They still aren't reading the ruddy book.

[Castor]

Fed one of my hives two days ago...... I must have missed a QC/VQ because yesterday - September 1st - they swarmed.

Right onto the fence post, from where they have been moved to pastures new for now.


I've never seen swarming this late - OK, I'm in the south-ish west-ish.

Whose books should they read to learn how to behave like normal bees?

[Apiarist]

I wonder if this was in fact an attempted supersedure that was sparked into a swarm by the unusually warm weather and the feeding combined. A shame as it might have left the parent colony rather short of bees and possibly struggling now to get a late mating. But then again such a late mating is not unheard-of! Good luck.

[Castor]

I think you are probably right - highly plausible giving the feeding.

The bees were throwing drones out a week or two ago - they seem to have stopped this - and the weather at the apiary last evening was hot and still; prime swarming weather apart from the date!

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Castor.
Is your hive now dependant on a virgin or a queen cell
If so could you find her and replace with a laying queen. ?
I have a couple in mininucs for backup

[Castor]

Hiya DR,

Like you I have nucs as backup! I keep a couple in the apiary and have a couple at home. The swarming hive has have now been requeened and are feeding up nicely.

There are still a lot of drones about though - most of my ten-ish hives seem to have decided it's summer again......

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Castor
Thats good news you wont be needing one of my AMM/carnie/italian/caucasian crosses then
They all have a bit of black like liquorice allsorts
Some are all black but they come from the same factory :)

[Castor]

That's a very kind offer. Thank you.

Are your AMM/carni-ligu-caucs well behaved?
I'm cautious about introducing AMM genes to my carni-ligu-caucs locally due to alleged behaviour issues. I want no repeats of psycholoony hive 666 that we had to cull eventually..... Nutters they were.

[Jon]

AMM X Carnica is very likely to bring you grief unless Ruttner was making it all up!

[prakel]

In the absence of proper data (which I'm not saying doesn't exist) it's just 'anecdotal' like the myriad references to some races having greater longevity than others!

Sladen, a noted breeder in his day, wrote highly of the amm Q X carniolan mix although he didn't mention temper or further crosses*; but I'm sure that major issues wouldn't have escaped a man of his experience -and as a supplier of 'Goldens' he quite possibly had less invested in the carniolan bee than Ruttner and his brother.

edit: * he does mention possible increased defensiveness as a result of crossing pure races but makes no suggestion that the carniolan/amm cross is in any way notable in this context.

[Jon]

Rutter did proper controlled experimental work as far as I know and he measured the percentage increase or decrease in aggression levels with the different crosses and reciprocal crosses.
It's in the chapter he edited 'Races of Bee' in Dadant, the Hive and the Honeybee.

[prakel]

Rutter did proper controlled experimental work

As I've said before, it would be nice to see the full write-up which a scientist of his standing would surely have produced after investing time and material resources in search of an answer.

[Jon]

Indeed, but I do rate Ruttner as a serious bee researcher as opposed to the zealots like Brother Adam or Beo Cooper.
There is a lot of stuff not accessible online.

[prakel]

Indeed, but I do rate Ruttner as a serious bee researcher as opposed to the zealots like Brother Adam or Beo Cooper.
There is a lot of stuff not accessible online.

I also think Ruttner was an important researcher who still needs to be listened to, the Apimondia queen rearing book which he edited is in my opinion the best on the subject. But that's not to disparage the undoubted experience of Br Adam. As for Cooper, we have a few articles and a posthumous book compiled from 'notes' so, in my opinion, not a fair body of finished work to judge him on.

I'll hazard a guess (if anyone here gets the chance to attend the National this year) that the Koeniger's may well be able to offer further information on this research, subject to a polite request.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Castor.
I think for the the most part they are all pretty good with the odd rogue popping up now and then.
It might be easier to refer to them as Amm+
(that's amm plus a bit of everything else)
A marketing ploy really the same as rebranding an apple "pink lady" to fox people into thinking its something new and getting trademark protection[emoji4]

[The Drone Ranger]

"Indeed, but I do rate Ruttner as a serious bee researcher as opposed to the zealots like Brother Adam or Beo Cooper."

Hi Jon
Brother Adam did say that some first crosses had undesirable temperaments which disappeared in subsequent crosses l'm sure
I must re-read those books

[Jon]

By zealot I was thinking more of things such as his claim that Amm was wiped out by Isle of wight disease. A man with a clear agenda.

[The Drone Ranger]

By zealot I was thinking more of things such as his claim that Amm was wiped out by Isle of wight disease. A man with a clear agenda.

Hiya Jon
What happened there I think is he got into a public disagreement with Les Bailey among others about acarine and its effect on the British bee population
In fairness there was a real sense at one time that nothing could stop acarine wiping out the British bee

I suspect he was like many others of the time

Reading his books he comes accross as a bit stubborn but in fairness he was trying to achieve something in bee breeding which was to create a superbee which didn't depend on hybrid vigour and` he made great strides

He always seems to point out that there are strains of every breed that are very good and others that are very poor

He was reasonably breed agnostic in that sense I think

[prakel]

I suspect he was like many others of the time

Reading his books he comes accross as a bit stubborn but in fairness he was trying to achieve something in bee breeding which was to create a superbee which didn't depend on hybrid vigour and` he made great strides

He always seems to point out that there are strains of every breed that are very good and others that are very poor

He was reasonably breed agnostic in that sense I think

This is important, I think. Sure he set himself in a corner to some extent with regards to English amm having been wiped out (as an aside: did he ever claim that all British amm had been lost? I'm not sure, although he obviously didn't make much effort to track any down either way). But there can be no doubting the depth of his research. His work was of a sufficiently high standard to gain him the respect of some very clever bee scientists, his friend Ruttner amongst them.