New BIBBA website

[drumgerry]

...and forum. Looks nice on first impressions. I'm as bit surprised they haven't announced it to their membership by email.

https://www.bibba.org.uk/content.php

[Jon]

Tried to register 4 times in a row without success.
Did you have any joy?

[drumgerry]

I managed fine Jon. I did use my BIBBA number although they say you don't have to. Did you know they've got a Facebook page as well now (with not much stuff on it and not too many likes)? That's where I noticed the new website was up and running

[Jon]

I've tried to register about 8 times now and the form does not retain info so you have to start from scratch every time.
I'll check out the Facebook page

[drumgerry]

I did have to have a couple of go's Jon but all that it deleted between attempts was the password fields and the Ts and Cs acceptance at the bottom. And the letter jumble thing that I so detest. And you do have to put something in the BIBBA number field

Facebook is here http://www.facebook.com/pages/BIBBA/515212575167652

[Jon]

I did use my Bibba number - all to no avail.
Sometimes it can take a couple of tries to get past the letter jumble but I am not so myopic that I could have read them wrong 8 times in a row!
I most got a message indicating that I must be a spammer.

[drumgerry]

Hmmm...maybe it's having teething troubles. It looks like the admin person is maybe working on it. And the content seems a bit sparse at the moment. Maybe try number 9 will be the charm?!

[Neils]

Worked first time for me though I now have to wait for someone to authorise the account before I can post anything :)

I have no idea where I'd find my membership number though.

Now I've had a bit of a potter I like the site, unlike a certain other organisation beginning with B, their site works on all my devices and is easy to find stuff on. Probably cost a few quid less too.

[Jon]

Uses Vbulletin for the forum same as here which is a step up from the bbka site

[drumgerry]

It looks as if it has potential. The key is whether it generates the amount of forum traffic to make it a useful resource. Still surprised there was no form of communication to say it was up and running - just a bit odd.

[Neils]

I hope it's a sign of a more engaged BIBBA.

[Jon]

Finally managed to register by omitting my membership number and typing 'no membership' instead.
Hardly intuitive.

[drumgerry]

It looks like we've "pre-registered" and that there is to be an official launch at some point. I assume with VBulletin you don't have to publish while your site is a work in progress? That might have been a better idea. And apparently Jon only BIBBA members can pre-register so not sure what the score is with you and your membership number difficulties.

[Beefever]

Maybe the amount of traffic is high due to pent up demand.
I’m not a member of facebook so will I be missing out on info that isn't on the site? I notice the Native Irish Honeybee Society are also linked (but I’m not a member). What’s the reason, is it more up to date on facebook?

[Jon]

Everyone seems to be going for a Facebook presence as well as a website these days.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Native-Irish-Honey-Bee-Society/523689337655182

http://nihbs.org/

[madasafish]

Registered with Facebook no problems.

Site down today.

[Neils]

Got a mail to say that it wasn't officially live yet so I guess we're preregistering at the moment.

[susbees]

I hope it's a sign of a more engaged BIBBA.

Watch this space ;)

[susbees]

Everyone seems to be going for a Facebook presence as well as a website these days.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Native-Irish-Honey-Bee-Society/523689337655182



Oh look, we've got a mutual friend Jon.

[Steven Turner]

The BIBBA site is back up for testing over Easter. I will need your BIBBA membership number entered in your user profile if registering as a paid up member otherwise type "no membership". There is still a lot of work on the content side to complete but that's in progress. The URL is https://www.bibba.org.uk

Regards, Steven T

[Steven Turner]

I've have made a few changes to the registration system and would appreciate some help testing if you haven't registered yet.
https://www.bibba.org.uk

Regards, Steven T

[nemphlar]

Worked fine

[Steven Turner]

Thank you for following through the registration process.

Much appreciated.

Regards, Steven

[The Drone Ranger]

Has BIBBA always been about breeding AMM or was it wider than that ?
In the 50 years has there been much progress?

That's not a criticism I use the work of Peter Edwards to make life easier for me
has there been any change to the beekeeping map which can be attributed to BIBBA ?

[Peter]

Has BIBBA always been about breeding AMM or was it wider than that ?
In the 50 years has there been much progress?

That's not a criticism I use the work of Peter Edwards to make life easier for me
has there been any change to the beekeeping map which can be attributed to BIBBA ?

Thanks for that - glad to have made someone's life easier.

My view is that BIBBA does no really know its purpose in life.

It started, as we all know, as the Village Bee Breeders' Association - and at that time I guess that there would have been very little available other than A.m.m. - so perhaps it was not necessary to spell out 'native bees'.

This changed to the British Isles Bee Breeders' Association, which was no more than a recognition that it had grown.

The name then changed to Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders' Association - a 'politically correct' (or perhaps incorrect?)change that was seen as keeping members in Eire on board. Of course the name now suggests that the association could get involved in improving any race of bee - something that I suspect would have Beowolf Cooper turning in his grave.

So where are we now? Is BIBBA an association devoted to native bees, or just bee improvement. If the former, then perhaps the name should be changed again to reflect that; if not, then I am not sure where its future lies.

What is very clear is that the Galtee group, NIBHS, and perhaps the mooted Scottish group have a much more clearly defined purpose.

[The Drone Ranger]

Thanks Peter I didn't know how the organisation came about
Maybe if the internet had been around for 50 years things might have moved more quickly
Is the difficulty that stipulating bees are local and AMM might be mutually exclusive in most places

[Jon]

Some in Bibba get hung up on 'local' but as far as I am concerned the British isles is our neck of the woods.

[The Drone Ranger]

I seems like a difficult to resolve issue

[Jon]

The main problem is that these issues lead to a complete lack of progress.
From outside of Bibba it looks bizarre.
Rather than hand-wringing about 'local' what is needed is people rearing queens and multiplying good stock sourced as locally as is feasible.
if there is nothing decent in your area, get some decent stock to graft from from as locally as possible.
Rubbish in rubbish out applies to grafting and queen rearing. You need to start with a few good queens.
Whether local is 10 miles, 50 miles or 250 miles - why get hung up about it? Just start.

[Rosie]

One argument against "parachuting" bees to anywhere is that they might be incompatible with the bees that already dominate the area. If that happens, and particularly if the bees are in the hands of someone inexperienced, then the results of future open matings could be less than desirable. This is the difficulty associated with reintroduction.

Anyone lucky enough to live in an area where there is a high proportion of native genetics has no such problem. They can breed from their purest, provided the selected bees exhibit other desirable traits, in order to eliminate the worst of their bees and can afford to bring in purer stock to sweeten the blood.

Some areas can manage to keep 2 separate isolated strains on AMM and cross breed the 2 to get within-race hybrids. These, in theory, will offer outbred vigour without the usual unsustainable problems associated with hybridisation. I haven't tried this yet but I am working towards reaching the point where we can do it here.

BIBBA don't dictate to people how they should proceed but do try to encourage them to think about what they are doing and not just buy the first thing they stumble across or fall prey to suppliers who do not consider future generations. They also encourage cooperation between the beekeepers in any particular area so that they don't find themselves pulling in different directions. The local group approach has been a consistent policy of BIBBA from the start. However individuals choose to proceed I would expect BIBBA members to have the long-term interests of AMMs at heart.

It's a fact that BIBBA members disagree about how to proceed but I can live with that as it demonstrates tolerance and thoughtfulness.

Steve

[Black Comb]

Even if you parachute in "pure" amm then open mating will degrade the line. Unless you live in an isolated area, most beeks do not.
I think Jon has got it right.

BTW, how reliable are the measurements for purity when set against DNA testing? Do discoidal shift, morphometry, white cappings, etc. really prove a bee is amm?

[The Drone Ranger]

Is that the thinking behind the AMM survey BIBBA are they attempting to find suitable stock?
Has there been any progress with that

I see your point about breeding Steve, it might be counter productive (in certain circumstances)

Are the majority of beekeepers in Britain effectively excluded from this program to re -introduce AMM ?
Could this mean it can never succeed ?

Hi Black Comb I think the wing selection can end up just that so the Carniolan breeders have found the bees can have the right wings but not be particularily pure.

It's the only tool most people have though so they would need to use it
DrawWing and Morphplot make that so simple (largely due to the instructions which Peter Edwards provides)

[Jon]

Steve, I agree with what you are saying about the risk of undesirable crosses producing aggressive bees but as you pointed out in the second part of your post, crossing ecotypes between different lines of a subspecies does not run that risk. You have some good stock to work with, so do I, but most people don't. You can do what Roger Patterson does, ie improving the background bee population starting from mongrels. That is a valid approach for bee improvement but has very little to do with AMM, even if you do happen to be selecting for characteristics associated with AMM as Roger does. The fallacy here is that some people think they can backbreed to recreate AMM from the background genetic soup. I have read that a couple of times in the Bibba magazine so this fallacy is obviously well engrained in some sectors.

The other approach is to get a group of like minded people together to form a group and start propagating queens from good quality stock sourced from as locally as possible. This source could be the Galtee valley, North Wales, Colonsay and a couple of other places. Work in a little local genetics if you like if you are confident in being able to pick out predominantly AMM colonies from your background population. This approach will produce results far more quickly. If you believe that AMM as a sub species is threatened and is in danger of being eliminated through hybridisation, it is the only way to go if you want to get AMM established again in what would have been its historic range.
To make an analogy, The RSPB ran a campaign to protect the white headed duck which was being eliminated all over Europe by hybridisation with the Ruddy Duck, a North American species.

Starting up a group is not difficult. Most beekeepers are fence sitters with regard to bee race. If you start up a group based on AMM and the participants get better queens out of it they will be very happy. When people see how the bees are to work with it soon dispels all the propaganda against the native bee re aggression and other traits. The bees sell themselves as they are miles better than what people have at home.


Even if you parachute in "pure" amm then open mating will degrade the line.

You can get around that to a large extent.
If you graft from a pure race queen and requeen other colonies with her daughters, as many as possible, these colonies will produce pure race drones irrespective of what the daughters have mated with. Concentrate these in one place and you have the basis of a mating station.


how reliable are the measurements for purity when set against DNA testing? Do discoidal shift, morphometry, white cappings, etc. really prove a bee is amm?
Noone knows until a comparative study is done.
To say that a wing morphometry study such as the coop funded uk survey 'proves' that bees are AMM is nonsense yet that is the line put out by Bibba and the Coop. I think that will prove to be a huge mistake in the long run.

[Rosie]

Even if you parachute in "pure" amm then open mating will degrade the line. Unless you live in an isolated area, most beeks do not.
I think Jon has got it right.

BTW, how reliable are the measurements for purity when set against DNA testing? Do discoidal shift, morphometry, white cappings, etc. really prove a bee is amm?

I don't follow that Black Comb. It sounds to me like you think Jon has got it wrong. If you live in, say, a buckfast dominated area life isn't a simple as just parachuting in the bee of your choice.

As for assessment of race that's another minefield. Selection for wings alone is obviously not a good idea and, as far as I know, is not practised anywhere. DNA analysis is probably more reliable but it all depends on where you found your standard material, the skill of the scientists who decided which markers to use and how many samples you had. People I know make judgements on as many traits as possible and are always on the lookout for improving the confidence of their methods. Top of my list, for example, are gentleness and frugality. I find wing analysis very efficient for checking for bad matings but do not rely on it too much for selection. I am sure we would make much more use of DNA analysis if it were available to us at an economic price.

Steve

[Rosie]

.
To say that a wing morphometry study such as the coop funded uk survey 'proves' that bees are AMM is nonsense yet that is the line put out by Bibba and the Coop. I think that will prove to be a huge mistake in the long run.

I am with you there Jon. The Coop funded research was a DNA-based one but some early wing morphometry results were released because the DNA work had been so severely hampered by the academic process. I fear such ill-conceived actions are the inevitable result of economic interests of sponsorship but, in the real world we have to live with it. I am surprised though that people would take early results so seriously when a large company is involved. I am still waiting for the real results but when they come out I will still be sceptical because I know that a lot of people with good stock failed to send samples.

I look forward to the day when BIBBA or some similar organisation can arrange to provide an economic DNA service to ordinary beekeepers. In the meanwhile we should all be tying to do our best with the methods to hand and, in particular, stop introducing exotic new stock.

