A poll for the people who raise their own queens

[The Drone Ranger]

I wonder if a poll of what people are up to with their queen raising might be fun
You can choose more than one option which you will need if you are in a breeding group
Your votes are not public so you don't need to defend them :)
I think if you choose the (ish) option you would be saying about 50% or more that type of bee

[drumgerry]

Hmmm...doesn't really describe me completely. Currently raising Amm-ish queens (and voted that way) but want to be closer to option one and am working towards that.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hmmm...doesn't really describe me completely. Currently raising Amm-ish queens (and voted that way) but want to be closer to option one and am working towards that.
You can have more than one option
But I think that you will have a different vote next year if you get that Schley ?? is it called working
I am more concerned about the Sleigh (Santa's) that is
Can it be that time of year again ??

[drumgerry]

Aye DR - things will be accelerating nicely (I hope) once me and Dr Schley team up with our fiendish apparatus!

[gavin]

Nowt much to say on this right now other than .... Jon and me and Keith and all say ... Hello from Athlone!!

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[Pete L]

Nowt much to say on this right now other than .... Jon and me and Keith and all say ... Hello from Athlone!!


Hope you all have a good weekend.

I ticked a few of the boxes in the poll, there are also a few other sub species not included, but i believe the poll is limited to ten options.

[Rosie]

I am surprised to see that out of only 7 voters one is breeding pure Buckfast. I have only ever heard of one person with pure stock and he produced first crosses and so had to replace his breeder queen every year.

[wee willy]

I have a feeling that 'Buckfast' is a concept and would regard them as a 'type'
Pure implies a fixed subspecies which Brother Adams never really claimed.
There are breeders out there trying to preserve the desired features of this bee type and making a good job of it in many cases :)
WW


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[Rosie]

I am sure you are right WW but as far as I know it's extremely difficult to obtain decent Buckfasts - especially from abroad. The queens usually on offer are of excellent stock but have been open mated and don't breed true. In fact I have had a couple of 2nd generation ones try to kill me. Decent Buckfast-ish ones are probably much more common than ones that can boast any sort of continuous pedigree - hence my surprise to find a tick in the pure Buckfast box. We are probably saying the same thing WW but using different words.

[wee willy]

Probably :)
Aggression is a dominant gene although I make no claim to be an expert but given the nasty traits of some carnie crosses this would appear so!
Aggression would be an advantageous tool in the survival strategy and is bound to turn up from time to time in an open mating scenario ?
WW



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[Jon]

A trait like aggression will not be controlled by a single gene, bound to be several.
I doubt it is a simple dominant / recessive scenario either.
One thing noted by a lot of beekeepers is that aggression can be largely bred out of bees in just a few generations if you don't keep mixing up the genepool.

[The Drone Ranger]

Not as many Italian Bees being raised
Surprising me a little because the Light Italians are incredibly gentle
In a garden situation in a big City like London they are a safe bet
They suit the South a little better

Has anyone had cream legbar chickens I have a few
https://www.omlet.co.uk/breeds/chickens/cream+legbar/
You can get the lowdown on them here
They breed true produce blue eggs are nice tempered and easy on the eye
Good layers but in my experience they are prone to lay in hiding places rather than the nestbox
Pure breed created in the 1920's

Buckfast have a better pedigree than that so they are a true breed and it's a little unfair to compare them to hybrid allsorts like my bees

[The Drone Ranger]

Just been checking the size of the forum membership (pretty big)
so either there are a lot of votes to come or not many people raise their own queens
Interesting :)

[Jon]

It will be the latter.
Of the hundreds who attend queen rearing demos and training events only a fraction ever go on to do any queen rearing in a controlled way.
Whenever I started queen rearing I assumed that there were lots of more experienced people I could get advice from.
The reality is that only a handful of people rear queens locally.
Something is not working. Rearing queens is not so difficult yet very few do it.
The books make it seem complicated.
The exams test on all manner of things, many of which are of peripheral value to a beekeeper.
Working within a group is one way of improving the situation, as the members can acquire more skills in a convivial setting.

[Rosie]

I think you are right Jon. People expect queen rearing to be difficult and try to follow some complicated technique, stage by stage, without fully understanding why it works and lose confidence when it fails. In essence all you need do is arrange to get a young grub in a vertical cell and located in a part of the hive where the queen pheromone is depleted. There are hundreds of way of doing that and one is as simple as tipping a comb on its side high in the hive.

BIBBA is currently running a series of workshops aimed at encouraging people to get involved in queen rearing and they are proving to be incredibly popular. The emphasis is on simple methods suited to beginners. The National associations should have been doing this years ago because the demand is huge.

[Blackcavebees]

Out of a preliminary class of 18 folks 3 seasons ago, about 10 went to queen rearing talks the next season but only one raised any queens (me). When I asked them how they were getting on and said that I had raised a couple of queens for increase you would have thought I had gone over to practising the dark arts! Any increase my friends had was through swarming. A couple of seasons on I have attended Jon's queen rearing group all summer, grafted, used the Ben Harden queenright method, raised a few lovely black queens and increased my stocks again. Can't wait to Spring to get my Drone colonies doing as I've built some more mating nucs (up to 19 mini nucs now). Trying to get my stocks up so I have more to select from.

It's not difficult - give it a try! Get together with like minded beekeepers, make your mistakes, cut your teeth, and get breeding local queens.

[The Drone Ranger]

Reading the last 3 posts from Jon Rosie and Blackcavebees I thought that can't be right
Then I started thinking about the beekeepers I know and realised it probably is not many of them are proactive queen rearers

A couple of people I have started with bees use the Snelgrove board (snore boring !!)
One friend with several hives in a more urban setting than me now has very gentle bees and they are productive
That took them a few seasons but I think I would swap bees with them happily

It's a good way to start, and if you want to move on to grafting etc it's easy to adapt the method
It's also a good way to increase your number of colonies when queen raising proper makes more sense

If the beekeeper wants to stick to keeping just one or two hives then it's an alternative to joining a group
Although if there is a group available it could be a fast route to getting better bees and confidence

I don't blame folk for not buying all the queen rearing paraphernalia on spec because if you only have a couple of hives it does look like overkill :)

[Jon]

The snelgrove board is great to get a couple of queens. I don't use them myself but know people who swear by them.


I don't blame folk for not buying all the queen rearing paraphernalia on spec

I would not be put off by the cost. My grafting tool is a 000 sable paintbrush which costs £2. A dozen base cups, inserts and cell cups will cost you about a tenner.
Use an old frame to make your cell bar frame.
That's all you need to get started.
the biggest expense is likely to be the apideas/mini nucs but if you have the time and the skills you can make them like Stephen does.
The major advantage of the group is access to quality genetics and getting a good mating site for your apideas where you have flooded an area with drones.
One person can graft for 50 group members from a couple of quality queens.
Buy 10 Apideas and sell 10 queens and you have them paid for and they will last you for years.
In a good season you get 2+ queens from each Apidea.

[Rosie]

the biggest expense is likely to be the apideas/mini nucs

I don't think you need buy mini-nucs either, although I do use a few myself. You can produce queen cells easily and if you only want to make increase for yourself you just need to make up small colonies by robbing frames of brood and nurses from your others and stick a queen cell in each one.

[The Drone Ranger]

Possibly folk are linking raising their own queens to becoming involved with breeding programs aimed at specific pure(ish) breeds
You can make quite good progress just starting with what you have

Forget about wing scanning etc thats all a side issue
And if your bees are particularily vicious or chalkbrood prone etc don't be afraid to buy in a well bred queen to get you started
Temper is probably the place to start and you will soon see if it's going in the right direction

[The Drone Ranger]

I don't think you need buy mini-nucs either, although I do use a few myself. You can produce queen cells easily and if you only want to make increase for yourself you just need to make up small colonies by robbing frames of brood and nurses from your others and stick a queen cell in each one.
Good point Rosie beekeeping can be horribly expensive
My wife always says "I hope you are going to get enough honey to pay for that lot"
I'm usually too busy messing around to listen
"quiet woman" "where's that antihistimine is my only reply"

[susbees]

I'm with Jon on the 000 or 00 sable brushes...but how come art shops never have more than one and the size varies :D? The issue of robbing frames from strong colonies has come to a shuddering halt for me next season. I will be using nucs for providing frames of brood for nucs for raising queens: now I just need to make twenty more nucs before Spring - when pray tell is that going to happen. Cost? Yes, there's always cost (AKA you can never have too much kit...).

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi susbees
For the 1-4 hive beekeper what do you recommend them to have for queen rearing kit
Does the nuc splitting method depend on getting some nucs through Winter ?

[Rosie]

I'm with Jon on the 000 or 00 sable brushes...but how come art shops never have more than one and the size varies :D

While watching the Tudor Farm last night on TV I saw them make a fine brush for illuminating religious manuscripts. I use a Swiss-type tool for grafting but if I used a brush I'm sure I would be making my own now with a feather, the way it was done in Tudor times.

[Jon]

That would almost make you a natural beekeeper Steve.
Run away on to biobees!

[Rosie]

I thought there was no swearing tolerated on here!

[The Drone Ranger]

While watching the Tudor Farm last night on TV I saw them make a fine brush for illuminating religious manuscripts. I use a Swiss-type tool for grafting but if I used a brush I'm sure I would be making my own now with a feather, the way it was done in Tudor times.

I saw that as well
My chickens are all nearly bald now
The brushes will be going on Ebay within a day or two :)

[beejazz]

Do you know I saw that as well, and thought the feather brush would make a great grafting tool. I want to get hold of a goose wing for a bee brush, in London ha ha, and will reserve a feather from the wing to make a fine brush, if I do.

[The Drone Ranger]

Do you know I saw that as well, and thought the feather brush would make a great grafting tool. I want to get hold of a goose wing for a bee brush, in London ha ha, and will reserve a feather from the wing to make a fine brush, if I do.
Aren't there hundreds of those Canada Geese messing up the Serpentine for the naked swimmers in Winter :)

[beejazz]

No need to disturb the birds or naked swimmers in Hyde Park, a forumer has kindly offered to post me some!

[Jon]

You will never get a naked swimmer through the letter box. Better wait for the postman on the driveway.

[beejazz]

Doh! Although my postie is very accommodating, he changes his route if he knows I've ordered any queens, to deliver quicker.

[gavin]

Is this where it all starts?

http://www.blog.littlesafe.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Thames-Letter-Box2.jpg

[The Drone Ranger]

Qwackers !!

[beejazz]

Lol, celtic qwackers? :rolleyes:

[The Drone Ranger]

Bit like this one :)
1875

Borrowed from
http://www.deviantart.com/morelikethis/artists/136489852?view_mode=2

17 people raising queens ??
C'mon get the vote on :)

[The Drone Ranger]

I'm with Jon on the 000 or 00 sable brushes...but how come art shops never have more than one and the size varies :D? The issue of robbing frames from strong colonies has come to a shuddering halt for me next season. I will be using nucs for providing frames of brood for nucs for raising queens: now I just need to make twenty more nucs before Spring - when pray tell is that going to happen. Cost? Yes, there's always cost (AKA you can never have too much kit...).

