Irish Amm

[gavin]

Here's an interesting site.

http://www.native-queen-bees.com/

Looks like he's on Facebook too now.

https://www.facebook.com/NativeQueenBees

Apparently he has a batch of queens ready to go next week if anyone feels like shelling out a mere £30 .....

:)

G.

[Jon]

Thanks for the plug!

[Beefever]

Another AMM site is most welcome. Might even take over from Dave Cushman now the site seems to have gone.

[Jon]

Roger Patterson took over the Dave Cushman site. No aspirations to compete with that one.

[busybeephilip]

Good value for £30, some other suppliers are much more expensive

[Castor]

Ahhh - tis you!

Excellent news - good luck with it.

[Little_John]

Just want to say thanks to Jon for both of the AMM queens he kindly supplied.

In both cases I released them (observed direct release) after 5 days using a 'Dave Cushman' Queen Introduction set-up. They could possibly have been released a day or two earlier, but I wasn't taking any chances with such genetically valuable material.

The first queen took some 19 days after release to start laying again - with hindsight, this was due to the dysfunctional bees I'd installed her with - and it took a frame of brood to kick-start the operation.

In marked contrast, when I did my 7-day (after release) laying check on the 2nd queen this morning - which had been installed with bees from a thriving, vibrant hive - much to my surprise there were brood in the process of being capped. She must have started laying within hours of being released - and she's been laying as if she's on piece-work rates ever since. Impressive.

So - thought I'd take a quick peek at the first AMM queen's nuc to make a comparison - and at first sight, there's no significant difference. So - it seems that I effectively lost the best part of 3 weeks of the season by installing 'dodgy' bees in a nuc. Lesson learned.

Very nice queens, Jon - many thanks.

LJ

[HJBee]

I think I am in need of one of your finest Queens Jon, I've PM'd you on the Facebook site. HJ

[The Drone Ranger]

If anyone has a bad tempered hive that they have stuck with to get honey, now is the time to raise some queens and replace her once the numbers of bees in the hive has reduced a bit
Alternatively you can buy in a replacement which can be better in some cases where the local drones (including yours :} ) are an obstacle to improving things
Don't carry a grumpy bunch through the Winter theres no evidence that bad temper bees are better honey getters and they make beekeeping miserable

[Castor]

Agreed DR - the earliest big insight I had was culling an insanely stroppy hive (known locally as Psycho 666) - it was the best thing we ever did!

Culling queens and/or entire colonies is a very painful thing to do until you have seen the benefits.....

[Jon]

If you find yourself making excuses for not checking/not opening a certain hive because of regular poor behaviour the queen should definitely be nipped.
Beekeeping should be an enjoyable experience.
It is a good idea to make up a couple of extra nucs and then requeening can be done by combining the nuc with the aggressive colony after removal of its queen.

[HJBee]

So I have invested in an Irish AMM. She arrived yesterday, and was popped in the hive. Visited tonight to check all is well as she is being fed by the existing workers in the Nuc through the cage - a good sign. Back in 2 days to make sure she has got out or if I need to remove some of the fondant to help her.http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/08/07/4e3y9epa.jpg

[Jon]

That fondant is pretty soft so they should have no problem releasing her.
The double entry cages allow the workers to mingle with the queen inside the cage before she gets out into the hive.

[HJBee]

I had a wee poke at the fondant when I took the tape off tonight, was quite soft. My only concern is a few of the attendants seemed to have expired.

[Little_John]

If that was my setup I'd be a little concerned about all that soft fondant being in the cage, and the possibility of a sticky ball of bees developing ...

I much prefer now to remove the girls from their travelling cage asap, and put 'em in a clean purpose-made introduction cage, in order to do a direct release after a few days - so I can witness first-hand how the Q is being received.

Not my idea - got it from Larry Connor. I'm now 100% sold on that idea for the introduction of valuable queens.

LJ

[Jon]

That's ok as long as you are confident you can get the queen back in a cage quickly if the workers show aggressive behaviour towards her.
I have rescued 3 queens this year which I found being balled at the entrance to various apideas. Presumably they flew and returned to the wrong one.
On close examination, every one of them proved to have a defect such as part of a leg missing or a foot missing. The feet in particular get damaged easily as the bees bite and pull while she is being balled. The wings are often quite badly damaged as well.