Steve

[Jon]

I find wing analysis very efficient for checking for bad matings but do not rely on it too much for selection.
Steve

Spot on. But there are many still hooked on using it for selection. The interpretation of the data from the coop project has not helped here.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Jon
only one thing really when you say about bad temper being tagged to AMM unfairly
Mostly I find its the AMM fans that level that claim against hybrid bees

Lots of bees of all types can have bad temper and although that can be fixed quickly it could take a long time to eliminate entirely
That is more a function of a closed breeding system than any breed or cross
Professional bee breeders can supply bees of any race including Buckfast that are both productive and gentle.
I think :)

[Jon]

All the well known bee pure race sub species are gentle. Buckfast as well.
Aggressive hybrids is not an invention of mine.
It stems from a genetic effect called heterosis, commonly known as hybrid vigour.
It has been documented and measured under experimental conditions by people like Ruttner.

[The Drone Ranger]

All the well known bee pure race sub species are gentle. Buckfast as well.
Aggressive hybrids is not an invention of mine.
It stems from a genetic effect called heterosis, commonly known as hybrid vigour.
It has been documented and measured under experimental conditions by people like Ruttner.

Hi Jon
I'm not saying you invented it or that it's right or wrong
I know you have gentle stock but I am also certain that native stock need not be gentle and that past beekeepers didn't invent that either
What I am trying to say is that there is no open mating system where any one bee is better than another as a starting point
Old Brother Adam went to great lengths to investigate this as well and identified crosses he felt were worse than others
That looks fine till you think "well what strain of Caucasian was he using" etc
Just the same as you could convert a whole apiary to any breed in two generations you could eliminate bad temper but unselected stock will always be undoing your efforts
That unselected element could be of any type
In any area where you had control of mating you could get to good behaviour without any recourse to AMM or Carniolan or any other pure breed

It seems logical to me that a hybrid bee with its genetic diversity would adapt to almost any beekeeping environment
I like the enthusiasm and drive of the AMM purists more power to your elbow as they say
I just don't see what problem they are solving

Bibba from what I Am reading might have the same dillema

[Rosie]

Spot on. But there are many still hooked on using it for selection

You might be right but I'm not aware of any. It's certainly not encouraged - even by morphometry training courses run by BIBBA. Wing morphometry is seen as one tool amongst many.

Steve

[Jon]

It seems logical to me that a hybrid bee with its genetic diversity would adapt to almost any beekeeping environment

But has our native bee no intrinsic value? Uncontrolled hybridization will wipe it out unless we take steps to keep some areas free from hybrids.
Hybrids and mongrels probably cover 90% of the British Isles at this point.

[Rosie]

I agree with that Jon but would go even further. I doubt if the original Sussex eco-type would do particularly well here in the mountains of North Wales and I have no idea how many generations it would take for it to acclimatise. Hence some think we should try to preserve the original local strain where it still exists to a reasonable degree. Don't ask me what "reasonable" means because I don't know and it's part of the big debate. Once we get DNA sequencing right we can start sorting all this out but until then I think we must muddle on but tread thoughtfully.

Steve

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Jon
Most people must agree with the preservation where possible of these endangered bees hence the support for Colonsay

And
Steve I do agree with trying to protect the strain of bee you have in Sussex

I don't know where I stand on the subject of parachuting in proven AMM stock

What I do know is that the majority of beekeepers in this Country can't continue to be represented as an obstacle to progress preventing the return of the native bee of Britain
Sadly the success of native bee breeding projects has to balanced against the divisive effect they have on beekeeping generally

Time passes, everything changes, and the world moves on, as does beekeeping. So perhaps it's time to accept that the triumphant return of AMM as the nations one and only bee sweeping away the hundreds of years of hbridisation is not going to happen

When projects try to recreate the AMM bee as a sort of modern facsimile by breeding from local hybrids they might only be selecting a wing type but by having a focus and a purpose to their breeding efforts we might end up with a better bee anyway (sort of AMM+)

I've been up a ladder putting two young pigeons back in a nest this morning
I got soaked , they were ungrateful, and I don't particularly like pigeons, and I know some people would say it's wrong
I wanted to do it and I mostly keep bees for the same reason

[The Drone Ranger]

Anyway bck to topic
Yes nice website
lots of very useful software
highly recommend a visit

[Peter]

[QUOTE=Rosie;22043]One argument against "parachuting" bees to anywhere is that they might be incompatible with the bees that already dominate the area. If that happens, and particularly if the bees are in the hands of someone inexperienced, then the results of future open matings could be less than desirable. This is the difficulty associated with reintroduction.

The only way that I can see is to flood your area with good drones. Remember that if you rear plenty of queens from the parachuted stock then they will produce pure drones, regardless of mating. Given that native queens frequently live 3 or more years, that can give you pretty good control of the skies for a long time - especially if a group do it.

Of course, it is not a one-off operation - you have to then keep selecting and culling.

[Rosie]

I'm sure that's good advice Peter and something that a number of BIBBA members are trying to do. It's not so useful though for someone with 5 hives and who, according to beebase, is surrounded by 30 apiaries full of dodgy bees within a 10km radius. I that case the group structure has got to be the way forward. If you can recruit the other 30 apiary owners you should be home and dry.

The problem then, of course, is that some will be entrenched exotic bee fanciers and will object to even being approached on the subject. They then spread disinformation about BIBBA's aims and methods.

I've lived in such an area and it's a breath of fresh air to now work in a "community" that knows the meaning of the word. We have a very small percentage of beekeepers that are not on board but they don't accept the argument that hybrids are bad news and so are happy to continue as they are and don't object to the native bee majority. As they are a minority their presence don't worry the rest of us and we remain friendly and cooperative. One by one though they have been joining us and the ones that have made the switch so far have turned out to be very enthusiastic.

The trick seems to be to sign up a critical mass of local beekeepers and then the process will develop its own momentum. In our case it's also been a huge help that the local beekeeping trainers are native bee enthusiasts.

Sorry to have drifted off thread so far.

Steve

[Jon]

Similar situation here Steve.
Those hostile to a native bee breeding project are generally just a few of the older guys who were sold on Buckfast decades ago.
Old dogs and new tricks applies here.
The other sub set is new beekeepers who have not yet joined an association who are unaware of the issues, have no contacts, and buy bees from one of the English mail order suppliers.
We got one new member of the queen rearing group this year who had plonked down two colonies of Fragile Planet supplied bees, Carnica I think, about a mile and a half from our mating site. He had huge problems with aggression after losing swarms in early May and was looking for help.

Queen rearing groups will only work properly when you get critical mass.
The odd hold-out then gets swamped out by the number of native drones and may then reconsider what is likely to be in his best interests.
I think it is important not top get bolshy with other beekeepers even if they are not initial enthusiasts about the bee breeding project.
Quite a few people take time to come round to the idea of working as a community.
There is a renegade streak in a lot of beekeepers.

[prakel]

We got one new member of the queen rearing group this year who had plonked down two colonies of Fragile Planet supplied bees, Carnica I think

probably put off by the surcharge for having their fp nuc headed by a Welsh amm: 2014 price = Buckfast 5 frame £190; amm 5 frame £255.

[Jon]

He did not even seem to be aware of different bee subspecies or issues to do with hybridisation.
Likely just bought the cheapest on offer.
Our beginners are getting a nuc for £120 which comes with some mentoring and support as well. £255 is crazy unless the nuc box is diamond encrusted.

[prakel]

He did even seem to be aware of different bee subspecies or issues to do with hybridisation.
Likely just bought the cheapest on offer.
Our beginners are getting a nuc for £120 which comes with some mentoring and support as well. £255 is crazy unless the nuc box is diamond encrusted.

Depends where you live/what you want. Nationally advertised amm nucs are few and far between. Possibly, it's hard to get amm queens mated in the British climate?

[Jon]

Mine mate ok.
The problem is getting them early in the season

[prakel]

The scarcity appears to be year-round not just early season.

[Jon]

I am going to try and rear more next season so anyone interested can chase me up.
I think some others are going to do the same.

I have 8 still in double apideas.

[Rosie]

So where are we now? Is BIBBA an association devoted to native bees, or just bee improvement. If the former, then perhaps the name should be changed again to reflect that; if not, then I am not sure where its future lies.

Sorry to bring us back to this line of Peter's but I think we should remember here what's in BIBBA's constitution:

"The objectives of the Association shall be the conservation, reintroduction, study, selection and improvement of native or near-native honeybees of Britain and Ireland."

This is the only objective BIBBA has. There was a move a couple of years ago to change this. The reason was well intentioned but it would have given the impression that other sub-species could encouraged in areas where Amms were already lost. It did not, however, define how lost they had to be for the area to count as a lost one. Fortunately the proposal was defeated in a strong vote of the membership. This, to me, confirmed what BIBBA members really think and that they still firmly support the objectives as currently stated.

Steve

[prakel]

I have 8 still in double apideas.

Which we know is also the answer to the early season issue, maybe there'll be an increase in overwintered 'queens with support staff' after this years National Honey Show!

[The Drone Ranger]

Depends where you live/what you want. Nationally advertised amm nucs are few and far between. Possibly, it's hard to get amm queens mated in the British climate?
Jon says
"Those hostile to a native bee breeding project are generally just a few of the older guys who were sold on Buckfast decades ago.
There is a renegade streak in a lot of beekeepers. "

Steve says
"The problem then, of course, is that some will be entrenched exotic bee fanciers and will object to even being approached on the subject. They then spread disinformation about BIBBA's aims and methods"

I can see that point of view but it almost turns reality on its head
AMM would be exotica in most of Britain these days
BIBBA members and AMM enthusiasts are a tiny tiny minority of Beekeepers
Most beekeepers have withdrawn from discussing the issue
Nobody I know is hostile to native bees
Native bee fans however are often pretty hostile towards anyone who is not on message
Disinformation is a two way street in so much as most other queens other than AMM are professionally reared and of good quality
Any problems of crossing and temper issues would apply equally to someone buying an AMM queen as any other
The only sensible objection is they are mostly imported

Now that's in no way intended to annoy or upset anyone but the small number of Native bee enthusiasts should accept they are the minority
The rest of the beekeeping community do need not feel guilty because BIBBA thinks they should

[prakel]

I have a feeling that Jon may find himself unwittingly leading a new generation of amm fanciers who are both willing and able to supply queens to people in areas where there's no longer an extant population. This, I imagine, is actually in line with the aim of 'reintroduction' outlined in Bibbas constitution although some might prefer a more controlled group centred scheme.

[The Drone Ranger]

Prakel are you near Durdle Door is that the Jurrassic Coast ?

[Jon]

I have a feeling that Jon may find himself unwittingly....
Unwittingly? Don't think so.

I actually have serious reservations about that and have already discussed it with others locally.
I remember discussing this with dan Basterfield at the Stirling Conference last year as well.
There is no way I would sell queens to someone living beside Pete Little for example as he puts a lot of work into his Buckfast.
Buckfast is the de facto native bee now in Devon and I have no problem with that
Unfortunately we have local bee dealers who think it is no problem to sell nucs of other subspecies into AMM areas. Some even laugh and boast about it.

I remember the exchanges between Gavin and a well known bee dealer from further south who was selling Carnica nucs with varroa into varroa free AMM areas of Scotland including some of the islands.
For some people it's just about the money.

[prakel]

Prakel are you near Durdle Door is that the Jurrassic Coast ?

Yes! Good bee country.

[prakel]

There is no way I would sell queens to someone living beside Pete Little for example as he puts a lot of work into his Buckfast.

This of course can be said about many beekeepers, maybe guys who quietly get on with things and put in a huge amount of personal effort but never become known outside of their local community, a fair argument for not moving queens around if ever there was one.