Hi Susbees
The reason they don't stock many tiny sable brushes is that for watercolour painting a well made sable No6 has a very fine point when wet which means small detail can be painted with a larger brush that holds much more paint and is more versatile :)

http://www.jacksonsart.com/Art_Departments-A-Z_All_Departments/c2129_2128/index.html

http://www.rosemaryandco.com/watercolour-brushes/pure-kolinsky-sable

couple of pages to browse for brushes during the long Winter

[The Drone Ranger]

This year I intended to take a few pictures as a step by step for cell punching but like everything else it went by the by
has anyone else done any punching this year ??
1876
This is the little punch tool I use

[The Drone Ranger]

If only 19 people raised their own queens what did everyone else do ?
Do we need another poll :)

[Pete L]

If only 19 people raised their own queens what did everyone else do ?


Bought them off the nineteen people that did raise them.:)

[The Drone Ranger]

Bought them off the nineteen people that did raise them.:)

Hi Pete
It just shows how important the queen suppliers are
Without them lots of beekeepers would not have access to quality queens
If I only had one or two hives buying a queen might be money well spent

[Jon]

Joining or starting a queen rearing group and getting a couple of queens for yourself and a couple more to sell would be an even better option.

[Rosie]

Simple queen rearing is not difficult and adds a whole new dimension to your beekeeping as well as providing you with better bees. Unfortunately most courses make it look complicated and that has led to misconceptions about it.

It only gets complicated if you are into queen breeding (as opposed to rearing) or if you want to make money (rather than save money) out of it.

[mbc]

A poll on a forum where a good number of the regular posters are actively trying to breed and improve native bees is obviously going to be skewed, I guess that a good many beekeepers who raise a few queens for themselves, and possibly a few for local distribution, will have been discouraged from voting on the poll because they fall short of some mythical ideal of breeding pure indigenous bees.
IMHO anybody who raises their own queens are accomplishing a great deal by being custodians of the currently successful genes in their area by capturing these genes through open matings with the best drones.

[The Drone Ranger]

A poll on a forum where a good number of the regular posters are actively trying to breed and improve native bees is obviously going to be skewed, I guess that a good many beekeepers who raise a few queens for themselves, and possibly a few for local distribution, will have been discouraged from voting on the poll because they fall short of some mythical ideal of breeding pure indigenous bees.
IMHO anybody who raises their own queens are accomplishing a great deal by being custodians of the currently successful genes in their area by capturing these genes through open matings with the best drones.

I would agree with that mbc
The poll is a secret one anybody can vote without having to defend their choices
So anyone raising queens by whatever method can vote
It's probably the wrong time of year as there's less forum activity in Winter

[Neils]

I personally fall into the jack of all trades camp myself. Down here it is impossible to actively select for one bee or another. Two miles apart as the crow flies I have apiaries, in one I have yellowy bees in the other I have dark bees and they've been consistent like that now for the three years I've had the two apiaries. In terms of temperament they broadly similar now, neither apiary would I go into without a suit on, but nor do I get attacked or followed, all things being equal.

Queen rearing fundamentally can be very simple and I will incur the wrath of here as well as elsewhere by stating that I see no issue with using the swarming impulse to garner queen cells If you understand why the colony is swarming. I live in a city, 1 or 2 hives and a couple of nucs in an apiary is pretty good going round these parts, having 2-3 hives a bunch of nucs and apideas is a luxury that not many people can indulge so you work with the bees and the space you have.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Neils swarm cells should make good queens though
Sometimes people say that the queens so produced will be swarmy stock
Course if you have only one hive it doesn't matter if you graft from that hive or harvest a swarm cell you have the same stock
Also I think the bees are best at selecting larva to raise for queens
If you make a split where there are no queen cells present then you get emergency cells perhaps that's not so good
Snelgrove is better because although that is a split with no queen cells present the bees are in communication through the mesh and don't raise queens in panic
Plus as you progressively reduce the flying bees in the top the bees reduce the queen cells themselves always keeping their best choice

[beejazz]

Quick question, what if the queen was removed from a colony/ or taken out in a nuc; being queenless the bees start emergency cells immeadiately, then if those are reduced to one or two while still uncapped, will those Q cells be worth keeping since the nurse bees can concentrate on feeding only them instead of many?

[Black Comb]

All the books say emergency cells are the least desirable of the 3.
I've had good queens from making a split and leaving them to get on with it but I suppose the probability is they are not as good as the other types.
"Walk away splits" seem to be more popular the other side of the pond. (from what I've read)

[Rosie]

Anyone queen rearing by using queenless starter colonies is making use of the emergency impulse to get cells started. The ones who use queenright systems might be using the supersedure impulse but I am not convinced either way. Whatever method is used, if the queen cells are well provisioned they should produce strong queens. The only time I would discourage people from using swarm cells is when the colony is already too swarmy. I can't see how how swarm cells from a non-swarmy colony can possibly be seen as inferior.

[beejazz]

I read, can't remember where, that the number of swarm cells in a colony is an indicator of how swarmy the bees are?

[The Drone Ranger]

Quick question, what if the queen was removed from a colony/ or taken out in a nuc; being queenless the bees start emergency cells immeadiately, then if those are reduced to one or two while still uncapped, will those Q cells be worth keeping since the nurse bees can concentrate on feeding only them instead of many?

I don't know bejazz, but it seems logical, and as Black Comb and Rosie say there seems to be no difference in the real world just books
Sometimes there are studies like this one https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4kmkBxg4pS2ZktncGxJeFQ4TG8/edit?usp=sharing
Mostly that seems to be splitting hairs about queen weights and cell lengths etc.
In the real world people wait to see how their queens actually do, but it's natural to want them to have the best start in life I suppose

[beejazz]

Thanks for the link. Will check it out when time is my own!

[The Drone Ranger]

I read, can't remember where, that the number of swarm cells in a colony is an indicator of how swarmy the bees
are?

I think it's natural when bees reach a peak in numbers for them to prepare for swarming
You might be right about the cell numbers
It is not so much how many cells they make that is the problem, more what happens next
Some bees will swarm then settle
Nuisance, but nobody died, better luck next time
Others seem to swarm then produce cast after cast until they are so low on bees there is nothing left
That's the ones that you (and me) need to avoid

[drumgerry]

I know there's only 21 votes (so far) but it's interesting seeing how much interest there is in AMM or AMM-ish compared to the rest of the pure strains. Confirms to me that if we're going to choose a strain to focus on for most of us it's going to be AMM.

And re swarminess. I think it can be a calumny (no slur meant on Calum clearly!) to describe some bees as swarmy when the beekeeper is to blame for overcrowding or not giving her maj somewhere to lay. Bees that swarm themselves into oblivion are a curse I agree DR - I've had a few like that I wasn't sad to see the back of.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Drumgerry
I was on the beekeeping forum the other day and someone posted a link on a DCA thread
Anyway the chap was on Youtube with a net containing some dyed black filter tips which were dangling inside on threads
He put some queen pheromone 50 micro-liters on each fake queen
Using a helium balloon he attracted and caught dozens of drones at a time

Where am I going with this ?
well if I had a fancy schley inseminator I might try catching a bunch of drones in the wild
Then look at them for stripes if there are none keep those
Get home wing check the drone candidates and use the amm ones

Bit cruel perhaps but it gets you local and amm drones without the endless disappointments of open mating or bringing in queens to avoid the inbreeding
What do you think ? :)
If I find the youtube link I will stick it in here

[Pete L]

Sky fishing for drones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgtDhNeg9_Y

[The Drone Ranger]

Sky fishing for drones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgtDhNeg9_Y

Thank you Pete that was the very one :)

[drumgerry]

Not sure I'd rely on wing morphometry to sort out the wheat from the chaff in that way DR. Jon has a paper to link to which shows its limitations I think. And isn't there a reason why the morphometry method suggests the use of young workers rather than say drones?

And one last thing. From what I've read (and maybe Pete L can chip in on this) isn't one of the complications of II the keeping of drones alive and fertile? Stressed drones don't evert or are less fertile? Or simply stressed drones die? I'd imagine catching drones like this (although I haven't watched the video yet) might be a stressor.

[Jon]

Drones die very quickly if not looked after properly.
There are also advantages to harvesting drones of a known age if possible.

I concur that Pete L is the man to elaborate as I only know what I have read about it.

[drumgerry]

Yep - old drones = more semen (jeez did I just say that?!). So another cross against DR's idea I'm afraid.

[Pete L]

They will die very quickly if not well cared for, they stay alive best if kept warm and have some caged workers with fondant, within their flight box.

[The Drone Ranger]

OH well another one bites the dust :)

[Rosie]

I didn't think it was that bad an idea DR. If you've acquired a virgin from a race that's different to your own then selecting drones from the sky might be better than open mating them - even if the selection process is not perfect. It sounds a bit time consuming though. I think I would prefer to get a mated queen in the first place.

[The Drone Ranger]

Drumgerry in an earlier post mentioned the wing scan doubts

I think that sort of just means if you see a blond person with blue eyes that doesn't make them Scandanavian
But if you see someone with black curly hair and brown eyes they probably wont be

On the blue eye subject I thought "I'll check that assumption about Scandinavia"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-511473/All-blue-eyed-people-traced-ancestor-lived-10-000-years-ago-near-Black-Sea.html
Unfortunately it's from the Daily Mail but still points to why its not a reliable test of nationality :)

I thought that there was some correlation between drone and worker bees wing scan test
I think it might be better to positively identify a queen race by sampling one drone
That would not help if grafting from her larva but would be better for II purposes (using her drone)

[Adam]

I read, can't remember where, that the number of swarm cells in a colony is an indicator of how swarmy the bees are?

Roger Patterson has mentioned this and I don't think it's a widely held view. Roger has been messing about with bees for a long time and will, presumably, have come up with the hypothesis and then tested it in his head for many years.

Is there a difference between the decision to swarm - swarmy bees - and then actually going about the business of raising queens?

[Adam]

I know there's only 21 votes (so far) .
Now 24. :)

[Rosie]

Roger Patterson has mentioned this and I don't think it's a widely held view. Roger has been messing about with bees for a long time and will, presumably, have come up with the hypothesis and then tested it in his head for many years.

I think Beowulf Cooper said it when he was assessing native bees in the 60s and 70s. I wouldn't be surprised if it had even been noticed before him. I would dispute the statement that it's not a widely held view. It's used by some as one of their selection criteria.

[masterbk]

The link between the number of Swarm queen cells and degree of swarmyness with colonies producing after swarms (secondary swarms or casts) is, I believe, alot to do with number of queens in their cells piping. The more mature cells the more virign queens there are to pipe. With alot of piping the workers are more likely protect the other V. queens trapped in their cells from an emerged virgin queen and will only let another one out when that queen has flown the nest with a cast.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Masterbk

That's interesting and thought provoking
If a large number of queen cell are produced and they are from larva who are a composite of their parents ie one mother and different fathers they are only partly related
Likewise the worker bees are not all that closely related so would they share a behaviour pattern like protecting piping cells ?
Yet we all know there are colonies which swarm themselves out so it could be correct

[prakel]

Likewise the worker bees are not all that closely related so would they share a behaviour pattern like protecting piping cells ?

Now there's a can-of-worms. Quite possibly it's the fact that there are subsets of supersisters that triggers the protection of certain cells. There's at least one paper on the behaviour of supersisters preferentially choosing one of their 'own' when forced into an emergency queen rearing situation. I'll come back with a link to that one later if no one else has it handy.


edit: or, maybe I won't produce the link. I was sure that there is one (amongst all of the counter claims) but simply can't find it now so perhaps I'm mistaken. This of course doesn't spoil good speculation that this sister differentiation is possible.

