Sorry DB don't know the answer to the question but in the tradition of all the best quizzes I'll offer a mad guess at the production of cut comb as a possibility. Interested to hear of its outstanding feature.

[Dark Bee]

Thank you for trying dg. But your answer is not the one I was looking for. 50p in the poor box please.

[drumgerry]

But sir........don't I get a pass for trying?! And no more guesses from me if it's going to cost me for all the times I get it wrong!

[Dark Bee]

Does have that sort of look about it - but maybe with the sloping sides of the lifts of a WBC. Here's a Congested Districts Board Hive:

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/jpg/cdbhive.jpg

A Cottager doesn't look so different from that either.

The CDB hive has parallel sides, so did the early WBC's - the joints were covered by cleats. I believe it was Taylors of Welwyn Garden City who introduced the sloped sides.
An interesting feature of the CDB is that one can invert the second lift and it will telescope over the first, giving a very low hive to withstand winter storms.

[Dark Bee]

But sir........don't I get a pass for trying?! And no more guesses from me if it's going to cost me for all the times I get it wrong!
You were only docked 50p, one would suspect you had the wit to reflect on why :rolleyes:

[Ruary]

Comb Honeu in sections???