[Jon]

A prime example would be the 600 colonies of NZ Carnica placed 10 miles away from Ron Hoskins and his varroa research project.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Prakel
Many years ago I was on holiday near Lulworth Cove it's a lovely spot

I don't know where I stand on moving queens around the country it's not something that worries me particularly

Bees have been moved around and not on a small scale for a couple of hundred years at least
Migratory beekeeping is something that has a big effect on the static bee population
Most years that will be Carniolan this year a lot of Italian

It's fairly certain that the existing bees kept by ordinary beekeepers like me will already have some proportion of both these types in their mix
The objections I have are:-
1)They are imported
2)they come for a crop that is grown because of subsidy
There is no doubt though that they are productive gentle bees so there is no issue there

I admire the efforts of bee breeding projects and see them as a force for good generally
They do depend on location and if they are in the wrong place they can't succeed
If someone was to set up an AMM breeding program here they would fail
There would be no point in pointing the finger at other beekeepers commercial or otherwise

Ron Hoskins is not on an off shore island he is in Swindon for goodness sake
Presumably that's why AI is being used,he should not have been affected much
We can't give everyone who fancies breeding some bees their own Island

[greengumbo]

Hi Prakel
Many years ago I was on holiday near Lulworth Cove it's a lovely spot

I don't know where I stand on moving queens around the country it's not something that worries me particularly

Bees have been moved around and not on a small scale for a couple of hundred years at least
Migratory beekeeping is something that has a big effect on the static bee population
Most years that will be Carniolan this year a lot of Italian

It's fairly certain that the existing bees kept by ordinary beekeepers like me will already have some proportion of both these types in their mix
The objections I have are:-
1)They are imported
2)they come for a crop that is grown because of subsidy
There is no doubt though that they are productive gentle bees so there is no issue there

I admire the efforts of bee breeding projects and see them as a force for good generally
They do depend on location and if they are in the wrong place they can't succeed
If someone was to set up an AMM breeding program here they would fail
There would be no point in pointing the finger at other beekeepers commercial or otherwise

Ron Hoskins is not on an off shore island he is in Swindon for goodness sake
Presumably that's why AI is being used,he should not have been affected much
We can't give everyone who fancies breeding some bees their own Island

How much would II kit cost - we have extremely sophisticated ones at uni that cost a few thousand but they are well above spec for queen insemination. Could an association club together (or even a few neighbouring associations ??) to purchase the necessary injectors etc ? Then a few people could get trained up to carry out everyones artificial matings in an area ? Solves the problem of non-wanted drones mating with your queens and you could sell mated queens to interested third parties.

[Rosie]

How much would II kit cost - we have extremely sophisticated ones at uni that cost a few thousand but they are well above spec for queen insemination. Could an association club together (or even a few neighbouring associations ??) to purchase the necessary injectors etc ? Then a few people could get trained up to carry out everyones artificial matings in an area ? Solves the problem of non-wanted drones mating with your queens and you could sell mated queens to interested third parties.

Ludlow Beekeepers did exactly that. It was partly susbees's fault so I wouldn't be surprised if she were to come along in a minute to explain their set-up.

Steve

[Jimbo]

Hi Greengumbo,

Last time I looked it was over a £1,000

[Jon]

Gerry bought the Schley II kit a few months ago so could probably enlighten us.

[madasafish]

From what I read, and from my experience of UK weather, an import ban would basically either reduce UK commercial beekeeping in size - due to lack of replacement queens in bulk in spring when needed- or dramatically increase their costs - which would have the same effect.

Perhaps someone might like to argue I'm incorrect?

[mbc]

From what I read, and from my experience of UK weather, an import ban would basically either reduce UK commercial beekeeping in size - due to lack of replacement queens in bulk in spring when needed- or dramatically increase their costs - which would have the same effect.

Perhaps someone might like to argue I'm incorrect?

I'd think you may be right, but how sustainable is this business model of bringing in foreign bees to harvest seasonal nectar ?
There are still North American beekeepers who 'depopulate' their hives each fall, harvest every bit of honey possible, and restock their boxes each Spring with packages from further south.
I'm sure this would be a profitable model in Scotland if there are 50% grants available to subsidise bringing in the packages.

[susbees]

Ludlow Beekeepers did exactly that. It was partly susbees's fault so I wouldn't be surprised if she were to come along in a minute to explain their set-up.

Steve

One is here...yes, Ludlow does have two set-ups funded by and owned and insured by the Association and four trainees (I'm one) who were half funded by the Association. Microscopes were initially loaned but now have two set-ups bought from Brunel. However, I am currently somewhat dubious that enough hands-on is possible to become good enough at it, over a significant distance to the "lab", with breeder queens and drone mothers all over the place, as volunteers, with loads of other stuff to do in the season and an extremely complex selection process. The model here was that local big set-ups had non-compatible bees and aggression was increasing. Some of that is undoubtedly down to poor handling but some is due to bad matings. So yes, II does make sense but is proving slow (year 3 just finishing).

Where we are, to the north, it ought to be possible to do things in a more traditional way more similar to Rosie's local groups - cross your fingers please for the tendering process, it ain't fun one tiny bit.

[The Drone Ranger]

The SBA would be my first stop if I thought AI training was required
They don't do it at the moment but could probably fund 1 person to be trained on a "train the trainers" type program
Stirling Uni where the microscopy training takes place might be able to help with equipment

[Black Comb]

Am I correct in thinking a reasonable understanding of genetics is required by those operating/making decisions to justify II?

[The Drone Ranger]

Probably Black Comb
but if you live in most of UK where open matings will result in hybrid bees an awful lot of effort goes in to getting minimal results
After 50 years of BiBBa it's all still just the same as it was
All the big commercial breeding operations will use AI for the mother queens and line breeding

I'm surprised Drumgerry hasn't popped up because he has the right equipment presumably because he already has decided open mating is not going to work

[Jon]

No commercial beekeepers in N. Ireland DR so maybe the likes of me has more chance to make a difference via queen rearing groups.

[The Drone Ranger]

No commercial beekeepers in N. Ireland DR so maybe the likes of me has more chance to make a difference via queen rearing groups.

Yes Jon absolutely agree
As far as I know there are no commercial breeders of AMM bees anywhere
I don't know if that is because they are unpopular except in UK
Possibly it's that there is no pure breeding stock available
Or it could be the ethos that buying a queen is wrong in some way
No-one is going to raise queens for a market that refuses to buy queens on principle

[Jon]

Yes Jon absolutely agree
As far as I know there are no commercial breeders of AMM bees anywhere

Galtee queens are not given away!

Bickerstaffe used to sell AMM queens which originated in Greece.

Coolmore (http://www.coolmorebees.com/index.php/beesforsale)as well

Amm also gets called Welsh Blacks, German Blacks etc if you google that.

None of this is large scale but there is clearly some supply and demand.
getting back nearer to the topic, Bibba needs to be part of this.

[The Drone Ranger]

Have you wing morphed any of them though Jon ?(other than galtee)
Here's the three cornerstones of Bibba
1)AMM only
2)Local bees
3)No imports
These are mutually exclusive in almost all of the UK
Not trying to be awkward here in any way
If I wanted to breed a single race then I could choose Carniolan and probably have greater probability of success than with AMM

[The Drone Ranger]

here's a link if you like reading about this stuff
one or two grumpy comments but mostly informative
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-1817.html

[Jon]

Anyone starting with pure Carnica here in NI is very likely to have a very aggressive colony within a couple of generations.
Most of the people with Carnica are beginners who have no contacts and buy bees via the internet.
The situation in parts of Scotland is distorted by commercial beekeepers who have traditionally used Carnica but this year it seems to be Ligustica.
Next year we'll see the results of that mixing of genetics between Ligustica and local stock.

[The Drone Ranger]

Here now I never suggested anyone should keep anything in Ireland or elsewhere Lol!!

You are right about Angus where I live there is a lot of commercial beekeeping
Scottish beekeeping is very varied though so I only know about one environment which is where I live in farming land
I guess people who live in the the heather areas get lots of late season migratory beekeepers plus the commercial stuff
One friend told me they woke up one morning to find 15 hives in a field on their property boundary about 100yds from their own two hives

This years influx of European Italian bees first crossings will already have happened in the OSR and fruit areas during Spring and Summer
I was a bit concerned, but at the end of the day hybrid bees have a bit of most races anyway, so they just get a bit more of one than another
Life goes on and its easily fixed if necessary
The Bickerstaff AMM bees are mentioned in the link I posted
I would have rather had NZ Italians turn up, their temper is better and they wouldn't have got through the Winter here

[Jon]

I remember the thread in your link. I even posted in it which shows its age as I stopped posting on BKF years ago.

[mbc]

As far as I know there are no commercial breeders of AMM bees anywhere


http://www.beekeeping.com/fert/fert_us.htm#reines

[The Drone Ranger]

http://www.beekeeping.com/fert/fert_us.htm#reines

Hi mbc
problem solved
Instrumentally inseminated 183 euro

I would still be inclined to wing scan the bees they produce though :)
The Caucasians might look similar and so would crosses

[The Drone Ranger]

I remember the thread in your link. I even posted in it which shows its age as I stopped posting on BKF years ago.
It does show the difficulty of buying in good stock though
You are lucky to have such good bees to start with Jon
But it does take some serious effort to maintain
That's why you are NI beekeeper of the year :)

[Jon]

LOL.
The background bee population in NI is very poor.
It is different down south as there are areas with virtually 100% native stock.
It is a well known fact that bees cannot recognise either the colour red or wiggly line borders drawn on the island of Ireland so the problem is easily fixed.

[The Drone Ranger]

mbc has shown you the way forward Jon
you need Artificial Inseminating kit
You get lots and lots of apideas for 180 Euros

Heres a really good queen breeding operation describing how they do it
http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/apimondia_1.html
heres the drone side of things
http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/apimondia_2.html
which race is best? read on
http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/apimondia_3.html

[mbc]

Hi mbc
problem solved
Instrumentally inseminated 183 euro

I would still be inclined to wing scan the bees they produce though :)
The Caucasians might look similar and so would crosses

@DR, the Giles Fert advert is one of many easily found on the internet, I was just trying to illustrate that there is a commercial market here and abroad for amm.
If you google for UK queen suppliers there are quite a few offering amm, South Downs, Bickerstaffes, fragile planet, to name but a few. I wouldnt bet my house on any of those being good examples of amm (unless Rosie knows different about the fp amm) but they advertise them to satisfy demand - though they are mostly listed as out of stock.
The majority of queens raised on a semi commercial scale in Britain get swallowed up by local demand long before the need for internet advertising to market them. As soon as a queen breeder gets a good name and is recommended within the local associations demand will outstrip supply unless the breeder gives up the day job to concentrate on queen rearing, and thats another step up in investment, risk and uncertain demand which is enough to deter all but the most unhinged optimistic fools..

[gavin]

mbc has shown you the way forward Jon
you need Artificial Inseminating kit


Don't get carried away DR. II might be a useful extra but there are so many other things to get right first. Good numbers of stocks to maintain a breeding pool, means of identifying and selecting the better stocks for your situation. Unless you are tapping into someone else's breeding work.

Jon identifies hybridised colonies and either requeens them or uses them to make bees and (transplanted) drones. Sounds like a good strategy to me.

Sent from my BlackBerry 8520 using Tapatalk

[The Drone Ranger]

I'm afraid I still am unconvinced by the aguments
BIBBA's three priciples are contradictory
The availability of AMM is patchy
And if breeders select from existing stocks they are creating a replacement not preserving AMM
I'm inclined to the view that there is no real argument for AMM over common hybrid bees
The thing that seems to attract people to AMM is the nostalgia principle where everything gone by was better than now
My new beeyear resolution is to put any native bee considerations behind me and move on unencumbered

[madasafish]

I'm afraid I still am unconvinced by the aguments
BIBBA's three priciples are contradictory
The availability of AMM is patchy
And if breeders select from existing stocks they are creating a replacement not preserving AMM
I'm inclined to the view that there is no real argument for AMM over common hybrid bees
The thing that seems to attract people to AMM is the nostalgia principle where everything gone by was better than now
My new beeyear resolution is to put any native bee considerations behind me and move on unencumbered

When I started beekeeping nearly 4 years ago I read the AMM debate avidly. I thought that having native bees was ideal.

BIBBA had none.
No-one had any.


The BBKA went on about opposing queen imports.

IF they were serious, they (BIBBA) would have a setup where they sold AMM queens to all and sundry in mass.

If the BBKA were serious in their opposition to queen imports they would encourage local queen breeders to gear up to supply the market.

Four years later, NOTHING has changed.

Conclusion: neither are serious. It's words only.