[Adam]

I think Beowulf Cooper said it when he was assessing native bees in the 60s and 70s. I wouldn't be surprised if it had even been noticed before him. I would dispute the statement that it's not a widely held view. It's used by some as one of their selection criteria.

Somewhere I have a booklet with some Beowulf Cooper text in there - I'll have to find it out and read it. I might have been better to write that the number of swarm cells in relation to swarming is not widely written about - not in the standard text books I have seen anyway.

I suspect that the prime selection criteria for swarminess for many beekeepers is - "Did that colony swarm or not?" - and otherwise it's the time of season, size and state of the colony when it did prepare to swarm.

[Jon]

My father's bees are really swarmy and I am often amazed how few cells some of them will swarm on. I have gone through a box of his after it swarmed to find only 3 or 4 queen cells.
When you dig around for any experimental evidence for stuff like this the trail is often stone cold and the only material on the table is the writings of Beo Cooper.

[Rosie]

Jon, in my experience I would expect your dad's swarmy bees to be capable of leaving anything between 2 and 30 swarm cells behind. If you have a non swarmy strain it will be very unusual to see more than 8 swarm cells. At least that's the pattern around here.

It's easy to knock Beowulf but he was working up to 50 years ago and the bees he had were less influenced by exotic races than they are today so it's difficult to judge his conclusions. He was also working in the English Midlands where the bees and ecology may have been quite different to Irish ones.

[Jon]

That's the point though. What he saw may have been local to his area, his time, and his bees, or may have been misinterpreted, inaccurately recorded, subject to an agenda etc.
This illustrates the difference between science and anecdote quite clearly.
Same applies to anything written by brother Adam, Rev Langstroth etc.
Interesting observations but not science and not necessarily true.
Cooper's claim that apiary vicinity mating is a strategy used by AMM to mate in low temperatures or poor weather conditions is totally at odds with my observations.
I have seen apiary vicinity mating in 3 different apiaries in total 12+ times and one factor in common has been perfect weather with Blue skies and a temperature abound 20c.
No way would I make a claim that that is a blueprint for how bees mate as it is just happens to be a phenomena I have observed on a few occasions.
I could write it all down and package it up and sell it in a book but it would become no more or no less true.
I have in fact drafted some stuff about AVM for Roger P which he wants to quote me on for a book he is writing - but I made sure to include plenty of caveats.
It would be a nice piece of work to set up a load of apideas with virgin queens and monitor them by video, or better still use an RFID transmitter attached to each queen like they have started to do with bees in the pesticide monitoring experiments such as the recent papers by Henry et al and Schneider et al.
The point is, you have to decide if you go with science or you go with anecdote.

I think Adam is right in that the swarm cell thing is not a widely held view. It may well be a widely held view in Bibba circles.

[mbc]

I have observed a few AVM myself, and one thing that struck me is that it has always been from mini nucs, and another is that the excitement of a mating 'swarm' (often the reason I have noticed the AVM) can be too much and the whole lot can abscond.
FWIW I would rather have my queens mate too high, and too far away for the eye to see.

My bees will usually produce between half a dozen and a dozen and a half queen cells when they decide to swarm, but to be honest, so long as its not excessive (>18), I dont care. What is important to me is what stage the colony has reached before deciding to make swarming preparations, those who want to go before filling a box are obviously the ones to eliminate from a breeding program aiming at a productive strain.

[Jon]

All of my observations bar one were queens flying from apideas. I did witness it once with the virgin from a colony which was superseding. The process was exactly the same.
I have also linked this to absconding in some cases.

I rescued one clump of bees and queen from an Apidea in August this year, which had spent the night 20 feet up a tree.
I wrote about it in the blog section (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/entry.php?655-Catching-an-apidea-swarm) at the time.


FWIW I would rather have my queens mate too high, and too far away for the eye to see.

If you had as many dodgy colonies in the area as I have you would be glad to see more AVM.
The one I mentioned in the blog is now heading a full colony in my garden.
I wonder is AVM a heritable trait?

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Jon
I think it's unlikely Apiary Vicinity mating is easily passed down the generations otherwise it would be common and therefor reported much more frequently down through the years
I don't know though that's just a guess lot's of things just go unnoticed until one day somebody spots something unusual

It seems that FW Sladen's work with bumble bees forms the basis of the modern more scientific approach
He wrote his first book at 16 years old it seems
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Humble-Bee-Its-Life-History-Domesticate/dp/095102423X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385477921&sr=1-1
Here's a free online version of the same book on the bumble bees
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/41191#page/18/mode/1up

[Adam]

My father's bees are really swarmy .

Jon, isn't it time you gave him some of your queens? :)

[Jon]

I clipped and marked them all for him last April/May and he says none swarmed last summer!
It will be interesting to see how many have grown back a wing tip next spring!!;)

[prakel]

I think Beowulf Cooper said it when he was assessing native bees in the 60s and 70s. I wouldn't be surprised if it had even been noticed before him. I would dispute the statement that it's not a widely held view. It's used by some as one of their selection criteria.

Manley wrote, in Honey Farming:


Italian bees are not very good for cell-building because this variety, when of a good strain, tends to construct very few cells for swarming and is reluctant to do build many when we are asking them to do it: Dutch on the other hand will build cells by the score. I once took seventy-eight from quite a small stock! Generally speaking the more a strain is inclined to swarm the more cells they will build for us, and conversely.

[prakel]

Apiary Vicinity Mating.

While quoting from Manley's Honey Farming, there's also:


One of the difficulties in breeding bees is the fact that no direct control over mating is possible, but in well-managed breeding apiaries, where care is taken to have a large force of vigorous drones of the desired strain always present and at all times on the look-out for flying virgins, comparatively few wrong matings will take place, and this will be more so as time goes on, for where there are such masses of drones flying, neighbouring apiaries, if any, are likely to become, through matings with our drones, almost of the same strain. In this way queens bred in large breeding apiaries are likely to mate correctly in the great majority of cases.

I am well aware that this statement may be disputed, for it has long been accepted that virgin queens mate with drones high up in the air and at considerable distances from their hives. I do not now think that this is really the case, at all events in breeding apiaries where there are large numbers of drones ready to give chase to every virgin when she flies. I think that in such situations the young queens are normally mated within quite a short distance of the hives and usually at no great height.....

[fatshark]

I think it's unlikely Apiary Vicinity mating is easily passed down the generations otherwise it would be common and therefor reported much more frequently down through the years

Hi DR

Or … AVM is generally undesirable and there isn't positive selection for the trait. Perhaps because the drones are too closely related to the Q? If it was like this (and I'm just wildly speculating …. er, again) you might expect very large apiaries with a high genetic diversity to be beneficial for AVM.

[Pete L]

..
...I do not now think that this is really the case, at all events in breeding apiaries where there are large numbers of drones ready to give chase to every virgin when she flies. I think that in such situations the young queens are normally mated within quite a short distance of the hives and usually at no great height.....

I have only observed this AVM at the isolated mating apairys, and it would appear they all mate in this way at those places, which is good. Seen several again this year.

[The Drone Ranger]

I would be the last person to notice something like mating in the apiary vicinity
I haven't seen a queen with the mating sign yet :)
Perhaps being directly under a drone congregation area would make a difference

Oddly though, I read some study a while back and they said mating took place in the DCA or sometimes in the flight lane to the DCA which apparently are quite narrow paths
Queens outside those areas were unmolested :)

[Rosie]

A couple of summers ago we (our queen rearing group) imported 5 colonies from about 100 miles away and put them in a new apiary where we could have them inspected by the local inpsector and assess them before moving them to our various apiaries. We left 3 there all summer and because one was so particularly wonderful I tried to rear queens from it. They were only about a mile from one of my apiaries with about 8 strong colonies in it, each containing drone comb and hence thousands of drones. The three we had imported had no drone comb and hence few drones. Out of about 20 virgin queens we produced only one managed to get mated properly. Another mated and laid a few eggs before drying up and the others all failed completely. The apiary was separated from others by steep hills but the close apiary was in the same valley. The weather wasn't wonderful but all my queens in other apiaries were mating reliably so it convinced me that AVM is very important, at least in districts like ours which are high and windy.

Fortunately that particularly good queen is still alive and we have had plent of opportunity to rear lots of queens from her. I spent this summer repopulating the apiary with selected stock so that I can use it next year as a remote mating site.

[Jon]

I also suspect that AVM is far more common than you might imagine.
I never noticed it happening until I had an apiary full of apideas.
If you have a few dozen with unmated queens and you go up to the apiary on the first decent day after a bad spell of weather you have a very good chance of seeing a queen or two take a mating flight.
Would be interesting to know if AVM happens with the same frequency in all bee races.

[Adam]

The problem with beekeeping is that a lot of comments tend to be anecdotal - even from the well-known authors - which are then interpreted as fact so it's difficult to determine science from hearsay. I don't have bumpy land which might contain the bees like Rosie has and so my bees might behave differently.
My bees are mongrels so might well behave differently to Rosie's or Jon's in any case.

[Rosie]

That's very true Adam and I think it's also true of science as well as anecdote. At the end of the day we are are all alone and have to make our own observations. The science and the experience of others just helps focus our observations.

[Jon]

The problem with beekeeping is that a lot of comments tend to be anecdotal ..

This is the problem exactly and some beekeepers are totally convinced that certain things are 'fact' when there has been no serious attempt to isolate the different variables in play.
Good observation is really important but it should be the starting point for some properly controlled experiment work as opposed to being an end point in itself.
people see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe.

Bees in top bar hives are more docile
AMM bees live longer than other bee races
AMM bees have poor temper
Aggressive bees are better honey producers

There is a long list of stuff like this but none of it is evidence based.
Some of these things may even be true but we would need to see proper evidence rather than anecdote.

[Jon]

That's very true Adam and I think it's also true of science as well as anecdote. At the end of the day we are are all alone and have to make our own observations. The science and the experience of others just helps focus our observations.


Problem is that a lot of people will not back down even when presented with compelling evidence which shows that a belief does not hold water.
Properly controlled experimental work trumps anecdote and observation every day in my book.
Sometimes you are not seeing what you think you are seeing.

[mbc]

AMM bees live longer than other bee races
.

This one is documented, is it not ? I cant find it know but was it in an old Morritz paper.

[Jon]

Be great if you could find the reference as that is one of the old chestnuts which comes up all the time.
I have looked a couple of times with google scholar and never come across an answer one way or the other.
I find that a lot of this stuff started out in the Beowulf Cooper books which is just one guys observations again.

[Rosie]

Problem is that a lot of people will not back down even when presented with compelling evidence which shows that a belief does not hold water.
Properly controlled experimental work trumps anecdote and observation every day in my book.
Sometimes you are not seeing what you think you are seeing.

While that's true it's only half the story. For example, is there any scientific evidence for the application rate and concentration of winter oxalic acid for bees like mine in boxes like mine and in an area like mine? If there is I have failed to find it and yet application rates are pushed down our throats because it is "scientifically proven". After 5 winters of treatment I am totally comfortable with my own low dose and I don't think I am a luddite as I have a scientific degree myself. Not all science can be applied universally because it's impossible to design the perfect scientific test and beekeeping is more difficult than most other sciences because we still don't understand the fundamentals and don't know which parameters have to be modelled and probably couldn't control them all if we did.