[HJBee]

I don't have that confidence! I will be back to see her in the morning, and will dig out the rest of the fondant and watch to see her hopefully exit if she hadn't already.

[Jon]

Don't rush things. If she is ok in the cage and the bees are chewing through the fondant just leave them to it. That type of cage is designed to allow the workers to mingle with the queen in the cage before she enters the hive. The bees chew through the short plug first and can enter the cage. Don't worry about dead workers in the cage. It is the workers outside the cage who are feeding the queen now.

[busybeephilip]

Not intending to rock anyones boat but the usual method is to remove the attendants before trying to introduce the queen. The amount of fondant does seem to be excessive but maybe its just cos the picture is magnified. Is the cage being hung with the fondant at the top? the heat of the hive might melt the fondant and it will run down and smother the bees (this might be happening now?), IMO I would place the cage with the fondant at the bottom or have the cage horizontal.
Phil

[busybeephilip]

Also, the cage is better located at the top bar of the middle of the centre frame, from the picture your cage appears to be hung fondant at the top, at the bottom of a frame and at the side - of course i could be wrong and the cage has just been put there for the picture to be taken but something to consider

[Jon]

Phil, I never remove the attendants and I have introduced hundreds of queens with attendants present. It makes no difference.
The problem with removing them is that a lot of people panic and let the queen out by mistake. Or they decapitate her with the sliding part of the cage!
The cage should be introduced with the fondant at the bottom.

[busybeephilip]

Jon, I suppose I'm just old school, I was taught that having the attendants present can cause to hive bees to reject the queen. Another beekeeping myth to add to your collection !

[Jon]

It is a myth. Makes no difference. Easier to leave the attendants in situ.

[prakel]

I've just copied the following sentence from a post Jon made in another thread:


It is a bit of a myth that Amm makes a frugal and tiny colony as a lot of the Galtee stock makes a big powerful colony. The queen I got last years heads a double brood box colony and is a prolific layer.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?1797-Late-season-swarming

Hoping for some further insight into the size these colonies reach -I know that this is a bit of a 'how long is a piece of string' question but it's something which I'd find quite interesting. A double brood national has a larger brood area than both the dadant and the 13 comb BS boxes that I use. Although I've come across plenty of references to amm in continental dadants it's been quite hard to pin down a clear description of how well they fit a hive of that capacity.

[Jon]

They don't fill the entire double box with brood but they definitely need more than a single brood, maybe the equivalent of 15 or 16 frames rather than 10 or 11.

[prakel]

Close to a dadant brood then. That's where our 13 frame BS boxes fall down, they're caught somewhere in the middle between not enough comb area or too much if ran as doubles.

[Jon]

Not all of them need the extra space. Some are quite content in an 11 frame national.
I think giving the extra space really reduces the swarming urge.

[The Drone Ranger]

I was going to say something about choosing attendants but first can anyone tell me if the queen in this picture could be AMM
The more observant may notice she was DOA
Actually she arrived still able to move but being trampled by 7 or 8 workers in the cage
These attendants!!! appeared to have only their own interests a heart and couldn't give a monkeys about feeding her
The moral of the story is don't buy a pig in a poke
Or beware of Greeks bearing the latest fashions [emoji99]
Photo below

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

[The Drone Ranger]

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170603/e9ef66bb38df38d6518cbeb1b82e3ffd.jpg

[fatshark]

Gavin has written a guide to identifying Amm (http://www.snhbs.scot/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Identifying-native-honey-bees.pdf) (PDF). It doesn't distinguish between worker and queen colouration.
However, I'm sure she's too pale. The Amm I've had were a whole lot darker than that.

And a whole lot more alive ;)

[Jon]

Definitely not Amm. They can vary from brown to black but any yellow is a sure sign of hybridisation or maybe you have a different subspecies there.

This is what they look like (http://www.native-queen-bees.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/queen.jpg)

[busybeephilip]

DR, from the image that Q looks more Italian/buckfast. With black bees sometimes you get some spots of yellow on the first abdominal segment at the sides but are usually hard to spot... err see. Jons image is typical of Amm

[simonf]

I got a queen from Jon last year, overwintered in a nuc box and it came through winter my strongest colony out of 6, she is now on double brood and showing no signs of swarming, looking forward to getting my other 2 queens this month