I decided 4 years ago it was likely that was the case: I am convinced now by the evidence not only of lack of progress but the lack of any serious attempt to start progress.

Sorry: it's all BS in my view. Fine words, no actions.

[Jon]

Sorry: it's all BS in my view. Fine words, no actions.

I also share your incredulity, as it is not hard to rear queens even if the matings can sometimes be suspect due to the mixture of drones.
But even then the queens reared are at least local which is a step forward from importing.
The problem in Bibba has been that proposals get shot down before they even get trialled somewhere.
I don't know what the bbka is up to but I don't see any great support emanating from there.
As soon as someone has a plan to rear queens, someone else will jump up with a 'how do you know your queen is the right sort of queen' argument.
Result - lack of concrete action.
Steve says that things have been rejigged in Bibba so I am still onboard as a supporter but end product is needed fast.

And it is not all BS as there is action from some of us, especially on the big island to the west of you.

[The Drone Ranger]

Looking out the window of the conservatory I'm watching the sparrows we have about a hundred now
When I came here 10 or so years back ther were only a few and lots of chaffinches
By feeding at the right times and having the right cover sparrows have flourished sadly the chaffinches have diminished in numbers
If it was the beekeeping world we were looking at then the two would have interbred and become flourishing hybrid charrows

[The Drone Ranger]

Don't get carried away DR. II might be a useful extra but there are so many other things to get right first. Good numbers of stocks to maintain a breeding pool, means of identifying and selecting the better stocks for your situation. Unless you are tapping into someone else's breeding work.

Jon identifies hybridised colonies and either requeens them or uses them to make bees and (transplanted) drones. Sounds like a good strategy to me.

Sent from my BlackBerry 8520 using Tapatalk

Probably am getting carried away here's a link to the Federation of Irish Beekeepers and how they struggled with II initially
http://www.irishbeekeeping.ie/articles/ii.html

[Jon]

Redmond who wrote that article does all the II work for the Galtee Group. He is regarded as the most knowledgeable II practitioner in Ireland.
That FIBKA site is like a time warp. Most of the pages are years old.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Jon

Yes from a while back but the it shows everyone starts somewhere
The Galtee group are the experts and they had to master II
Gavin thinks that is getting carried away
I'm not sure it is because would Galtee have made any progress without
a) a large membership
b) good mating locations
C) artificial insemination
d) some quality breeding stocks

I contrast that approach with taking a pretty hybridised bee and scanning the wings looking for something which shows some promise
As I have said my bees range from 0% to 77% this year to me that's meaningless
If I started with the 77% which I wouldn't incidentally because they had chalk brood early season
I could spend the rest of my life selecting for the most AMM characteristics but that would still be a hybridised bee.
Now as long as you realise that what you are breeding for is less likely to be AMM than if you went to the local dog pound and selected two black and white dogs and started trying to recreate a border collie that's fine.
I have learned a lot from discussing the AMM or not AMM question including that the supporters of AMM should stop blaming the rest of the beekeeping community for their lack of progress and instead take a long hard look at what they themselves do,

Sorry that seems a bit rude on reading back but you get the drift

[Jon]

DR. Some may get up on their soap box but I prefer to encourage people to start up their own group.
Whatever stock you work with, you will have more success working together with your neighbours.
Unless you are the sole beekeeper on an Island like Andrew Abrahams you will have very limited sucess going it alone.

[gavin]

The Galtee group are the experts and they had to master II
Gavin thinks that is getting carried away

Not what I was saying at all. II is a useful part of a bigger effort, not one of the first things to turn to. It was you that was getting carried away not the Galtee folk.

Locally there are beekeepers who have traditionally kept local dark stocks and not imported a variety of types over the years as some others have done. Their bees vary from being obvious hybrids, to stocks that seem to show a high proportion of several Amm traits, not just wing morphology. Stability seems to me to be an essential precursor to progress in breeding. It makes perfect sense to turn to that sort of material to start breeding.

[gavin]

And as I've alluded to, there are people locally willing to sidestep soapboxes and spend their own valuable time trying to improve things in a collaborative way and with their eyes open about the difficulties.

A much better way to proceed than to turn to the importer of queens or packages for a temporary fix which ends up making things worse for everyone (unstable genetics locally, poorly adapted bees, new pests and diseases and new variants of pests and diseases coming in .... )

[The Drone Ranger]

And as I've alluded to, there are people locally willing to sidestep soapboxes and spend their own valuable time trying to improve things in a collaborative way and with their eyes open about the difficulties.

A much better way to proceed than to turn to the importer of queens or packages for a temporary fix which ends up making things worse for everyone (unstable genetics locally, poorly adapted bees, new pests and diseases and new variants of pests and diseases coming in .... )

Sorry Gavin if that upsets you but a hybrid is a hybrid and anywhere that migratory beekeeping occurs the bees will be hybidised
Trying to breed back to something like AMM has no more validity than any other process of selection from the hybrid bees
There is no reason why choosing ones with fluffy bums and nice wings should be exclusively considered desirable

I don't get on soap boxes, in fact I largely just keep myself to myself, not joining lots of organisations and pressure groups
Some other beekeepers are members of everything under the sun, on committees ,preaching their message etc -- good luck to them
I always welcome the Jehova's witnesses at the door because they are very nice people,well dressed,well meaning and committed
That doesn't mean I accept any of their views or I would ever consider becoming one
To me working against nature, which puts every effort into increasing the hybridisation of the honeybee, is in fact a waste of time and effort
On imports you had best address those points to the importers but they have nothing to do with the breeding of AMM from the background population of bees
To maintain an AMM or any other pure bred population you would need the 4 conditions I listed in post #95

[greengumbo]

To me working against nature, which puts every effort into increasing the hybridisation of the honeybee,

I think nature plays a longer game than this. It might put every effort into hybridisation but in the long term the undesirable traits resulting from this hybridisation will be lost anyway if the hybrid bees are not adapted to local climate etc etc. Maybe the attempt to breed locally adapted Amm, with other desirable traits, actually helps nature by bypassing this long winded evolutionary process that would see many of the "poor adaptation to local climate traits" lost anyway. Of course it means you miss out on all the desirable traits as well which is what nature "wanted".....I guess it works both ways ! Interesting topic guys :)

[Jon]

DR. I am sure your 4 conditions could be met in various parts of Scotland.
Clearly it is like pushing a boulder uphill if someone plants hundreds of Carnica colonies near you one year followed by hundreds of Ligustica the next.
The advantage we have in Ireland is that in the North there are no commercial beekeepers and in the south the commercial and semi commercial beekeepers mostly use native stock.

Starting with hybrids or mongrels could certainly lead to a better bee. Brother Adam demonstrated that you can tinker and improve.
The thing is though, it has to be done in a controlled fashion and what you have with the commercial beekeepers in Scotland is total chaos with regard to stirring up the gene pool. It will never stablise to produce a population which breeds more or less true for the traits you want if there is a random injection of new genetics every year.

[The Drone Ranger]

If the 4 conditions were met you would be home and dry you don't need to worry about Commercial beekeepers or anybody else

greengumbo's post started me thinking
Surely we are not trying to assert that some bees that were around in Viking times were better that the bees we have now after hundreds of years of selecting from the best.
When was the golden age of AMM that we are trying to return to ?

[Rosie]

The North Wales bees as advertised by FP are supplied by one of our local rearers. The background of these particular bees are partly from a Scottish strain that was supplied as native but, judging by their wings, were less pure than the North Wales background population. After bringing them here the beekeeper concerned set about improving their purity by importing good bees into the apiaries from other local queen rearers and making use of a remote mating site populated with selected drone mothers. I think the mixture of genetics has produced a gentle bee with plenty of vigour. Technical help was provided by a very experienced local queen rearer. I have been promised wing samples in the spring to see what they have to tell us. I am not happy that the bees are going to FP because we prefer to sell bees only to BIBBA members who can make educated decisions on where they should be located and what strategy should be adopted to suit the location. I doubt if FP cares a fig where they go.

As for the apparent confusion over BIBBA's aims, it stems from the fact that we take our membership from anywhere in the UK. Breeding strategies that suit us here do not necessarily suit members in, say, East Anglia. In addition marginal districts or areas where the there is no local consensus and even animosity to even attempting to agree on a consensus, everyone is acting in his own interests. This makes it difficult for anyone to achieve any lasting improvement to the population. Even so BIBBA does not wish to abandon its members who find themselves in such an area and the work they do there might not suit areas like mine or Jon's.

Here the background population is about 50% "in the box" according to DrawWing but certain apiaries have bees in the 90s. Our policy is to breed from our best and purest and encourage beginners to start with them so that the background population becomes purer. Our ultimate aim to to have an area where we can open mate freely and know that there will be no unwanted behaviour resulting from bad matches. We are a long way from the Galtee stage but there are so many of us aiming at the same outcome that I am confident that we will eventually be successful.

I think that, had we tried to develop our own strain from selecting the best traits regardless of race, progress would be so slow that we would never see any significant improvements in our lifetime and as soon as we drop our guard it will all collapse to chaos again.

Any BIBBA breeding groups in different areas will have their own strategies and BIBBA never tries to dictate to members or expel the ones that are out of step with others. They do, however, offer education and encourage exchange of genetic material between breeding groups although the latter has not been so evident in recent years. Don't think though that it does not exist or that it will not increase. The forthcoming conference will help make progress on both fronts.

Steve

[mbc]

When was the golden age of AMM that we are trying to return to ?

That should read "When is the golden age of our indigenous bees going to happen ?"
This is whats so exciting about the new energy and vigour surrounding native bee breeding projects, unlike ligustica and carnica bees, which have had considerable resources spent improving them for quite some time, the potential for improving AMM is still ripe for development, who knows where this will lead us.

[The Drone Ranger]

Steve thanks for taking the time to give a detailed explanation of the BIBBA position

I would have posted sooner but after reading mbc's post I was struck by a flying pig and rendered insensible

[Rosie]

I would have posted sooner but after reading mbc's post I was struck by a flying pig and rendered insensible

DR, If you were able to sense the renewed enthusiasm in some districts for improving their local near-natives you would not be so surprised by mbc's comment. mbc lives in an area where many of the native bees were never compromised in the first place and they are into improvement in a big way. Here we are still sorting out the genetics of the background population but the enthusiasm of the locals is palpable.

Steve

[drumgerry]

Surely we are not trying to assert that some bees that were around in Viking times were better that the bees we have now after hundreds of years of selecting from the best.

DR - are you seriously trying to say we've had hundreds of years selecting from the best of our bees?! Surely not! Selective breeding seems to be the preserve of the very, very few. Has it ever been any different?!

Most people "breed" their bees using swarm cells from whichever colony happens to be producing them at the time and that I'm afraid ain't selective breeding. I would suggest that our bees are in fact worse than in those days as currently we have bees imported yearly which constantly degrade any natural adaptations to the local environment which might be taking place. At least homegrown bees in those days didn't have that to contend with.

[drumgerry]

And on the subject of II - I'm sure Galtee and anyone else who uses it (or is planning to do so ;)) sees it as a tool to complement a whole range of other techniques designed to breed for the selected traits.

[The Drone Ranger]

DR, If you were able to sense the renewed enthusiasm in some districts for improving their local near-natives you would not be so surprised by mbc's comment. mbc lives in an area where many of the native bees were never compromised in the first place and they are into improvement in a big way. Here we are still sorting out the genetics of the background population but the enthusiasm of the locals is palpable.

Steve

Absolutely right Steve, not even remotely funny what am I thinking flying pigs :)

[The Drone Ranger]

DR - are you seriously trying to say we've had hundreds of years selecting from the best of our bees?! Surely not! Selective breeding seems to be the preserve of the very, very few. Has it ever been any different?!

Most people "breed" their bees using swarm cells from whichever colony happens to be producing them at the time and that I'm afraid ain't selective breeding. I would suggest that our bees are in fact worse than in those days as currently we have bees imported yearly which constantly degrade any natural adaptations to the local environment which might be taking place. At least homegrown bees in those days didn't have that to contend with.