[mbc]

Be great if you could find the reference as that is one of the old chestnuts which comes up all the time.
I have looked a couple of times with google scholar and never come across an answer one way or the other.
I find that a lot of this stuff started out in the Beowulf Cooper books which is just one guys observations again.

I cannot find a reference and my memory is often faulty so it is not beyond the realms of possibility that I have just added to this myth with my above post. If so, many apologies. It shouldnt be too difficult an experiment to design to prove either way and I'm quite prepared to carry it out should someone wish to send me a very large cheque.

[Rosie]

Beo did it for nothing by marking young bees and finding them still around after 10 weeks. I doubt if he tried it with other races though. It is possible that Coloss might come up with something in time as they have including comparisons between races and sites but I am not sure if they are looking at longevity. Unfortunately the British Government chose not to play much of an active roll in the experiments so we will not find out much about our own bees or our own conditions.

I think it would be difficult though mbc because someone (perhaps me :)) would say what about repeating it in every other locality. I suspect that bees in their own region would perform differently to ones from an exotic one and then if the experiment were repeated in the exotic region the results would be different again.

[Jon]

While that's true it's only half the story. For example, is there any scientific evidence for the application rate and concentration of winter oxalic acid for bees like mine in boxes like mine and in an area like mine? If there is I have failed to find it and yet application rates are pushed down our throats because it is "scientifically proven". After 5 winters of treatment I am totally comfortable with my own low dose and I don't think I am a luddite as I have a scientific degree myself. Not all science can be applied universally because it's impossible to design the perfect scientific test and beekeeping is more difficult than most other sciences because we still don't understand the fundamentals and don't know which parameters have to be modelled and probably couldn't control them all if we did.

A lot of the Oxalic research was done by Nanetti et al in Italy presumably with Ligustica. I think they use 6% Oxalic with the bigger colonies rather than the 3.2% recommended here.

[Jon]

Beo did it for nothing by marking young bees and finding them still around after 10 weeks. I doubt if he tried it with other races though.

I have no doubt at all some bees live longer than the oft quoted 6 weeks. Any colony not rearing brood has workers which can live for months.
The issue is whether all bee races are the same with regard to average longevity of workers.

[mbc]

QUOTE=Rosie;22974] Not all science can be applied universally because it's impossible to design the perfect scientific test and beekeeping is more difficult than most other sciences because we still don't understand the fundamentals and don't know which parameters have to be modelled and probably couldn't control them all if we did.[/QUOTE]

This is the purpose of large sample sizes, to even out the oddities and give a statistically sound spread of results.
With regards to treatment doses, I find it shameful that the majority of recommendations in this country come from publicly funded research done in other countries with different climates, equipment and bees.
It has been a long time since we contributed significantly to the worlds collective body of knowledge on apicultural matters, and current advice to British beekeepers from our own NBU is mostly borrowed from our more conscientious European neighbours.
I'm with you on this Rosie, I dont think I've ever given my bees the full recommended dose of anything.
A good example is apiguard. If your bees abscond during treatment and you write to Vita to complain, they will send a reply questioning the average temperature during treatment and a 25g sachet of apiguard to try next time, to my mind a tacit acknowledgement that the full 50g dose was formulated for dadant boxes and are much too much for national hives. They wont market the smaller sachet though, as the canny Scots, Tykes and Cardies would only want to pay half !

[Adam]

The beauty of a forum such as this one (or one other!) is this:

If one beekeepers' observations might be anecdotal, plenty of others' agreement from their own separate observations, would tend to contribute to a consensus building which is more likely to be fact compared to one beekeeper peddling his own particular and possibly flawed view of the world. Reading some of the old books, there is a definite bias in some of them for selling particular equipment, something we now know to be plain wrong or self-promotion. (I am not referring to Cooper here).

For example, if I say that my one polyhive did better than my wooden ones in my first year of owning it (it did), that would be a 1 off. In the days before forums and electronic communication, I might have written it in a book and published it saying that poly was better. If the one poly colony dwindled due to nosema, I might have written my little book saying that polyhives give bees nosema and they are cr*p. True from the (limited) information observed but the 'Author' would have his own version of the truth in the public domain for years to come. Reading some of the old books, there is a definite bias in some of them for either selling particular equipment or something we now know is plain wrong or self-promotion. (I am not referring to Cooper here).

However in the days of forums (fora?) if 20 other beekeepers reported the same thing- say that their polyhive works wonders, that would be a fair experiment and a conclusion could be drawn.

[Adam]

Beo did it for nothing by marking young bees and finding them still around after 10 weeks. I doubt if he tried it with other races though.

Unless he did the same experiment with several colonies of, say, two different races in the same apiary (some AMM and some Ligustica for example) there is no way a conclusion can be drawn. If Beo had tested on just one colony that was queenless for some part of the experiment, then the bees would tend to live longer that the nominal 6 weeks, even in summer.

[Adam]

A good example is apiguard. If your bees abscond during treatment and you write to Vita to complain, they will send a reply questioning the average temperature during treatment and a 25g sachet of apiguard to try next time, to my mind a tacit acknowledgement that the full 50g dose was formulated for dadant boxes and are much too much for national hives. They wont market the smaller sachet though, as the canny Scots, Tykes and Cardies would only want to pay half !

As an honorary Scot on this forum, I like the idea of using only 1/2 the dose and paying similarly. Us Norfolk boys don't like spending money either!
In fact I use a bucket of Apiguard and slop on what is 'about right' and a smaller colony tends to get a bit less than a double brood stock.

[Rosie]

Unless he did the same experiment with several colonies of, say, two different races in the same apiary (some AMM and some Ligustica for example) there is no way a conclusion can be drawn.
Of course - that's why I added the second sentence. In truth I don't believe anyone knows how long bees live because it varies and I hold that view despite having no scientific proof that it varies. At least Beo tested his own bees and explained how he did the test so that people can draw their own conclusions. Beo, by the way, was an entomologist and I believe academically qualified.

[Jon]

At least Beo tested his own bees and explained how he did the test so that people can draw their own conclusions. Beo, by the way, was an entomologist and I believe academically qualified.

According to the introduction of 'Honeybees of the British isles' he was an entomologist in the Government Agricultural Advisory Service. He lectured on bee management, spray poisoning and pollination

Another sentence of his in the introduction caught my eye as well. 'Large committees with all views represented seem unable to achieve consensus between their members'
Could be a description of Bibba from beyond the grave!

He also noted that you could cross native bees from any part of the British Isles without getting hybrid aggression effects and mentioned the importance of Including Ireland in any bee breeding efforts.
Good man Beo for that comment!

[Rosie]

He also noted that you could cross native bees from any part of the British Isles without getting hybrid aggression effects and mentioned the importance of Including Ireland in any bee breeding efforts.
Good man Beo for that comment!

Yes I've been taking him at his word and haven't yet found it wanting although I am keen not to overwhelm the local stock by flooding them with imported ones (from other parts of the UK that is).

[The Drone Ranger]

If beekeeping resembles art then most of us myself included are still painting by numbers :)
It's good to absorb the knowledge and benefit from the expertise of others
But in the end we have to find our own way of dealing with the bees we have in the place we have them

Perhaps the black bees are grumpy because they are old ?? (and French)

[Jon]

Perhaps the black bees are grumpy because they are old ?? (and French)

I see very few bad tempered colonies among my own and if I do the queens don't hang around for long.
Rubbish in Rubbish out applies so if you graft from a gentle colony the daughter queens are usually fine.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Jon
Just kidding there grumpy old men or grumpy old bees :)

[mbc]

Perhaps the black bees are grumpy because they are old ?? (and French)

Very clever, a bit close to the bone to elicit more than a grumpy chuckle though.

[Jon]

Careful, DR might start another poll on beekeeper age

[The Drone Ranger]

speaking of frogs there are problems with them now
http://animal.discovery.com/endangered-species/frog-extinction.htm

Apparently no-one mentioned frogs so I was having a senior moment as well
Anyway the problem of moving stuff around isn't confined to bees it seems

[Pete L]

Perhaps the black bees are grumpy because they are old ?? (and French)

They would be old now, that's for sure.

A quote from an article by W Robson would describe them as being pretty good.


..After WW2 there were large numbers of black bees imported into Scotland from France, by Steele and Brodie of Wormit, Fife. This race of bee still exists, I believe. Steele and Brodie had obviously done their homework, as these were good bees. Their progeny will exist throughout Scotland today. Steele and Brodie had a vested interest in providing good bees to local beekeepers, as they supplied them with all their beekeeping requirements. Break that trust and the whole lot goes west.

And from R Manley.


I have many a time known an excessively vicious colony, such as were so many of those black French bees we used to import as combless packages in the interval between the two world wars,to become quite docile and easily handled after one of their young queens had mated with an Italian drone of peaceable temperament, and I think nearly every beekeeper must have noticed how very vicious a stock of quiet bees will often become after their young queen has mated with a drone of some vicious strain.

[mbc]

I found DR's trolling amusing, but then he isnt trying to paint a good sales pitch for the queens he's selling, as Manley was.
Its a very selective quote from Willie Robson, who writes that the genetic background of his own bees are largely native.

[The Drone Ranger]

I found DR's trolling amusing, but then he isnt trying to paint a good sales pitch for the queens he's selling, as Manley was.
Its a very selective quote from Willie Robson, who writes that the genetic background of his own bees are largely native.

Jon said it not me :)
Je ne sais pour quoi

[Pete L]

I found DR's trolling amusing, but then he isnt trying to paint a good sales pitch for the queens he's selling, as Manley was.
Its a very selective quote from Willie Robson, who writes that the genetic background of his own bees are largely native.

Was Manley a queen supplier, i suppose he must of been to some extent.

This is the whole thing from W Robson, did not quote the whole article, as i thought it a bit long, and lots about different bees.



Irish Lecture Tour by Willie Robson of Chain Bridge Honey Farm, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland, February 2010

This is a series of 3 articles written in response to enquiries from journalists, beekeepers and the general public about beekeeping. It is based on 45 years practical experience of keeping bees for a living, as well as references to knowledge gained by my father, W.S. Robson Snr, who studied and taught beekeeping as a profession.

Throughout these articles assumptions have been made that may not be correct, as one finds in most articles about beekeeping. Neither do we claim that at Chain Bridge Honey Farm we are always as proficient as we might be. There is always room for improvement.

Nevertheless, the reader must use their imagination and cross-reference to different parts of the article to pick up on recurring themes. This is a vastly complicated subject and detailed discussions could take up many more pages.

Readers must also accept that I am pointing the finger at no-one, and it is written for the general good of the craft and that current problems have all happened before. I remember my father saying that during the Isle of Wight outbreak (of Acarine and associated diseases) between the wars, fellow beekeepers would not visit each other until they had checked if there were any bees crawling about on the garden path.
A photograph of the Chairperson of the Royal County BKA, Elizabeth McArdle, presenting Willie and his wife Daphne with a small memento

The Chairperson of the Royal County BKA, Elizabeth McArdle, presenting Willie and his wife Daphne with a small memento of his lecture at Navan
One

Beekeeping in Northumberland has gone through difficult times, mainly as a result of bad summers (high rainfall) leading to malnutrition, and Varroa, which can be controlled to a degree. Colony collapse disorder does not occur in the North of England or Scotland but is prevalent in America where honeybees come under great commercial pressure.