Well importing bees affects both hybrid bee breeding and AMM somewhat differently
Hybrid bees are very by their nature very adaptable to any environment but of course when bees are moved into an area whether they are imported or not they affect the local population
Fortunately that just alters the genetic mix of the hybrid by adding a bit more of something that was already there
An Amm breeding program would become a hybrid breeding program as soon as those crosses take place
Most of the AMM breeding seems to just be breeding hybridised bees anyway

The questions I might ask are

When I check my bees they are hybrid mongrels
Yet the same results elsewhere are near native :)
What would you say the cut off point is ?

How local is local that's another puzzle to me
when it's hybrids then the next county is no longer local
AMM local is clear across the country

How about native
100 years after importation the non AMM are still imports
a couple of years after importing AMM are native

Which brings us to when was day zero when the whole country was populated by AMM bees
was it before or after the Romans arrived

There are a lot of inconsistencies

[drumgerry]

You didn't answer my question DR! Do you really think we've had hundreds of years of selective breeding from the best of the available bees?

Not really sure why you've got such a burr in your knickers about AMM to be honest. I can only speak personally and what I don't want to see continue are imports. And it makes simple sense to me to focus our efforts on the bees which have their native range in Scotland. I don't see anything else that makes sense. Should we be breeding Italians or Carnies? And if so why?

Not sure that, as you say, hybrid bees are by definition adaptable to their environment. Crosses take traits from their parents which may not always be the most useful ones either for themselves or for us. Cross a Collie with a Jack Russell and you may get a dog that wants to herd rats!

Predictability is better assured with pure breeds and for me the only sensible choice is AMM.

And as to the concepts of local and native. I don't think those terms are especially helpful on occasion as of course holes can be picked in them as you have done. As to the Romans - they didn't hang about in my neck of the woods! They passed on through and I doubt they were dropping off clay pots of yellow bees on their way!

[Pete L]

As to the Romans - they didn't hang about in my neck of the woods! They passed on through and I doubt they were dropping off clay pots of yellow bees on their way!

I would not put anything past those Romans Gerry...always thought they were a sneaky bunch. Found this......
Apiculture was of vital importance in the Roman Empire, because its triumphant armies were known to tote beehives when invading foreign territories.

[The Drone Ranger]

You didn't answer my question DR! Do you really think we've had hundreds of years of selective breeding from the best of the available bees?

Not really sure why you've got such a burr in your knickers about AMM to be honest. I can only speak personally and what I don't want to see continue are imports. And it makes simple sense to me to focus our efforts on the bees which have their native range in Scotland. I don't see anything else that makes sense. Should we be breeding Italians or Carnies? And if so why?

Not sure that, as you say, hybrid bees are by definition adaptable to their environment. Crosses take traits from their parents which may not always be the most useful ones either for themselves or for us. Cross a Collie with a Jack Russell and you may get a dog that wants to herd rats!

Predictability is better assured with pure breeds and for me the only sensible choice is AMM.

And as to the concepts of local and native. I don't think those terms are especially helpful on occasion as of course holes can be picked in them as you have done. As to the Romans - they didn't hang about in my neck of the woods! They passed on through and I doubt they were dropping off clay pots of yellow bees on their way!

Sorry Drumgerry
The intention is not to annoy or upset anyone
I'm definitely not wearing fur in my knickers

To answer the breeding question ,where to start, that's the problem, so yes I do think beekeepers have been selecting from the best for hundreds of years,
Now what their idea of the best was would have been affected by their method
You might have kept bees in hollow logs or hi tech skeps in which case swarminess and bad temper would be less important but I'm sure the vicious ones were the first killed and the honey taken
Bees which were not selected would swarm each year and produce just enough surplus to get through the winter.

After the appearance of fixed frame beekeeping Bee breeding really took off
Henry Alley writes in his book that he started breeding in 1862 and selling queens from there on

In almost every activity whether it be cows, cats or carrots there are breeders dedicated to improvement
Now with bees it's the same there are professional bee breeding operations who supply the market with queens
The argument that the following year they are succeeded by inferior offspring would apply equally to potatoes or indeed to any open mated AMM

Once you have crossed your collie and jack russell its game over you can take the progeny and breed from them, you might get something that looks like a collie but it will always have jack russell in there

Breeding from a hybrid bee and selecting black ones is just that.
There is no moral high ground.
It's not returning things to how they were in some mythical point in the past.
If people want to do it that's fine if not that's fine as well
I hear people complaining that migratory beekeeping is ruining their breeding efforts
The same people pick up their hives and move them to the heather

[Peter]

DR To answer the breeding question ,where to start, that's the problem, so yes I do think beekeepers have been selecting from the best for hundreds of years

Skep beekeepers culled the best stocks and kept the mediocre ones!

[drumgerry]

My point about the Romans Pete is that they didn't settle in much of Scotland and although Tacitus reports they ventured into the North East they didn't stay. Hence my flippant point of dropping off colonies of yellow bees as they passed.

DR - not annoyed at you. I think we've both been on here long enough to have a civilized disagreement :). Just a bit confused about your stance on AMM.

Of course selecting black bees for colour and nothing else is a nonsense. All you get are black bees. From what I can see though that's not what's happening and I think it's disingenuous of you to suggest otherwise. As to the queens people actually use - I think the general stamp of beekeepers tend to use queens produced from their own swarm cells. You think they're buying in highly bred superior queens by operations that think deeply about what they're producing. If people are buying in generally it's imports from the likes of Bickerstaffes and I'm not seeing the evidence of a superior breeding programme in those queens.

Of course there are breeders dedicated to improvement. We have some of them on here and I hope to join their ranks as the years progress. What I don't get is why you're so opposed to breeding for improvement in AMM. The questions remains - why breed from foreign races or hybrids when we have our own, dare I say it, native race already here. If as you say AMM breeders are simply breeding from hybrids I'm sure they (whoever they are) would have it otherwise and would take advantage of DNA analysis if it were available. Something useful that could be funded were the political will there to do so.

And interestingly it's an accepted thing in some breeds at least of cat (don't know enough about dogs to say) that you can bring in an animal to the breed who is unregistered and who displays the characteristics of the breed but happens not to have the paperwork. I know they do/have done this with Maine Coone cats with farm cats in Maine who looked and behaved like the breed. So you see it can be a flexible business and we don't need to be down on people who are trying to breed AMM using bees who display the physical and behavioural characterstics of AMM without them having been DNA analysed for purity.

I'm not seeing the moral highground being taken by AMM proponents as you seem to DR. What I do see is anger at continued imports. And for myself anger and confusion at why we allow them when our Bee Health Strategy uses the word "sustainable" and endlessly importing bees is the very definition of unsustainable.

[Rosie]

If people are buying in generally it's imports from the likes of Bickerstaffes and I'm not seeing the evidence of a superior breeding programme in those queens.

I can't comment on any specific importers such as Bickerstaffes but if you want to buy in a pure well-bred queen suitable for breeding from the cost can be (or at least was when I last looked) £300 or £400. The standard practice is to buy in a single expensive breeder queen each year and rear hundreds of open mated queens from it. These young queens will be pure (often Buckfast if the word "pure" can be applied to a Buckfast) but will be carrying semen from drones of other races. The queens are then exported to the UK where they head a hybrid colony despite being pure themselves. That means the behaviour of the colony is controlled by a gentle queen but its nectar collecting ability is governed by the hybrid vigour of the workers. This is a good formula and helps sell the importing habit. Unfortunately the next generation will be headed by one of the hybrid daughters and will be unpredictable, and, in my experience, often extremely defensive. Hence the the hapless owner is forced to requeen and buys another queen from the same source.

The system is unsustainable and in some areas the beekeepers can see it and are working together to end it. Some bee farmers and some amateurs are happy to have one good year from the queens, rather like battery hen farmers who buy in a new lot of hens each year and destroy all the old ones. It makes more profit for them than breeding their own pure-bred hens which will lay fewer eggs per year but will have a much longer productive period. No commercial egg producer would breed from their hybrid battery hens because the next cross will be inferior to the F1 cross they started with. Similarly, in my opinion, it would be fruitless to expect any success in bee improvement by using cheap imported queens.

Some amm people have managed to achieve the best of both systems. They keep 2 different lines of amms in distant apiaries and cross them together to take advantage of hybrid vigour without the risk of unwanted behaviour in future generations. They use the apiaries containing their own crosses for honey production and the other 2 apiaries for breeding purposes.

Steve

[mbc]

Steve thanks for taking the time to give a detailed explanation of the BIBBA position

I would have posted sooner but after reading mbc's post I was struck by a flying pig and rendered insensible

Lol.
What I was trying to get at, which I'm sure you realise DR, is that as with any stock improvement breeding efforts, there is a time when incremental improvements plateau out, and that this plateau is unlikely to have been reached in AMM due to the historical and present lack of resources behind the breeding efforts. One man bands and enthusiastic amateur groups just dont have the same impact as the national institutions which have led ligustica and carnica breeding efforts on the continent.

[Jon]

I think it is likely that there has been some introgression of genetic material into some or most of the AMM stock but it is possible to check if you have the time and resources.

Here is a recent review by Meixner et al of all the techniques used to measure introgression and separate out the ecotypes; from Morphometry to the various types of DNA analysis.

Standard methods for characterising subspecies and ecotypes of Apis mellifera (http://www.ibra.org.uk/articles/Standard-methods-for-characterising-subspecies-and-ecotypes-of-Apis-mellifera)
Author(s) Marina D Meixner, Maria Alice Pinto, Maria Bouga, Per Kryger, Evgeniya Ivanova and Stefan Fuchs

This discusses mitochondrial DNA, Microsatellites and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in the context of bee subspecies.
It is a very good review for anyone with the time and the interest to wade through it.

There is a good reference list at the end as well.

DR.
Noone with an ounce of wit thinks you can backbreed to AMM from a mongrel or hybrid population of bees.
What you can so in this situation is improve and stabilise the mongrels as long as there is not a constant injection of fresh genetics from various sub species. This is what Roger Patterson has done with success with his local bees in West Sussex. He has bees which are calm to work with and productive. The traits he has selected for are those usually associated with AMM such as frugality and compact brood nest. These bees are not AMM but they are well improved bees compared to what he had before. The reason it works for Roger is that he has dozens maybe hundreds of local beekeepers working as a team.
I don't think anyone on the thread has made that claim for backbreeding although I have seen it in the Bibba magazine from people who really should know better.


Hybrid bees are very by their nature very adaptable to any environment but of course when bees are moved into an area whether they are imported or not they affect the local population
Fortunately that just alters the genetic mix of the hybrid by adding a bit more of something that was already there
This makes no sense at all DR. First cross (F1) hybrids are often extremely vigorous and productive for reasons which you can read about if you google heterosis. Benefits are often lost in subsequent generations as you are then into mongrels rather than F1 hybrid. That is why F1 hybrid seed is expensive and is why saving seed from F1 seed does not produce the same results.
Adding a bit of what is already there is not necessarily true. If your hybrids are AMM x Carnica and someone introduces Ligustica you will get something different.

But if you start with an AMM population which is almost pure with minimal amounts of introgression that is another matter.
If you have bees like that to work with you just select from your best queens and work away.
If open mating produces mixed worker populations these colonies are still 100% kosher for producing drones as the sperm in the queens spermatheca has nothing to do with the drones she produces.
The key thing here is being confident that your breeder queens are pure race.
I would advocate that anyone in an area of really mixed up genetics who wants to start an AMM improvement group should start by bringing in a quality queen to graft from. All her daughters will produce AMM drones so in year two you will have a much improved background situation to work with if you requeen enough colonies in the neighborhood.

EDIT
posted at the same time as Rosie.
We are saying the same thing using different examples.

[The Drone Ranger]

DR To answer the breeding question ,where to start, that's the problem, so yes I do think beekeepers have been selecting from the best for hundreds of years

Skep beekeepers culled the best stocks and kept the mediocre ones!