The actual causes of CCD are difficult to determine but a lifetime's experience tells me that bees have lost the will to live as a community. This may be due to a number of causes. As it happens, during the winter, the prevailing weather is obviously a contributor or the last straw.

Continued line breeding obviously weakens bees, as it does in all animals, as well as other pressures such as unsuitable transport, the presence of chemicals in the ecosystem and severe commercial pressures, as well as Varroa. To me this all seems very simple. To others who deem themselves experts it is still a mystery demanding a great deal of research.

Great efforts are being made to find a suitable cause that can be proven beyond doubt, whereas the real cause is bad husbandry on a grand scale where all the considerations suit the beekeeper and none suits the bees. Honeybees are not machines.
A photograph of the Daphne and Willie Robson, Elizabeth McArdle and Martina Keegan at the Navan lecture

Daphne and Willie Robson, Elizabeth McArdle and Martina Keegan at the Navan lecture
Two

It is important to be reasonably professional when attempting to look after bees. Beginners need to attach themselves to someone with a considerable degree of experience and who has been a successful beekeeper. In this respect it was a retrograde step to do away with the county beekeeping instructors who were employed by the government up until the 1970s and were a link to lessons learnt in the past as well as keeping up to date. And bees do nothing invariably.

Presently the most important thing is never to miss a treatment for Varroa. Once Varroa gets the upper hand the situation is difficult to recover.

A further problem is the great number of bees being imported into the UK from Southern Europe and other places, as they are invariably susceptible to disease. Similarly, variable levels of Varroa infestation render the local bees susceptible to the existing diseases to which they were normally resistant. The problems are therefore compounded.

Nosema is a difficult disease to control and since WWII has been a problem in the UK. Nosema has many causes. Some are difficult to determine. Bees detect apprehension and incompetence, which results in bouts of stinging and bad temper. This kind of confrontation results in increased levels of Nosema. Other causes are bad transport, particularly poorly sprung trailers, poor apiary locations (e.g. dampness, exposure and altitude), as well as long periods of adverse weather. Increased levels of insulation can help.

Crushing bees between the supers is a certain way to get Nosema, as well as any manipulations that cause them great upset. Never terrorise them, especially with smoke. And then there are some colonies that have no resistance to it.

Good apiary locations are critical to the success of a beekeeping enterprise. Bees must be sheltered from the prevailing wind, both in winter and summer. In the winter they must be able to see the sun between 12 noon and 2pm on the shortest day, without any intervening tress and bushes, to allow flight at least once a month and lift morale.

It is worth noting that if northern brown bees are in direct sunlight in May and June they are liable to swarm abruptly as they are unable to control the temperature in the brood nest, especially if they are sitting on a stone slab in a walled garden.

It is most important that there is an adequate supply of pollen available for the bees at all times of year. Bees will wear themselves out looking for pollen in the spring if it is too far a distance.

This is made worse by mild winters followed by cold springs. Lack of particular pollens, together with bees that are susceptible may well be the cause of the European Foul Brood, which is such a problem throughout the UK.

In order to get through the winter, bees need a honey flow in late August or September to rear healthy young bees to carry the colony through, otherwise the colony will dwindle in the spring. A good spell at the heather would help here and a bad go at the heather always spells trouble (altitude).

[Pete L]

.....When bees are kept in large numbers on a site drifting can be a problem at any time of the year. Bees can drift a mile at the heather. When bees are working a honey flow in late spring during cool weather drifting can be excessive. The colonies that lose bees become demoralized and very often leave the hive altogether, apart from the queen. This is a physical problem, but the colony is often lost.

'Susceptible' is a key word in beekeeping. It is practically impossible to keep bees that are susceptible in the UK, where every region has bad weather sooner or later. Inbreeding or line breeding can be a problem in this respect but not always.

Bees have to settle down and organise themselves to survive and the beekeeper has to be careful and allow them to do this. Bees must have the will to live and do well. It is worth noting that we occasionally find very strong feral colonies that appear to have survived, although most feral colonies succumb to Varroa.

In conclusion it must be said that Varroa and secondary infections are the principal cause of colony losses in the UK. The Varroa mite reduces the natural immunity of the bees and destroys their morale.

In the USA and other parts of the world industrial beekeeping is practiced and this creates even more problems. We are perhaps fortunate in the North of England that we have never been able to take liberties with the bees because of the harsh climate and thus, we and the bees are more able to cope with adversity. Nevertheless, beekeeping is, and will continue to be, difficult.

Addendum: Defensive behaviour in honeybees is sometimes genetic but more often is a result of continued stand offs with the beekeeper, whereupon the bees become habitually nasty. The bees always come off the worst in such situations surprisingly enough.

Bees will become very manageable if they are approached with some consideration and respect, and the work is carried out fluently. It is a matter of judging their mood. And bees can detect the slightest fear. Yellow bees are much easier to handle but don't live so well in the North.

Drifting occurs in all apiaries. It can be influenced by the prevailing wind or large objects, such as house or trees in the flight line. If the direction of the honey flow is to one side or behind the hives, the bees will make mistakes, and then some go into the wrong hives just to get home, especially if it is a big one. There is security in a big hive.

Drifting also occurs where colonies are left untreated for Varroa and migrate into hives in another apiary, perhaps a mile away, belonging to a different person. This can come as a nasty shock to careful beekeepers.

Drifting can make poor queens look good and vice versa and lead the beekeeper into erroneous conclusions (Nutrition). It will cause colonies to swarm prematurely. Beekeepers should not share apiaries.
A photograph of Phillip McCabe, Daphne and Willie Robson and Michael Gleeson at the Navan lecture

Phillip McCabe, Daphne and Willie Robson and Michael Gleeson at the Navan lecture
Three

When queens are bought in from abroad, not only does one buy the useful qualities of that breed but also the drawbacks that are often overlooked. For bees to do well in this country, especially Scotland, disease resistance, longevity and thrift are of paramount importance.

When bees of a foreign persuasion find themselves in the UK and come upon a prolonged period of very poor weather, they become demoralised and open to all types of disease including EFB, which I believe to be endemic. Disease knows no boundaries. These imported bees have 10 years in which to acquire immunity and acclimatise themselves or die out.

When I think back to the situation in the 1950s, most of the bees were of a dark brown type supposedly Dutch skep bees that were resistant to the Isle of Wight disease. There was a great upsurge in beekeeping activity in the 1950s as a result of a general shortage of food and the need to supplement very low wages. Honey farms were started all over the country. Italian bees were imported to make up the numbers, much the same situation today.

Unfortunately the Italian bees were difficult to winter without them getting dysentery which rendered the hives useless for another year until they could be sterilised. Honey farms were often closed down because of these problems.

The Italian queens mated with the local bees and the first crosses were exceptionally aggressive, which put an end to village beekeeping. Previously bees were kept in village gardens and were used to seeing people and children and dogs and so didn't sting them very often.

We can sometimes see the descendants of those Italian bees in our colonies today, as their genes would work their way right through the local population. Occasionally one comes across jet black bees which may be throw backs to the indigenous race.

There were 50 hives within the boundaries of Horncliffe, a village with 200 people. There were 200 hives belonging to mill workers surrounding the village of Cumledge. At that time agriculture was totally dependent on indigenous wild white clover to provide nitrogen. I stress the word indigenous as the clover today doesn't seem to yield as profusely as the old wild white.

So the bees had the sycamore, the gean, the hawthorn and the charlock in the cornfields as there were no sprays, then the clover. Finally a short journey took them to the heather. Thus there would be no malnutrition in a reasonable year and the colonies would be small and resistant to EFB and other disease in all but the very worst season, and even then it would go unnoticed. I would guess that 80% of the success of beekeeping would be nutrition. In those days there was adequate nutrition for a very large number of beehives.

[Rosie]

And from R Manley.

"I have many a time known an excessively vicious colony, such as were so many of those black French bees we used to import as combless packages in the interval between the two world wars,to become quite docile and easily handled after one of their young queens had mated with an Italian drone of peaceable temperament, and I think nearly every beekeeper must have noticed how very vicious a stock of quiet bees will often become after their young queen has mated with a drone of some vicious strain."

I think Brother Adam said something similar about crossing amm with buckfasts. I don't believe Manley or Adam because both their claims are the opposite of what I have experienced myself. Most other people who's views I would trust have found the same as me too.

[Pete L]

...Things took a big step back with the introduction of selective herbicide and artificial manure, until the introduction of oil seed rape in the early 1970s. By that time many had packed up beekeeping for good.

There were great numbers of American Italian packages imported after the 1962-3 winter and while we did not see any of these a friend was persuaded to take some to replenish his colonies.

Many years later, we were left these bees and as we had helped to look after them in previous years, we knew what to expect. They were down to handfuls in the springs and wouldn't lift their heads in the summer and had become degenerate.

The problem was Nosema and once they get that way they are difficult to get going again and never get any honey. I suppose most of them fizzle out in the winter to be replaced by tougher ones. My father said of those that pegged out in the winter: "Good riddance". Harsh winters can be a benefit to beekeepers as a means of controlling disease, although this can be hard to take at the time.

There were Italian bees and New Zealand bees imported into this locality in the 1980s. Italian drones were seen in hives miles from their apiary. The New Zealand colonies which were situated locally all gave up the ghost within 3 years.

I read in a magazine recently of someone watching bees headed by a New Zealand queen leaving a hive for good in North Devon. I am quite sure that New Zealand bees are very good in their own country but they will not feel at home in North Devon, which is 10 degrees further from the equator and on the other side of the world.

I read a letter in a magazine recently about the benefits of importing queen bees from Crete and showing a frame of brood where every cell was occupied by brood. In reality it is better to have 20% of the area of a brood comb occupied by honey and pollen (thrift) so that the bees can come through a period of dearth, the June gap perhaps, or a dry period when the plants come under stress and consequently bees come under stress too.

The letter also talks about 'biodiversity'. Well, biodiversity in bees means to me that they are sufficiently outbred to be vigorous and disease resistant and sufficiently inbred to remain true to type, the type being the bees that belong to the locality.

As mentioned previously, a large proportion of our bees in this country have been imported at some time or other so they have their own mechanisms for self improvement, as well as overcoming the effects of bad winters.

A queen from Crete mated to a local drone would just extend the weaknesses of the imported queen into the local bees as previously discussed, which leads in turn to susceptibility, which takes a long time for a beekeeper to sort out. It is immaterial how much honey they might make under ideal conditions if they won't stand foursquare on their own feet.

I admit to knowing little about genetics. If you take the Khaki Campbell duck or the Black Rock hen these breeds are far better than the sum of their parts but the parents are always the same breeds and offspring are always true to type. This might happen with bees as well but it is much more difficult to achieve.

I remember years ago when there were cottage hives for section production. Bees don't like sections especially in the spring and with a zinc excluder. The bees often filled five frames with brood and left with a top swarm which if there was somebody at home could be dealt with by killing the queen as she ran back in and reducing to one queen cell at the required date.

This situation was often made worse by the beekeeper using all the sugar in the house and feeding the bees not at all, which meant that the hives which filled the bottom survived, and the ones that put honey up in the supers died out. This resulted in a very poor quality bee, quite useless in fact.

However there were beekeepers who selected the best hives every year and reared a few queens and united them back to the poorer ones and so began a system of selective breeding.