They might not have
People were just as smart in the past and in some ways smarter than now

But let's go with that and say since the introduction of modern removable frames people have selected from their best bees

In fact they were so inclined to improve their bees that they imported huge numbers of queens and bees from all over the place
They were not cheap to buy either so their was a genuine desire for better bees
Most old adverts stressed the honey gathering calpability
I think it's fair to say then that they were interested in improving their bees and actively engaged in doing so albeit that lead to hybridisation of the bee population of most of the UK
I agree with both Peters,Rosie, Jon and mbc (and most of drumgerry:)) Scottish wildcat X moggie
Is the next wave of hybridisation , imports and bee movements to be AMM ?
Fair enough my bees have a fair bit of that in them as well
Sorry jon meant to reply to the Hetrosis thing earlier I don't thing anyone buying a queen will be getting one which has a line bred pedigree but a wide gene pool helps with vigour anyway

[mbc]

But if you start with an AMM population which is almost pure with minimal amounts of introgression that is another matter.
If you have bees like that to work with you just select from your best queens and work away.
If open mating produces mixed worker populations these colonies are still 100% kosher for producing drones as the sperm in the queens spermatheca has nothing to do with the drones she produces.
The key thing here is being confident that your breeder queens are pure race.
I would advocate that anyone in an area of really mixed up genetics who wants to start an AMM improvement group should start by bringing in a quality queen to graft from. All her daughters will produce AMM drones so in year two you will have a much improved background situation to work with if you requeen enough colonies in the neighborhood.

.

This idea of pure bred drones from a queen who has mixed matings falls down as soon as these queens swarm or are superceded.

[The Drone Ranger]

This idea of pure bred drones from a queen who has mixed matings falls down as soon as these queens swarm or are superceded.
AMM don't swarm it's supercedure after 5 years or the chop

[Jon]

This idea of pure bred drones from a queen who has mixed matings falls down as soon as these queens swarm or are superceded.

That's one reason why I mark and clip.
I rarely lose swarms and if I have to do an artificial swarm I usually have queens available to introduce to the queenless part.
I don't let the drone producing colonies requeen themselves.

[mbc]

That's one reason why I mark and clip.
I rarely lose swarms and if I have to do an artificial swarm I usually have queens available to introduce to the queenless part.
I don't let the drone producing colonies requeen themselves.

Very commendable for a new mating apiary but hardly sustainable for the long term.

[Jon]

You are managing a lot more than I am.

[The Drone Ranger]

Bit worried about trying to sum up what I have learned from the thread so far but here goes

Bee breeding has only been moving in the right direction since movable frame hives
So whatever was in those Viking graves was probably not much good by modern standards

Nevertheless because AMM were around at that time they should/could/would be due a revival
Hopefully the Picts won't be granted the same status I don't fancy them roaming around Forfar

Although a couple of hundred years worth of misguided importation and hybridisation has gone on there are still remote pure pockets of AMM
Those remote pockets don't include Colonsay because those bees were taken there much more recently, however Colonsay has been given protected status

The Bee Farmers feel aggrieved that although they have had money to replace colonies lost they are still not heavily subsidised enough
The rest of us feel that without their activities life would be a lot easier anyway

With our existing hybrid bees you could eventually breed a good strain of bee in open mating as long as migratory beekeeping stops
Breeding hybrids with nice wings and fluffy bottoms is OK as long as you play nicely with other beekeepers

Buying a queen is not the worst thing a beekeeper could do but ultimately whether its Italian Carnie or AMM he will have wasted his money
That can be mitigated against if he always buys another one or a £2000 II setup or alternatively has his own Island

Breeding AMM would be a good thing, but for most of the beekeepers in Britain Unicorns might prove easier
Nobody likes imports, not because of their shabby wings, but because we fear the disease risks.

BIBBA only has a few breeding rules but they are difficult to understand
BIBBA only has a few rules and they are easy to understand just not to follow

People who live in remote islands should not throw stones at the SBA President

[Adam]

I am enjoying the read but I'm not sure if it is getting anywhere.

For me, I don't know and can't control what bees are delivered by post to the surrounding area so I just breed from the best (in my view) and cull queens that produce bad-temper. There's not much more I can do as a (reasonably serious) hobby beekeeper. I'm not sure I would breed a really winter-frugal bee as it might not have sufficient colony size for an early crop like OSR which wasn't around in the days before imports.

[Peter]

To take your points in turn:

We know from the literature that they did cull the heaviest skeps - which I would assume were the best.

Have you heard the expression 'the grass is greener on the other side'? Humans seem to have always assumed that others have something better - especially the British who have constantly believed that anything imported must be good (hence the collapse of our economy from time to time).

If it is more expensive then it has to be even better, doesn't it?

Who believes adverts?

Remember too that there was plenty of money to be made if you could convince beekeepers that you were able to supply something better than what they already had.

What they (the importers and their customers) did not know (or perhaps some did) was the harm that would be done by indiscriminate importing - and it still goes on, despite our current knowledge. Leaving aside the genetic damage, let us think for a minute about disease. We have always assumed that it is OK to import from another country if we have the same diseases here? Right? Wrong!
Recent work has shown that there are, from memory (I might have the numbers wrong), 27 strains of EFB identified so far in the world: the UK has, I think, 6 of these. Do we want the rest, some of which are more virulent than the ones that we have?

If I had my way then we would put in real biosecurity: we could start by learning from NZ and Australia. (Is it not ironic that NZ are wrecking our bees whilst preserving their own?) It is time that our government realised that monitoring and reacting when a problem occurs is not biosecurity - it is just job creation for Defra departments.

[The Drone Ranger]

I am enjoying the read but I'm not sure if it is getting anywhere.

For me, I don't know and can't control what bees are delivered by post to the surrounding area so I just breed from the best (in my view) and cull queens that produce bad-temper. There's not much more I can do as a (reasonably serious) hobby beekeeper. I'm not sure I would breed a really winter-frugal bee as it might not have sufficient colony size for an early crop like OSR which wasn't around in the days before imports.

I'm in the same position Adam and I think are most other people are as well
One or two areas are unaffected by migratory beekeeping and have the right stock to take up serious AMM bee breeding
I think Jon, Rosie, mbc and all the the others involved in a serious way recognise that
The rest of us can make the best of the bees we have without feeling guilty about ignoring the call to arms so to speak :)
A little bit of banter helps clarify things more than the fierce disputes you get elsewhere which only divide the community

[Jon]

I'm not sure I would breed a really winter-frugal bee as it might not have sufficient colony size for an early crop like OSR which wasn't around in the days before imports.

I agree Adam. Excess frugality is a bad thing. I don't like colonies which come out of winter on only 3-4 frames of bees as they will not be built up until the end of May, ie just in time for the June gap! There is a happy medium though, as Italians in particular are reputed to keep rearing brood right through the winter with the associated excess consumption of stores.

I was at a NIHBS meeting on 7th April this year.
One of the other committee members is a guy who runs 150 colonies of AMM and he had supers on a lot of them by that date.
I got a queen from him and also a Galtee queen mid June and introduced both of them to 2 frame nucs.
These built up very quickly to full colonies and they are colonies which will likely need the second brood box peak season.
They are both overwintering on double brood.
The point is that within AMM you have different ecotypes and there is a lot of variation.
You can breed for what suits your area.
This was noted in the Jensen and Pederson paper (http://www.gbbg.net/pdf/ligustica_incursion.pdf) which looked at AMM across several different areas and jurisdictions (including colonsay)
There is as great a variation within a given AMM population than between any two AMM populations you might care to compare.


Bit worried about trying to sum up what I have learned from the thread so far but here goes
DR, you missed the most important point, ie that it all works better when beekeepers work together rather than as individuals.

[drumgerry]

One thing to bear in mind is that subsidies for OSR will not last forever and in my opinion nor should they. I think there's a happy medium to be had with a bee which manages its Winter stores frugally and gets going again in Spring when conditions are right. The last thing I want to be doing in my clover and heather area is feeding a bleedin enormous colony in our too frequently wet summers.

I also don't think the getting of big honey crops is a simple function of colony size. It's one of the biggest criticisms levelled at AMM by some. That the queens produce small colonies which will only ever get modest honey crops for you. My experience is that big colonies don't always get lots of honey and it's often a smaller colony that wins out in pounds produced. And generally those are headed by previous year's queens (in their first full season) and have not tried to swarm. Interested to hear others views on this even if it is a slight deviation from the subject at hand.

[Adam]

A little bit of banter helps clarify things more than the fierce disputes you get elsewhere which only divide the community
Agreed. The link to the bkf posted earlier shows how it SHOULDN'T be done.

Jon - true about the Italians. I have one only now. 3 year old queen. Lays like the clappers - all the time. I'm amazed that she hasn't run out of sperm yet.

[Peter]

[QUOTE=Jon;22228]I agree Adam. Excess frugality is a bad thing. I don't like colonies which come out of winter on only 3-4 frames of bees as they will not be built up until the end of May, ie just in time for the June gap!

We find that most of the OSR crop comes in during late May/early June. No problem with frugal bees - some of our frugal colonies have >11 frames of brood by then.

>There is a happy medium though, as Italians in particular are reputed to keep rearing brood right through the winter with the associated excess consumption of stores.

And how! When the NBU was at Luddington the then director, Vince Cook, changed all the stock to NZ Italians; they needed 60lbs of sugar per colony to get them through the winter! What lunacy - pumping in all that sugar.

>The point is that within AMM you have different ecotypes and there is a lot of variation.
You can breed for what suits your area.

Spot on!

[Peter]

[QUOTE=drumgerry;22229]One thing to bear in mind is that subsidies for OSR will not last forever and in my opinion nor should they.

With the high demand for oil I doubt that subsidies enter into the equation.

>I also don't think the getting of big honey crops is a simple function of colony size. It's one of the biggest criticisms levelled at AMM by some. That the queens produce small colonies which will only ever get modest honey crops for you. My experience is that big colonies don't always get lots of honey and it's often a smaller colony that wins out in pounds produced.

Absolutely right. It was Bro Adam who pushed the idea that to get large amounts of honey you needed large colonies - but I rather think that he had ulterior motives (why else would he have pronounced A.m.m. extinct?). Until you have seen the amount of honey that a small colony of A.m.m. can produce then you could be forgiven for any incredulity. So often I see a colony in a single brood box with 8-10 full supers above; it never fails to amaze.

Beats me why anyone with even half a brain keeps knocking our native bees? Trolls?

[The Drone Ranger]

Have you heard the expression the grass is greener on the other side
.

That's equally true of most of the AMM bees available I'm sure :)

[The Drone Ranger]

As Peter E says

"Beats me why anyone with even half a brain keeps knocking our native bees? Trolls? "

There no denying the logic in that statement
Our native bees are hybrids now :)

[mbc]

As Peter E says

"Beats me why anyone with even half a brain keeps knocking our native bees? Trolls? "

There no denying the logic in that statement
Our native bees are hybrids now :)

Speak for yourself DR, my native bees have stubbornly poked a proboscis out at the romans, saxons, normans and english, ignored IoW desease and Bro. Adams with his false pronouncements, turned their back on the double barreled names and their cash rich imports propaganda, and are now weathering the storm of internet shopping, all this while being robbed for millenia by their supposed custodians with their legendary thirst for mead.
Still, well done DR, this thread would look like cheerleading for AMM without a bit of devils advocacy !
Keep it going chaps, a most enjoyable read so far.

[Rosie]

Speak for yourself DR.

Is DR a hybrid?

This reminds me of the time I was once accused of being a racist because I favoured one bee race over another. If you use the word "subspecies" then suddenly you're not a racist after all.

Steve

[Jimbo]

Hi DR,

You got the genetic DNA evidence that all Amm are hybrids?
You been doing sneaky genotyping experiments out in you shed?
I would like a look at your results:o

[gavin]

If you use the word "subspecies" then suddenly you're not a racist after all.


Subspeciesist!! :p

[Rosie]

Subspeciesist!! :p

Guilty melud!:(

[The Drone Ranger]

Nope
what I am saying, is that the bees found throughout almost every area of the country are hybrids and makes them the native bees
AMM are confined to small enclaves
What preceded the Carniolan in Germany? Is that their native bee ?

And yes Steve I will be a hybrid I think

Hey! I might be the last of the Picts who knows for sure
Hope Peter is wrong he thinks I'm a troll (are they even real ?)

[Jon]

Nope
what I am saying, is that the bees found throughout almost every area of the country are hybrids and makes them the native bees

DR. No it doesn't. Native with regard to flora and fauna has a strict definition.
By your definition a baby Kangaroo born in Edinburgh zoo is a Scottish native.

This is from an article I am working on at the moment and this definition of 'native' is the one used by archaeologists, ecologists, botanists and suchlike.


“The term native is closely defined. To be a true Irish native, we need fossil evidence radio-carbon dated to the period before the arrival of people, between the end of the last ice age, around 11,500 years ago, and the earliest reliable date for the arrival of people on the island, around 9,800 years ago”

This strict definition of ‘native’ is possible for many of our plants, but is more of a problem for the so-called native animals as the early sites for bones are not free of indications of people. Many native plants and animals can never pass this stringent native test as they have left no fossil evidence.

[The Drone Ranger]

[QUOTE=drumgerry;22229]One thing to bear in mind is that subsidies for OSR will not last forever and in my opinion nor should they.

With the high demand for oil I doubt that subsidies enter into the equation.

>I also don't think the getting of big honey crops is a simple function of colony size. It's one of the biggest criticisms levelled at AMM by some. That the queens produce small colonies which will only ever get modest honey crops for you. My experience is that big colonies don't always get lots of honey and it's often a smaller colony that wins out in pounds produced.

Absolutely right. It was Bro Adam who pushed the idea that to get large amounts of honey you needed large colonies - but I rather think that he had ulterior motives (why else would he have pronounced A.m.m. extinct?). Until you have seen the amount of honey that a small colony of A.m.m. can produce then you could be forgiven for any incredulity. So often I see a colony in a single brood box with 8-10 full supers above; it never fails to amaze.

Beats me why anyone with even half a brain keeps knocking our native bees? Trolls?

There's no denying the logic in that last statement
Can anyone top 10 full supers ??

There all fixed now :)
I have removed the offending line and offer this reply instead
many apologies for my inappropriate use of "native"
You are probably more Scottish than me Jon
I was only born here and so were my grandparents on both sides

[drumgerry]

I don't think it's at all fair to be describing DR as a troll and I'd have thought we didn't stoop to such insults on here. He's a long time and valued member of the SBAI community. I don't see it as a problem that he disagrees with some of us on the question of AMM. An argument becomes the stronger for dealing with any challenge put to it.

[Rosie]

What preceded the Carniolan in Germany? Is that their native bee ?

Apis mellifera mellifera preceded the carniolan and Germany and it seems that, despite all the effort they have gone to to eliminate it much of the current stock contains significant amounts of AMM genetics.

I have learned a lot form the German experience:

1) Once you have mongrel bees it's extremely difficult and probably impossible to get back to one of the original constituent races.

2) You can, however, produce a bee that has all the outward appearance and behavioural traits of the race yo are trying to recreate. You can then improve its performance by further selection.

3) The bee you create can be compatible with pure samples (presumably you need a minimum amount of the right genetic material in the original mongrels).

4) When you have an anarchic system with defensive and badly adapted bees the only way out of the mess is to get organised. The Germans saw this around 70 years ago and took action but we are still squabbling about it.

If 3) is true then the BIBBA members who are starting with what they have in an area rather than parachuting in new blood do have a justified case provided they see their policy as the first stage in increasing the purity of the bees in their area.

Steve

[The Drone Ranger]

I don't think it's at all fair to be describing DR as a troll
thanks Drumgerry you are welcome at my cave anytime :)

[The Drone Ranger]

Apis mellifera mellifera preceded the carniolan and Germany and it seems that, despite all the effort they have gone to to eliminate it much of the current stock contains significant amounts of AMM genetics.

I have learned a lot form the German experience:

1) Once you have mongrel bees it's extremely difficult and probably impossible to get back to one of the original constituent races.

2) You can, however, produce a bee that has all the outward appearance and behavioural traits of the race yo are trying to recreate. You can then improve its performance by further selection.

3) The bee you create can be compatible with pure samples (presumably you need a minimum amount of the right genetic material in the original mongrels).

4) When you have an anarchic system with defensive and badly adapted bees the only way out of the mess is to get organised. The Germans saw this around 70 years ago and took action but we are still squabbling about it.

If 3) is true then the BIBBA members who are starting with what they have in an area rather than parachuting in new blood do have a justified case provided they see their policy as the first stage in increasing the purity of the bees in their area.

Steve

Can we call them AMM+
what would be a reasonable wing scan result before they could be included in the definition ?

[Jon]

I don't think it's at all fair to be describing DR as a troll and I'd have thought we didn't stoop to such insults on here. He's a long time and valued member of the SBAI community. I don't see it as a problem that he disagrees with some of us on the question of AMM. An argument becomes the stronger for dealing with any challenge put to it.

I'll second that.
We need to tolerate those who ride the range and listen to prog rock!


You are probably more Scottish than me Jon

I come from a long line of Scottish planters but my passport is Irish.
Here's hoping I am not a hybrid.
Might need to lie down in a darkened room if the aggression levels start to rise.

[Rosie]

Can we call them AMM+
what would be a reasonable wing scan result before they could be included in the definition ?
Why change the term we use after all these years? I'm happy with "near native" but you can call them what you like (within reason).

I have come across a definition of near native recently but can't remember the source or the exact definition. Whatever definition is used it will be academic as the ordinary beekeeper will have difficulty in determining the exact genetic make-up of his bees in any case. If bees behave like natives and you have good cause to believe they have more native genetics (such as well over 50% in the DrawWing box) than anything else that would be good enough for me. If they eat 40 lbs of stores over the winter though I would say they were beyond redemption but that's just my opinion.

DR, wing scans are not everything as the German experience has shown, especially if the population has already been analysed and selected on the strength of them, but can be useful for the detection of bad matings.

If I find the definition I will come back but perhaps someone else here will beat me to it.

Steve

[Trog]

Can we call them AMM+
what would be a reasonable wing scan result before they could be included in the definition ?

Oh, I like that - very 21st century and avoids all the baggage associated with 'native'. My bees are definitely AMM+.

My horse would probably say 'native is all very well, but ...'. She's a Welsh Cob. Her ancestors were Welsh Mountain Ponies. Fine beasties but small; not up to taking the weight of a Welsh farmer wanting to ride round his hill-farm, pulling the family cart, plus family, to chapel, or ploughing a small field. I can't remember chapter and verse but I think they added to the pony a bit of Arab and a bit of Clydesdale and ended up with a fine beast of 14.2hh, hardy, strong but not cart-horsey, but with the intelligence and attitude of it's pony forebears.

So maybe AMM for the purists and AMM+ for the rest of us?

Signed, native Scot, if you can count my ancestors who came here with the Normans, who were originally Vikings ... though my mum's convinced she's a Pict ... :D

[Rosie]

To the purists AMM- would be more appropriate but I'll stick with near native.

Trog, have you ever heard of the champion Welsh cob stud called Ebbw Victor?

Horses and dogs are all breeds anyway but we are talking about sub-species which is quite different. I suspect that all domestic horses are the same sub-species. Gavin might clarify.

[Trog]

Trog, have you ever heard of the champion Welsh cob stud called Ebbw Victor?.

No, not that one, but it's been a while (over 20 years) since I looked into such things. My old girl's very blue-blooded but I bought her for hacking, not showing, so I've not paid much attention to her ancestry! It was her movement as a foal/yearling that made me think she'd be a comfortable ride ... and I was right!

[madasafish]

"Gone native " used to a form of abuse.

(My ancestral line dates back to Border Reivers who were hung for stealing cattle.. )

[Trog]

"Gone native " used to a form of abuse.

(My ancestral line dates back to Border Reivers who were hung for stealing cattle.. )

My maternal grandfather used to deflect enquiries about his ancestors with, 'I wouldn't ask; they probably got hanged for sheep stealing'.

[The Drone Ranger]

To the purists AMM- would be more appropriate but I'll stick with near native.



That's going to have to be sorted out Steve
I had in mind AMM + some good bits from other breeds = AMM+
Then AMM without the extras and no proven record of producing 10 supers per hive would be AMM -
Near native is good as well because it covers all the options by not mentioning where they are natives of or how near they need to be :)
It doesn't sound too promising until you realise it has wiped out all the hybrid bees and replaced them all with AMM or near natives - overnight
Result!!

[gavin]

I'm sticking with near native or Ammish. The latter gives an aura of oldworldliness, ethics, dark attire, closed communities, total lack of aggression, dark beards on chins, self sufficiency and frugality.

But all a bit -ish these days.

G

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[Rosie]

I had in mind AMM + some good bits from other breeds = AMM+

I thought you would see it that way. My view is that they are pure AMM with some genes lost. Hence AMM- but I'm still sticking with near native although Gavin's Ammish sounds quite attractive.

[Trog]

I have the same thoughts as Gavin when I see Ammish. Are the dark beards for the bees or the beekeepers?

[The Drone Ranger]

this one
1841
fluffy chin

or this one
1842
Fluffy bum

[gavin]

I have the same thoughts as Gavin when I see Ammish.

I should acknowledge Feckless Drone's input into this line of thought.

Watch out though, the Ammish might fight back. The nearly-Ammish anyway.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o07ecRzkLuM

[Jon]

Harrison ford is behaving like a hybrid.

[gavin]

Exactly. I'll bet that he eats more as well.

[Trog]

Even AMM fight back if pushed too far :)

As indeed do quiet little wrens ;)

[The Drone Ranger]

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?1488-I-need-better-pollination
Even AMM supporters recommend Carniolans from time to time
Imports not an issue
Naughty Gavin , very naughty
Now before we all jump out of our various prams let's have a think
Is there an alternative to Commercial migratory Carnie bees or not ?

[gavin]

Of course there is, and you'll find that carnies are not as prevalent as you think. One bee farmer has been requeening his recent imports with his own selected strain (which is not of any particular race). One lost virtually all of his carnie imports along with his other bees (and may now have something else). Another told me that his carnie imports suffered more than his other stock in the following winter.

If Soft Fruit wants to try pollinating on that scale with just bees from hobbyists then he'll fail, so I was being honest.

All that talk of frugal Ammish/Amish shouldn't be taken too literally. Amm was and prob still is a very variable entity. Jon describes fast building types in NI and I'm sure that the original bee in the arable East of Scotland could be like that too.

Maybe Soft Fruit would like to go native anyway, and gain brownie points (and marketing advantage) for any (fruit) contracts he may have?

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[Jon]

Jon describes fast building types in NI and I'm sure that the original bee in the arable East of Scotland could be like that too.

The ones I was describing are headed by queens which originated in Waterford and Tipperary but they built up very quickly in NI and remain large colonies, still on double brood.
AMM has a historic range from Ireland in the west to the Urals in the East and you would have found huge variation in there - from bees which build up slowly to peak on the heather to faster building types. I mentioned earlier in the thread that one guy who runs 150 colonies in Waterford had a lot of them supered by 7th April. That is an early build up.


Maybe Soft Fruit would like to go native anyway...
Reminds me of one of the more bizarre statements in the Bibba magazine which claimed that northern flora need northern bees to ensure their survival!!!

[The Drone Ranger]

I was glad it wasn't me telling the truth then
I wouldn't point anyone in the direction of migratory beekeepers or bee farmers
No matter what bees they have and especially if they are importers
It's a reality check for me to see how flexible the policies on local bees and hybrids are
Crikey I'll be off to Colonsay with some of mine next :)

This is a bigger operation with 36 bumble bee hives I gather
http://www.countrysideonline.co.uk/the-magazine/from-the-magazine/the-fruits-of-a-scottish-climate/

[gavin]

DR, there are no policies, only personal preference.

Why the downer on migratory beekeepers? It is an ancient practice to shift your stock to the hills in summer, as old as agriculture itself. All kinds of beekeepers do it, large and small. The Robson family of Chain Bridge Honey Farm for example, and they are near native beekeepers who don't import.



This is a bigger operation with 36 bumble bee hives I gather
http://www.countrysideonline.co.uk/the-magazine/from-the-magazine/the-fruits-of-a-scottish-climate/

Did you see how well their £120,000 investment in blueberry bushes was going? Not sure how much of this is down to frosted blossom and how much inadequate pollination.

'Now without plastic protection in an exceptionally cold, sun-free spring the flowers on some of Calum’s blueberry bushes have aborted and gone brown. Others are in what he calls a coma. ‘It is one thing having a cool climate but we do need some sunshine!’ 2013 will be the second consecutive season when he will have very few, if any, blueberries.'