The late Willie Smith of Innerleithen is an obvious example of a progressive beekeeper. He was Scotland's first commercial beekeeper and the inventor of the Smith Hive. George Hood has his bees now, and it shows.

The late Alec Cossar of Kelso gave them extensive bottom ventilation, an empty deep in fact and he always had a few queens ready for the heather. He was a gamekeeper, so he had the time to do it, which was critical.

The late Rob Brown of Pallinsburn had big WBC hives, all in a row, outside the gardens where he was in charge. His bees would work sections from May onwards. He eliminated the swarming tendency by removing queens that persistently built cells and breeding off the ones that didn't. He also eliminated queens that bred bees that didn't seal the sections to show standard, believe it or not!

My point is that these beekeepers could produce some quite excellent colonies of bees from the ones they already had. When nuclei are united to strong colonies they become habitually and genetically stronger, just as the little section hives were habitual swarmers, same week every year and so on.

The queens that progressive beekeepers raised would often be mated with a close relation or sometimes to a feral drone or one out a cottage hive and that prevented things going wrong as a result of inbreeding. Inbreeding would be a precursor to any disease. This is well known throughout agriculture.

After WW2 there were large numbers of black bees imported into Scotland from France, by Steele and Brodie of Wormit, Fife. This race of bee still exists, I believe. Steele and Brodie had obviously done their homework, as these were good bees. Their progeny will exist throughout Scotland today. Steele and Brodie had a vested interest in providing good bees to local beekeepers, as they supplied them with all their beekeeping requirements. Break that trust and the whole lot goes west.

This is in marked contrast to the trade in nuclei of indeterminate provenance, where the seller has no interest in the subsequent fortunes of the beekeeper. This makes life very difficult for beginners. This went on when I was a boy and it still does today.

In Denmark the beekeepers are bounded by a similar understanding. The queen breeders are careful to evaluate the queens they supply, as their future depends on it. The Danes have evolved a system of beekeeping quite different from ours. They need to use polystyrene hives to get their bees through the winter satisfactorily and they need to change the brood combs annually to guard against brood disease and garner some extra heather honey.

[Pete L]

...Where the Danish system falls down is the amount of sugar syrup needed to sustain the bees in a bad season.

It is demoralising for beekeepers to have to feed syrup in the summer and also costly, and no amount of sugar syrup ever replaced a honey flow. The Danes do their best to minimise risk and in a good season they produce a lot more honey than we do.

In Northern Germany queen breeders have developed the Carniolan bee in a similar fashion breeding out the tendency to swarm and selecting for resistance to Nozema, as do the Danes. One might hope that these highly skilled people will eventually breed bees that are resistant to Varroa. At present the Danes try to eliminate every last Varroa mite from their hives.

We must do the same or lose our business and our livelihood. This situation is in marked contrast to the general thrust of this article in that as beekeepers we must try to keep bees that have achieved total, natural resistance.

I have heard of beekeepers who are keeping bees without treatment and there are colonies that are able to withstand high numbers of Varroa mites. But we, and most other beekeepers, exert commercial pressures on our bees (transport), as well as treating them and that tips the balance against them acquiring natural resistance to Varroa.

It is ever increasing commercial pressure which is causing so much trouble with honeybees worldwide.

I met a honey farmer from Austria (1,500 hives) who didn't treat his bees and who lost two thirds of his colonies every winter. His greatest problem was the continued presence of swarms and drones that had come from colonies that had been treated, thus negating his efforts and sacrifice.

I would subscribe to the view that if there are Varroa mites in the hives at the heather or during January, getting them through the winter will be extremely difficult.

As mentioned earlier, I believe it was a retrograde step in the 1950s for The Ministry of Agriculture to dispense with the services of the county beekeeping instructors. Beekeeping instructors gained their knowledge from studying the relative success or failure of those they taught, from novices to professionals.

Once knowledge is lost the threads are rarely if ever retrieved. Thus we now have a situation of uncertainty when people are trying to pick up skills, worsened when things go wrong.

It may be difficult to avert trouble during the present problems affecting beekeeping, but it would be easier if there was a body of men and women with decades of practical experience to instill some confidence in the profession.

This is not to decry the efforts of the people at the beekeeping unit in York and Auchincruive, whose contribution I appreciate. It is very important to look back, but they look forward and have useful information for the present and the future.

For 40 years after WWII, Scotland had a beekeeping education facility which would have compared favourably with any in the world. Since then the countryside has been nationalised and the emphasis placed on administration together with suitable legislation. Such is progress!

The only bonus for beekeepers from this situation is that there is now a large acreage of oilseed rape grown, which was a political crop, but is now valued by farmers as a break crop, especially as the price of cereals remains low.

There were years I remember when the bees had to be fed right into the middle of June before they got any honey, having missed the early flows due to bad weather.

This underlines how tough the bees must have been; that they could go through 9 months of relative confinement and still fill a few supers in July. I remember being at the Highland Show and no-one had seen a queen cell by the 20th June.

'A swarm in May is worth a load of hay,
A swarm in June is wirth a silver spoon,
A swarm in July is not worth a fly'

The oil seed rape has changed that situation. Colonies have become much stronger and softer, particularly in the South of the UK.

Beekeepers in the west of the UK will find things more difficult without oilseed rape, especially during bad weather. Oilseed rape honey finds a very good market, especially if it is free from taints and not over-heated.

I remember Canadian honey being imported into this country called Honey Boy which was a mixture of oilseed rape and clover honey, prepared using the Dyce process. This product was in huge demand. With the right skills and initiative Great Britain could produce far more honey than it does for the home market.

Creosote was used extensively by beekeepers in days gone by. The hives and the garden shed were coated-up annually. This gave the beekeeper a feeling of well-being and didn't seem to bother the bees, but it did get into the honey. Honey takes on every taint there is: dampness, mould and so on.

From the mid-1950s onwards there was a period of uncontrolled use of pesticides which killed bees in great numbers for about 40 years. The situation was bad in the south of England (because of the number of fruit trees) and vastly worse in the USA.

A chemical called Hostathion caused beekeepers years of trouble and loss. Since then things have quietened down until we are now faced with systemic insecticides. What effect they will have only time will tell. Beekeepers and the public are rightfully suspicious and the chemical companies powerful and the governments weak. The real effects of pesticides are felt about 10 years after they are introduced.

Hopefully we can soon use organic acids reliably in the treatment of Varroa and so eliminate another of the great contradictions of the beekeeping world, namely that we have spent years fighting the chemical companies and now we are dependent on them to keep our bees alive. My father said: "Never put in a beehive what you wouldn't put in your own mouth". I can remember Benzine being used to treat Acarine perhaps in the 1950s, but not at our premises. But then we all need medicines at sometime in our hives to keep us going, but not prophylactically. I think that is what my father meant.

If queens are being imported from Southern Europe and have been reared in hives treated with antibiotic prophylactically then their progeny will have lost all immunity. This poses huge difficulties for beekeepers in this country. Health certificates would be valueless in such circumstances

Regarding the present situation in Scotland I have heard of these problems over a period of 10 years or so in many parts of England. I would guess that the common factor was and is the presence of varroa mites that have become difficult to treat. Added to that a period of prolonged bad weather and large numbers of hives in one area, as well as great numbers of imports as replacements.

I imagine that similar situations exist in Southern Europe, but with better weather. There would have been far more bees in the East of Scotland 50 years ago, but they would have been more evenly spread, being smallish colonies of thrifty bees and the surrounding countryside would be much more supportive. The bees would be productive and a very useful part of the rural economy.

[Pete L]

I can remember that we had trouble with dysentery during the winter of 1962-3, owing to the bees being confined for months. Since then we have never had any concern about disease in our bees. Even in the winter 1985-6 most of them came through in a weakened state. I would guess that 75% of the bees in Scotland died out in that winter as a result of Nosema.

Despite a further two appalling seasons the bees in Scotland recovered very quickly to the point that by 1990 it was as if nothing had happened. Now with the continued presence of Varroa I don't have the same confidence about our own bees being able to withstand anything that the weather can come up with.

As for the detail of the Scottish problems, European Foul Brood is about poor nutrition and genetics. (Susceptible) This would be most easily rectified by a good summer, but the genetic problem remains.

Whoever 'improved' the bees originally has caused them to lose resistance to EFB and probably Nosema and other diseases and these genes spread among the local population via the drones. EFB was unknown in the North of England and Scotland all my life, although it would be endemic. I hear reports of American Foul Brood as well and I am not sure that where there is EFB, AFB is not far behind.

I consider that bees can be resistant to AFB as well, given the amount of foreign honey that was thrown into tips. A cereal factory near here left open barrels of foreign honey for years on end yet none of the local bees were ever found to have AFB. This is total natural resistance by luck more than by design. The biggest outbreaks of AFB were around honey packing plants where the owners were keeping bees of their own and feeding foreign honey to them. I have heard of this still being done, believe it or not.

My father would oversee thousands of colonies of bees in the Scottish Borders and came across AFB rarely and only when nuclei had been brought in from further south. These colonies were always treated and a 3 year inspection routine followed without recurrence.

My father's friend and fellow beekeeping advisor, Bob Couston, had much more trouble with AFB in Perthshire, where bees were found to be living with the disease, the colonies being resistant to it most of the time. This proved to be a difficult nut to crack and although I am talking about 30 years ago I wouldn't be surprised if the present AFB is derived from the same colonies.

Where there is AFB something has to be done about it. I would suggest that burning a colony with EFB is like shooting someone who has a bad cold. Treating them doesn't address the problem either. Putting them on new combs is a good idea. Doing that would also control Nosema to a degree.

Throwing the brood away seems a bit drastic. If it were me I would make an artificial swarm so that the queen was on new combs and take the brood and young bees away to another site to rear a young queen. Better still, I would put in a queen cell from a local bee. It could be that a change of queen is all that is needed (Genetics).

Thereafter, the pressure needs to be taken off. Better sites need to be found for the bees, with fewer colonies at each site. It would be preferable to have 12 hives per site, sub divided into 2 lots. (Nutrition).

This is all easier said than done, but it has been done. Bees will generally get over these problems themselves, given time and consideration.

Good sites are paramount. I remember the late Tom Bradford complaining about EFB in Worcestershire in the late 1960s.

Years later I spoke to the foul brood officer for that area and he told me about big colonies of bees in the orchards with 3 supers of honey on them and a bad infection of EFB. The bees have committed themselves to extensive broodrearing on the back of a good flow and then there isn't enough protein to build all those bodies. The ground gets dry or then the weather changes and there you go: expanding colonies with prolific queens but inadequate nutrition.

Tom said that if the bees were strong enough to fill a box of honey in May they were strong enough to eat it in June. The same goes for pollen. (Starvation) The problem may be the lack of specific pollens. Our own colonies often take a break from brood rearing during the summer. This may be a safety valve, who knows.

In conclusion I have tried to pinpoint some of the problems that are making beekeeping difficult at present. The article has been written to make beekeepers understand and think about what they are doing and read between the lines.

Honeybees are hugely sophisticated and it therefore follows that they will need a great deal of respect and consideration.

Roughshod solutions and quick fixes generally spell trouble unless the colonies are exceptionally robust.

When I read in magazines about people making splits I wonder. It is all very well dividing colonies piecemeal when they are bursting with bees and the weather good. Trying it in a bad season as a method of swarm control or preparing for the heather generally spells trouble. (Morale, Nosema)If they don't want to swarm then it is for a good reason.