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Gavin
I am fairly consistent I think
I thought your personal preference was to recommend only buying local bees
Also I though you were in favour of breeding back to AMM
I don't see how that is consistent with commercial beekeepers moving bees round the country
I suspect if there was less moving around of bees there would be less importation, hybridisation, disease risks etc
Would it make good sense for commercial bees to be moved from Berwick on Tweed to Aberdeen on mass ie Chain Bridge

[greengumbo]

DR, there are no policies, only personal preference.

Why the downer on migratory beekeepers? It is an ancient practice to shift your stock to the hills in summer, as old as agriculture itself. All kinds of beekeepers do it, large and small. The Robson family of Chain Bridge Honey Farm for example, and they are near native beekeepers who don't import.



Did you see how well their £120,000 investment in blueberry bushes was going? Not sure how much of this is down to frosted blossom and how much inadequate pollination.

'Now without plastic protection in an exceptionally cold, sun-free spring the flowers on some of Calum’s blueberry bushes have aborted and gone brown. Others are in what he calls a coma. ‘It is one thing having a cool climate but we do need some sunshine!’ 2013 will be the second consecutive season when he will have very few, if any, blueberries.'

Woohoo ! I have all of 3 blueberries ripening so might be ahead of the game ;) Whether the redwings and fieldfares will beat me to them is another story.

[mbc]

I don't see how that is consistent with commercial beekeepers moving bees round the country
I suspect if there was less moving around of bees there would be less importation, hybridisation, disease risks etc
Would it make good sense for commercial bees to be moved from Berwick on Tweed to Aberdeen on mass ie Chain Bridge

Personally I dont see wishing to keep native bees as being in conflict with the idea of migratory beekeeping, either for pollination or chasing honey crops.
I think as soon as we categorise Amm as a less productive bee only suitable for static beekeeping in marginal areas, then the game is lost.
Britain is such a tight little island which imports over a third of all the food we eat, I think the onus is on people involved in food production to try and address this deficit. Thats not to say we should sacrifice quality in favour of quantity but that we should strive to be productive, and people should not try to hamstring our food producers with naive elitist ideas and actually appreciate and congratulate those who strive to do more.
1843
This picture shows bees efficiently trucked by articulated lorry from SW England up to Scottish heather and then distributed around by a fleet of unimoggs, awesome !( even better IMHO if they were native bees, but ho hum !)(picture originally posted on BKF by ITLD aka Murray Mcgregor )

[The Drone Ranger]

Woohoo ! I have all of 3 blueberries ripening so might be ahead of the game ;) Whether the redwings and fieldfares will beat me to them is another story.

Hi greengumbo when do they flower ?
Are bees remotely interested in them ?

[Peter]

Blueberries require bumblebees for pollination. Honey bees are unable to provide the required 'buzz' pollination.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi mbc
on the commercial beekeeping operations, if you support that activity thats fine
But nobody can complain that their breeding programs have been torpedoed by an influx of foriegn bees and in the next breath direct hundreds of hives full of self same bees to somebody else's back door
If you can make sense of that you will be doing better than me

When I go anywhere with my wife she always has a firm opinion "it's this way we need to go "
"i'm sure it's over here" etc
BUT over the years I have learned that she is mostly wrong.
In fact she has not the slightest talent for finding her way round nor any sense of direction whatever.

You can't tell her this, otherwise she will tend to overreact :)

So I have learned over the years to just ignore her advice on the basis that if you are trying to get somewhere its better just to follow your own path rather than be lead in circles by someone who hasn't a clue where they are going but thinks they have

I will leave the readers of this thread to make a judgement about whether there is any logic in any of the arguments they have read or whether they might just find themseves following someones advice who is more clueless than they are

[The Drone Ranger]

Blueberries require bumblebees for pollination. Honey bees are unable to provide the required 'buzz' pollination.

Hi Peter
There is another thread on here about Maud bees
That might be something you could clue us up on ?

[Peter]

Sorry - no information. I would have thought that might have resided in Scotland somewhere.

I had a queen from Orkney several years ago and I think it was Gavin (?) who suggested that bees from the Maud strain had been taken there many years ago, so it could be descended from those.

[drumgerry]

On the subject of commercial migratory beekeeping - if I saw a lorry like that pulling up near me it would fill me with horror. Especially knowing that it had travelled such a distance. As it is I know that some of those bees are destined for the upper reaches of Strathspey. Who's to say what those bees are bringing with them? Bad enough they bring their Carnie/Italian/Buckfast drones.

This'll be me repeating myself -again! - for those who weren't listening or weren't here at the time. My firmly held opinion is that most commercial beekeepers operate unsustainably and the picture of that lorry and the information that it has come from SW England further confirms what I believe. Plus of course the rather large government handout they're getting in Scotland. I also think this is related to the AMM issue like DR says. Not sure how support for the bee farmers and their annual imports of queens/packages/nucs reconciles with support for developing AMM as our indigenous strain of bees. Surely the two are mutually incompatible?

[mbc]

Hi mbc
on the commercial beekeeping operations, if you support that activity thats fine
But nobody can complain that their breeding programs have been torpedoed by an influx of foriegn bees and in the next breath direct hundreds of hives full of self same bees to somebody else's back door
If you can make sense of that you will be doing better than me

When I go anywhere with my wife she always has a firm opinion "it's this way we need to go "
"i'm sure it's over here" etc
BUT over the years I have learned that she is mostly wrong.
In fact she has not the slightest talent for finding her way round nor any sense of direction whatever.

You can't tell her this, otherwise she will tend to overreact :)

So I have learned over the years to just ignore her advice on the basis that if you are trying to get somewhere its better just to follow your own path rather than be lead in circles by someone who hasn't a clue where they are going but thinks they have

I will leave the readers of this thread to make a judgement about whether there is any logic in any of the arguments they have read or whether they might just find themseves following someones advice who is more clueless than they are

Lol.
I'm not quite sure whether you're calling me clueless or accusing me of offering advice, either way I had to laugh at the "she will tend to overreact", very familiar !
As to commercial beekeeping activities and breeding programs being mutually exclusive, I have a diametrically opposite view which is that it is only from broad bases of consistently monitored stock that the best breeding material will be selected.
I also have an issue with the idea that commercial beekeepers are automatically going to be inconsiderate towards their amateur beekeeping neighbours, its not the money and film star lifestyle that draws people to keep loads of bees, its the love of them.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi mbc
none of the above really I would say you are very clued up
but look at it this way
Say I wasn't happy with my hybrid bees
I answer the call to arms and decide to become a BiBBa member and breed AMM bees
I look for leadership and find some - the route I am led to take is local bees and breeding for maximum purity
I then find the glorious leader arm in arm with a huge importer of bees
Those bees surround my embryo breeding project threatening it's very existence
so I move house to the top of a mountain on a heather moor
My erstwhile leader then follows with a load of mates who put their bees on the heather
I lose faith in the leader and buy a nice Carnie queen
The wrath of the righteous decends on my head I am a wrecker ruining the gene pool ?

I wake up in a cold sweat but realise it was all a hideous nightmare -- relief
I haven't bothered with AMM I haven't wasted years trying turn the clock back to the dawn of beekeeping
I haven't been led into the futility following the glorious leader
Like the charge of the light brigade (should that be dark brigade) bad choices made by good people have unfortunate consequences

I'm with Reggie Perrin " who ever heard of the persecution of the apathetic by the bone idle"

[Jon]

As CJ would have said, I didn't get where I am today by humouring carnica.

[The Drone Ranger]

As CJ would have said, I didn't get where I am today by humouring carnica.

Brilliant LOL!

[drumgerry]

it is only from broad bases of consistently monitored stock that the best breeding material will be selected.

I agree MBC but I think if we're talking about AMM then you'll be looking in vain for your "broad base" to come from the commercial sector. As far as I can see they please themselves and take no account of the rest of us. They might love bees but they love their bees.

Interested to hear what the "naive elitist ideas" are and who they originate from in your opinion.

[The Drone Ranger]

I agree MBC but I think if we're talking about AMM then you'll be looking in vain for your "broad base" to come from the commercial sector. As far as I can see they please themselves and take no account of the rest of us. They might love bees but they love their bees.

Interested to hear what the "naive elitist ideas" are and who they originate from in your opinion.

Misprint that should say native elitist :)
Drumgerry you have the right Idea
When you bought that II kit I thought the "cria has gone loco"
Turns out you were right it is the essential ingredient
You can have seance without a Ouija board but it's better with
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Ouija-Boards-/102515/i.html
here's a link for said board which might come in useful for contacting sources of pure AMM stock

[Jon]

sources of pure AMM stock

plenty over here.


When you bought that II kit I thought the "cria has gone loco"
Turns out you were right it is the essential ingredient
Very useful ingredient but I would say working with a local group is a more important factor.

[The Drone Ranger]

plenty over here.


Very useful ingredient but I would say working with a local group is a more important factor.

You could be posting your frozen drone sperm next year :)

[mbc]

I agree MBC but I think if we're talking about AMM then you'll be looking in vain for your "broad base" to come from the commercial sector.

Really ?

As far as I can see they please themselves and take no account of the rest of us. They might love bees but they love their bees.

In my experience, that would be unusual.

Interested to hear what the "naive elitist ideas" are and who they originate from in your opinion.

The clue that this was a general swipe at anyone who puts unnecessary hurdles in front of, or have unrealistic expectations of our farmers, was here ;"people should not try to hamstring our food producers" ,but if you want a specific example relative to this thread, then the idea that we shouldnt seasonally move our bees to better pastures is pretty much what I was getting at.:)

[Jon]

You could be posting your frozen drone sperm next year :)

Apparently it keeps pretty well at room temperature for a week or two.
Gerry has probably read up more about it than I have but I did have someone send me a load of links and documents on II a couple of years ago.
definitely something I will get into at some point. One step at a time.

[The Drone Ranger]

10 years ago one of the beekeepers I know was bringing his bees down from the hills every year to the oil seed rape
These were bees descended from his father's and before him his grandfather
Nobody thought much about it but every hive he brought down that swarmed meant it went back hybridised
Meanwhile every July hundreds of hives would appear up the glen stocked with nice but exotic bees
Result was a lost opportunity to propagate those bees which were dark and lovely
Now some would say that opportunity sailed by in his father or even grandfathers time but nobody could deny it was due to migratory beekeeping

I have always had hybrid bees myself and as I have said before I would sooner have some well bred selected bees brought to the rape than the general ill tempered hodge podge that could arrive . But that makes everything variable for me as well. My 20+ hives are a drop in a very large ocean of genetic soup

[drumgerry]

Clearly we have very different points of view when it comes to the bee farmers MBC. I don't see much sense in replying point by point. Let's not waste anyone's time for the next couple of pages eh?

And I'll leave the dark magic to you DR!:D

[drumgerry]

Apparently it keeps pretty well at room temperature for a week or two.
Gerry has probably read up more about it than I have but I did have someone send me a load of links and documents on II a couple of years ago.
definitely something I will get into at some point. One step at a time.

Aye maybe I need to visit my family in Donegal and have a wee stop off in Belfast on the way back for some drone eversion practice!

[Jon]

feel free any time Gerry.
There are a couple of Galtee queens at the association apiary and daughters all over the place at this point so spoiled for choice.

[The Drone Ranger]

[deleted as it was off topic

[gavin]

GG posted more on blueberries which I've shifted to the thread that was discussing this topic (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?1488-I-need-better-pollination/page2) where it may be of more use than here. 'Here' seems to have lost its way somewhat.

[prakel]

A prime example would be the 600 colonies of NZ Carnica placed 10 miles away from Ron Hoskins and his varroa research project.

I've been otherwise committed recently so a little late back to this one. Does anyone have up to date information on Mr Hoskins project, is it known whether those carnica did have any impact; good or bad?


Hi Prakel
Many years ago I was on holiday near Lulworth Cove it's a lovely spot

Let me know if you ever return!

[Kate Atchley]

'Here' seems to have lost its way somewhat. ... especially given the BIBBA website has disappeared along with a disaffected webmaster. What now passes for their website is near-empty. Most of the BIBBA email addresses for committee members aren't working as they signed up to a discounted deal allowing too few! Hard to find a way to contact them at all.