I don't like these tiny mating boxes either. Bees hate to be in small lots (Nosema). They feel vulnerable, which is presumably why the queens mate quickly.

A scientist came from America about 25 years ago to look at our bees with a view to importing them into the States, as they were resistant to Acarine. He was not impressed with what he saw: smallish lots cowering down in a north easterly gale. But they were all alive and went on to get some honey and make a profit. (Bob Couston sent some queens over at that time). Their bees, by contrast, were suffering huge losses due to Acarine.

If we lose our bees then we have to buy more bees in. Therein lies the risk. Better by far to try and keep the ones that we already have and buy in as a last resort.

I feel that the Americans have bred immunity out of their stocks many years ago. This ties in with general agricultural practice.

Honeybee colonies by contrast strive to be immortal. They will not achieve that without immunity. Their immunity is further eroded by harsh management for economic reasons and then there is the Varroa mite and the winter and there you go.

Research is important, but not totally necessary. Those doing research need to have a very thorough understanding of bees and beekeeping or it will be difficult to come to any sensible conclusions.

A honeybee colony will be sentient. The bees are aware of how they have been treated and how they feel and therein lies the key.

There are always problems with livestock, but it would be better if we all tried to work with the bees instead of against them and save ourselves a lot of trouble. Honeybee husbandry is about degree: too many mistakes or even one mistake and disaster strikes. Beekeepers worldwide tread a very fine line.

[Pete L]

I think Brother Adam said something similar about crossing amm with buckfasts.

B Adam crossed lots of different sub species as we know, the original Buckfast was AMM cross Italians, and he used Alec Gales french AMM breeder queens for many years.

[Jon]

I see Philip McCabe was mentioned in the article
Here is is covered in Galtee black bees.
We were talking about this in the car last Sunday.
Apparently it was easy to get them on but not so easy to get them off and he had to jump off a table to dislodge the most of them.
People were scuttling around like ants filling bees into apideas so none went to waste.
Only got 7 stings apparently.

1909

Edit 7 stings (http://www.gbbg.net/recordattempt.html)

[Pete L]

Apparently it was easy to get them on but not so easy to get them off and he had to jump off a table to dislodge the most of them.


Yes, i think it is an interesting article, Jon.

I have heard that there can sometimes be some difficulty shaking the bees off.

I had a good chat on the phone With Dara Scott last week, he was at the conference, did you meet him.

[Jon]

Didn't know you were mates with Dara. We were both speakers at the conference.
He's on the NIHBS science committee we have set up.
Dara is the main mover behind the varroa resistance project we have underway.
Photos and presentations are on the website (http://nihbs.org/nihbs-conference/nihbs-annual-conference/)

[mbc]

...Where the Danish system falls down is the amount of sugar syrup needed to sustain the bees in a bad season.

.

Interesting correlation to what Callum posted in the Todays News thread " 200 kg honey -> managed only 140 (thanks to melisatrose - (but I have 100 frames of feed for next year)"

[Pete L]

Didn't know you were mates with Dara.

Yes, known Dara For quite a while, he visited me here a while back, get on well with him, we have a common interest in a certain product, among other things.

[Jon]

Yes, known Dara For quite a while, he visited me here a while back, get on well with him, we have a common interest in a certain product, among other things.

The product sure ain't Buckfast!

I saw your name on his website a while back.
He is mates with Randy Oliver as well.

[Pete L]

He is mates with Randy Oliver as well.

He has worked in the states quite a lot, usually offshore, mates with some at the Czech bee research institute as well.

[gavin]

He has worked in the states quite a lot, usually offshore, mates with some at the Czech bee research institute as well.

Sheesh! Och well, he's a young man, why not?! I can see the attraction, I've known some quite nice Czech scientists ;)

[gavin]

Perhaps after all those words by Willie R on the previous page I should point out that you can buy his book (an interesting read) at their website. Visited them last New Year and it was very worthwhile.

http://www.chainbridgehoney.co.uk/Reflections-on-Beekeeping-by-W.S.-Robson/p-60

http://www.chainbridgehoney.co.uk/Image.aspx?strFileName=p60_0.jpg&strItemType=p&numMaxHeight=300&numMaxWidth=300&numItem=60&strParent=

[Pete L]

Thank you for the link, Gavin, will get a copy of that.

[gavin]

I feel that I should lend you my copy after teasing you over the Czechs like that!

[mbc]

Thank you for the link, Gavin, will get a copy of that.

I own it, read it and enjoyed it, the only down side is its a slim volume and keeps disappearing between other books on the shelf, I'd quite like to check something in it now, but can I find it ?

[prakel]

French amm.

Gilles Fert who uses amm in his breeding programme and also sells them writes the following assessment in his book 'Breeding Queens' (http://www.beekeeping.com/fert/fert_us.htm#articles):


Apis mellifera mellifera L: the so called black or local bee.

This is certainly the bee most used in France and in Spain. Where it is not too genetically polluted by other races brought in from elsewhere, it is remarkably well adapted to it's region provided that the environment is not too degraded.

Among it's desirable qualities are:

-it's hardiness,
-overall resistance to disease in spite of susceptibility to fungal diseases,
-problem-free overwintering,
-the ability to adapt.

Among it's faults are:

-a tendency for certain eco-types to swarm,
-lack of steadiness on the comb,
-frequent aggressiveness,
-it's short tongue (6.3mm) means that it performs less well on crops like acacia and Lucerne,
-a colony accepts a queen only with difficulty during the sunflower and lavender seasonal flows.

This bee, therefore, seems, for these various reasons, ideal for extensive beekeeping in which a minimum of time is spent working the hive.

[The Drone Ranger]

Italian bees haven't shown strongly in the poll (yet)
Do they get a bit of a bad press ?
They were very popular in the past
KBS won't be selling queens now
The light Italians from NZ were a popular choice for town gardens some years back

[prakel]

Italian bees haven't shown strongly in the poll (yet)
Do they get a bit of a bad press ?
They were very popular in the past
KBS won't be selling queens now
The light Italians from NZ were a popular choice for town gardens some years back

Surprised me, that. Not a single person producing 'Italianish' queens whereas I'd have thought that that might be one of the commoner mixes.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Prakel

Yes it is odd because the main complaint is that they need lots of winter stores
But lots of them must have been sold and presumably queens raised from them
Either that or their are more 1 hive beekeepers than I thought
Queens are £40 each now so once you have 3 or 4 hives it's not practical to buy them in every year
Or is it ?

[prakel]

Got to say I quite like my orange bees (but they're not all that colour) but as I mentioned on another thread a while back I've barely seen an orange drone this last summer 'black 'n bronze' seeming to dominate now. Maybe I need to receive a pm from the single (3.85%) person rearing pure Italians...if they sell queens into heavily mixed areas because funnily enough at the moment it's seems to be as hard to buy an Italian queen in Britain (unless you go to one of the suppliers working with Batsis) as it is to source amm. Try it!

[Adam]

Italians.
I collected a caste from a Italian colony a few years back. (Imported queen in Spring then swarmed that year from a commercial hive). I have now just a 3 year old queen from that line and I can confirm that they do consume a lot over winter. The first full year of having the Italian I had lots of bright orange drones appearing in other hives as they moved around the apiary which was a brilliant example of how drones move from hive-to-hive. I saw a few bright drones the following year from that queens daughter and now none - I think the 3 year old queen is the grand-daughter but I might be a year out. Gives me some genetic diversity - sorry Jon and Rosie! I think there's one of Pete's queens a mile away too. That's why I put that I breed allsorts in the poll.

[Rosie]

Italians.
The first full year of having the Italian I had lots of bright orange drones appearing in other hives as they moved around the apiary which was a brilliant example of how drones move from hive-to-hive.

We seems to be similarly drifting all over the place with this thread so I hope the OP doesn't mind.

I am interested in your above comment though Adam. All the books say that drones are welcome in any hive and that they take advantage of that and drift many miles as a result but last year some beginners marked quite a few drones in one of my colonies (to practice for marking queens) and for the rest of the summer I was struck by that fact that not one was seen in another hive. I can't be certain that they all stayed in their original hive but there seemed to be a lot of them every time I opened it.

[The Drone Ranger]

On the drone thing I still have a few
1910
Here's a very bad photo from Wednesday
The drone is near the entrance :)
1911
Ahem amm

[The Drone Ranger]

what no cheek about my drone?? :)

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi readers
Getting near the closing date for the poll
Can there really only be 26 people who have raised their own queens ?
The SBA has around 1500 ? members and that/s a lot of queen bees :)

[prakel]

Probably close to the number of actual individuals that have posted this year...maybe? It's interesting, if you look at 'who's online' there's almost always someone new registering...never to be heard of again!

[gavin]

And if you look at the IP address (a select few can!) you can see that they are unlikely to be cosher beekeepers*, often unlikely to be a real person at all. Some of those attempts are successful and you may notice the new 'user' disappearing when we get round to sifting out those with all the signs of being just spammers.

DR, your questions are likely just to elicit a response from those who raise queens in a controlled way (rather than just from the swarming impulse). Also, it has to be said, posting on a Scottish beekeeping forum is a minority interest, even for Scottish beekeepers. May be time for me to write something for the magazine though, to encourage more to stop by.

* For example the latest one, signing up yesterday - Devid89. Has an email address that is apparently from a UK domain (good) but the actual domain has a strange name (not good) that I haven't previously seen (oops) and past history suggests that we'll get a slew of spammers from there. However, the registration came from an IP address in Bangladesh (right, should really just delete it now). I could check out the IP address to see if its a recorded source of spam, and the domain name too, but maybe I'll just watch for a while. I once deleted a Russian who really was a beekeeper wanting to discuss bees and had to apologise later.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Gavin
I think you might be right I should have broadened it out more, but I hope it still represents a cross section
In one of the chicken forums any registered user with no posts in 6 months is deregistered
From your post I see there might be a good reason for that

[prakel]

I do see your problem Gavin but still, there are a lot of accounts registered in the 'members list' section but I reckon probably no more than 40 have posted in the last twelve months. I understand the reasoning why -I'm registered with a few forums but never post and maybe only visit a couple of times a year, if I need specific information which isn't easily searchable elsewhere. Maybe it is a good time for you to get something in print to try and draw in some fresh views ready for next Spring.

[Rosie]

Does it really matter if there are plenty of lurkers? I would rather have them lurk here and be exposed to some grown-up discussion than move to another site full of hot-heads.

[prakel]

Does it really matter if there are plenty of lurkers?

Not at all, not to me at any rate. But I do think that it'd be nice for more people to help round out some of the conversations here.

[gavin]

Just a few points. DR, it is an interesting poll and well worth having. All I was saying really was: don't be surprised at the numbers responding (there are more than I thought it was going to get!). Prakel and Rosie, yes, lots of real beekeepers have signed up and most don't post. I do know it is widely read, so that makes it all worthwhile. Making this forum 'free to view' was a deliberate choice which means that we don't know for sure who is reading it, but from casual discussions I know that many keep an eye on what is happening here. Currently (and this was just the software default) those who upload images to the site via the vBulletin software have them viewable only by logged-in users. That is no bad thing because it encourages more people to sign up. Some of them may go on to post something which can be a daunting experience for those who have never done it before.

An article in the Scottish Beekeeper would be no bad thing, and maybe I should renew efforts to kindle interest when I'm speaking to LAs ... or ask for a slot at national (I mean SBA) meetings. The quality of the discussion here is indeed good, and it is fine that those who just want banter and perhaps an argument post elsewhere. Doesn't mean that the forum shouldn't evolve though. There were things probably worth doing but which I haven't got around to to various reasons. That book discussion area for example. Maybe one for the Christmas break.

[The Drone Ranger]

I play a bit of chess online, but recently haven't bothered much
My subscription has lapsed
If I go back though I can cough up the cash and keep the same login /user etc
They haven't forgotten me (sob!!)
I'm just in the lapsed member category for now :)

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi all
Well that's the poll closed now so thanks to everyone who voted and all those who contributed to the thread

Amm had a very strong showing reflecting the renewed interest in breeding them
Hybrid bees again many people are choosing to breed from the best of their stock
The very popular Buckfast again a fairly strong result showing lots of supporters of these bees
Surprise the Carniolan vote is not as high as expected lots of these queens are sold every year (perhaps not for breeding from)
Even more surprising the small turn out for the very lovely Italian bee

It horses for courses I expect and the weather up here in Scotland might not be as favourable for the sunny nature of the Italian bee

In some respects there is always difficulty maintaining any specific breed of bee
Perhaps only those in fairly isolated locations can maintain their own chosen breed
The alternative is to buy in your queens from a good supplier and for those with one or two hives particularly in a town or allotment location that might still be the best option
For those fortunate enough to have a few more hives then it makes good sense to raise your own queens
It is very straight forward and there are so many approaches that you can always find some thing that suits you

Starting with what you have and selecting from the best is a popular route
Another possibility is buying in a queen and grafting from her
Either way the daughter queens will be producing hybrid workers but you might prefer the second method if your existing stock is ill natured or prone to chalkbrood etc
There are several expert queen raisers on this forum and they will help with any questions people may have to get them started next season
I think everyone should have a go at improving their bees it's one of the simplest and most rewarding parts of beekeeping
My own advice would be make up your own mind what you want from your bees and don't be overly concerned about current fashions, they come and go
Best of luck with it next year anyone who decides it's time to dip their toe in the water

[Pete L]

It horses for courses I expect and the weather up here in Scotland might not be as favourable for the sunny nature of the Italian bee


Yet there is certainly no shortage of them up there, and plenty more on their way from what i gather.:rolleyes:

If they were being produced here, or even brought in from well established stocks from colder parts of northern Europe, they would be more suitable than those from southern Italy.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Pete
I think the nicest Italians were the ones brought in by KBS
If you wanted to keep bees in a London suburban garden (or similar)
The gentlest temperament, they came via NZ
Even the most clumsy beekeeper could not rile them in any way
As I say though it's horses for courses
I believe there were a lot of Italian package bees brought in to East Scotland from Italy this year by commercial op
I think most folk are happier with queens being imported than packages

[wee willy]

Bees are bees .
Commercial Beekeepers in NewZealand count stings by the thousand during a season. A friend of mine has worked on NewZealand bee enterprises for a few years now . Each employed beekeeper looks after a thousand hives , no time for finesse . He tells me the bees come out to meet them ,way ,way from the hives and they mean business! The hives are grouped in areas where wild horses Brumes? Roam freely , often running through and between the colonies .
Needless to say, he doesn't wax lyrical about the gentleness of the bees he has to work with :)
WW


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[prakel]

Needless to say, he doesn't wax lyrical about the gentleness of the bees he has to work with :)
WW

I'm no cynic :) but that sounds a bit like the old trick of keeping the best and exporting the rest!

[Pete L]

I believe there were a lot of Italian package bees brought in to East Scotland from Italy this year by commercial op


There were, and they will be followed by a lot more in 2014, i am sure, but not only to Scotland.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Wee Willie

I am sure you are right any type of bee can be bad tempered
KBS are not doing those Italian queens now
I had two once upon a time, That was when my great nephew was about 6 and interested in the bees
They were always in a good mood and I could get the top off safely when he wanted a look in
Never made much honey, and they did need a good feed before winter, but they were the most docile I have ever had
You can never rely on a generalisation but individual queen breeders have standards they tend to maintain
In the same sense that chablis can range from paint stripper to lovely depending who supplies it
(my home brewed stuff most often fits into the rubbing alchohol category )

Door finally back on shed after the storm :)

Pete
Wonder why the Italian bee is on the increase it's not the best one for the rape crop this far North (generalisation lol)

[Pete L]

Pete
Wonder why the Italian bee is on the increase it's not the best one for the rape crop this far North (generalisation lol)

Because they are pretty colours and nice and fluffy, and most of the commercial guys love them.

[prakel]

Wonder why the Italian bee is on the increase it's not the best one for the rape crop this far North (generalisation lol)

Could it have as much as anything to do with early availability at a manageable price? I suppose that if you'd lost a huge percentage of your herd through the previous winter anything that was alive could be seen as an improvement on empty boxes. I'm not of course saying that these bees aren't the works, just following your local knowledge with regards to their failings...

[mbc]

If I'd bought a flock and half of them had died over winter, I'd tell someone trying to sell me more of the same to flock off !

[The Drone Ranger]

Could it have as much as anything to do with early availability at a manageable price? I suppose that if you'd lost a huge percentage of your herd through the previous winter anything that was alive could be seen as an improvement on empty boxes. I'm not of course saying that these bees aren't the works, just following your local knowledge with regards to their failings...
Hi Prakel

I can only be sure of my own very limited knowledge (2 queens)
From what I have read though there are a few sub types of Italian bees
the very light golden type which often hail from NZ or the USA and a more brownish colour described as leather
These second type seem to be altogether different and might be the ones Brother Adam incorporated in his breeding
Up here there are several possible crops
I am a static person with oil seed rape all around but not much fruit growing and no heather
Higher up there is less agriculture no rape but lots of heather
Lower down Gavin for instance would have rape and lots of fruit farming
There is lots of other forage but the commercial beekeeper will follow the best crop
That means starting with Rape which accounts for the popularity of the Carniolan with an early Spring build up
Pollinating soft fruit might it might be not so important to have rapid Spring expansion again I am not sure
On the heather a cold weather flyer is probably best suited so the people who live up there usually have the right bee for he job

Some big operators have tried Italian bees many years ago
I don't think it worked out -- have to rely on Gavin there because it was when Bob Couston was the bee inspector well before my time LOL
MBC I think a lot more than half of those died out in the first Winter
That's not to say it can't be done with a better strain but buying in queens must be less costly than buying in package bees

[prakel]

mbc: If I'd bought a flock and half of them had died over winter, I'd tell someone trying to sell me more of the same to flock off !


Some big operators have tried Italian bees many years ago
I don't think it worked out -- have to rely on Gavin there because it was when Bob Couston was the bee inspector well before my time LOL
MBC I think a lot more than half of those died out in the first Winter
That's not to say it can't be done with a better strain but buying in queens must be less costly than buying in package bees

So, what kind of bees did the first major import in recent years replace? Also, how long had those bees been in Britain?

[The Drone Ranger]

I will have to dig up that historical info Prakel
My copy of Bob Couston's book "Principles of Practical Beekeeping " is printed in 1972 so at a guess it would be around or before that time
Its fair to say that there might have been some mismanagement involved as well ie starvation
I say that because I believe the originator of the Glenn Hive was a chap called Anderson and I think the bees he had in those hives were also Italian
Bearing in mind he (Anderson) was in the Aberdeen area which is further north by along way from Perthshire

Regards the recent imports I think they were needed for fruit pollination work in Perthshire mostly and they came from Italy as packages which worried a lot of people
Up here as soon as rape is over most of the migratory beekeeping disappears so I don't think they appeared
They might this year though

[gavin]

I am a static person with oil seed rape all around ...

... have to rely on Gavin there because it was when Bob Couston was the bee inspector ...

LOL! At last I have a good mental picture of you DR. There's a crow on each shoulder.

Never met Bob Couston though I do have a copy of his two books. I'm just a young man really.

Bees in the summer of 2008, mostly mixed up dark-leaning mongrels. A few pockets here and there of assorted recent imports.

After the winter of 2009 the begging bowl went out and there were large-scale imports of NZ carnies and some others. Also 2010.

Begging bowl out again in 2013 and this time the imports were mixed but quite a lot of Italians. So I believe anyway, haven't seen figures. The coordinator recommended requeening but whether anyone other than him actually did so I just don't know. And so there was a lurch in the direction of Italians in the Scottish honeybee stock, big mistake.

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[prakel]

I can see that there's a bit of history to this can of worms and maybe i'm misunderstanding some of what's being written but I took mbc's post, #161, to be directly referring to recent imports of which half had died during the winter hence the reference regards not going back (next year) for more.

I'm just wondering why these guys keep buying stock that dies the following winter if that is what they're doing.

[Rosie]

I have only known one person who tried to keep NZ Italians. She persevered for about 4 years, requeening regularly because they kept dying on her. In the end she had to admit defeat and got some local stock that made honey instead of bees. She had been advised to buy Italians from a friend of hers in Cornwall. I assume they did better there than in her region of the Peak District.

[Pete L]

I'm just wondering why these guys keep buying stock that dies the following winter if that is what they're doing.

Mike Palmer helps to answer this question in his talks on the sustainable apairy.

[prakel]

edited out: 16/12/13

[Pete L]

I assume they did better there than in her region of the Peak District.

There was a real craze on those things in the south, they were no good at all, gentle, built up huge colonies, collected honey, never stopped laying, ate all the honey, prone to acarine and paralyses, and died out every winter.

[prakel]

Mike Palmer helps to answer this question in his talks on the sustainable apairy.

Indeed, but I don't think even he really gets to the bottom of the psychology behind a person's refusal to learn from repeated failures.

[fatshark]

Einstein has the answer to this … "Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.". This is something he did say, in contrast to "If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live", which he didn't say.

1924

[Jon]

Indeed, but I don't think even he really gets to the bottom of the psychology behind a person's refusal to learn from repeated failures.

If your mistakes are repeatedly subsidised by the taxpayer I guess there is less of an incentive to learn from them.

[prakel]

But even then, they're still footing a hefty financial outlay even with the government top ups.

[gavin]

If your mistakes are repeatedly subsidised by the taxpayer I guess there is less of an incentive to learn from them.

... and also a greater chance that you will still be in beekeeping to keep making them.

Caveat: in Scotland there is training associated with the latest subsidy and other measures to improve standards. Since the (re-)discovery of EFB in 2009 there have been improvements in beekeeping standards, and I guess that the hope of the SG was that they could extend that after rescuing some enterprises from a precarious position earlier this year. Also, I really don't know what proportion of last year's imports remained as Italian stock, and although I understand that there are likely to be a lot of Italian imports coming into the UK in 2014 (as well as others) I don't know where they are likely to end up.

Not just Italian honeybee genetics of course, but also Italian honeybee pathogens, in quantity. There's another repeated mistake.

[Adam]

Hi readers
Getting near the closing date for the poll
Can there really only be 26 people who have raised their own queens ?
The SBA has around 1500 ? members and that/s a lot of queen bees :)

It's a quiet time for beekeeping so I suspect that some beekeepers switch off for the winter?

[The Drone Ranger]

I can't remember how to create a poll
Is anyone interested in running this one again to see if anything has changed ?