Has a marker been identified for avm ?

[SDM]

As in the title, I'm wondering if it could be fixed into Buckfast bees given their 50% ish Amm heritage.

[Jon]

would love to have an answer to that as I see so much of it in my bees.

[SDM]

Well, you were my best hope of a straight yes or no.
It just struck me the other day, what an oversight it was by Bro. Adam not to include it in his bee.

[gavin]

Ged Marshall, UK breeder of Danish-sourced Buckfast, told me that he sometimes sees comets above and in his mating apiaries. Drone comets rather than celestial ones. Looks like what Amm does, Buckfast is able to do too.

[SDM]

That's encouraging, I wonder if it will turn out to be something all bee races can do, but don't need to in their native climes.
If it is an Amm only trait that Buckfast have carried over then I guess they'll find a marker one day.

[The Drone Ranger]

Wouldn't AVM ultimately be a disadvantage to bees except where there are many colonies in one spot
The likelyhood of a large enough number of colonies thriving year round that one spot might be slim
I read somewhere the minimum colonies could be 50 or 60 meaning you would need a good site with little competition
While a breeder trying to stop outcrossing would see benefits from AVM many purchasers might not want their queens mating within their own limited gene pool
Just a thought



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[SDM]

I think of it as an emergency option, for summers like last year when decent mating days were in short supply.
It certainly doesn't fit with the behaviours that ensure genetic diversity,.but it would be nowhere near as limiting as the years of back breeding that have been used to bring back relatively pure Amm and I don't see that putting purchasers off.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi SDM
Somewhere on the forum there was a bit of research on bees selecting larva to be raised as new queens and elsewhere some on selective mating with drones
I can see the larva selection making sense but I doubt that a flying queen has much control over which drones catch up with her
Things like supersedure and AVM seem to be anomalies
It's a good point that in poor weather the flexible response would be to mate at the nearest DCA or even in the vicinity of the hive
If it happens in AMM the argument goes that it evolved as a response to climate
That would lead you to say that Carnie or Italians would not exhibit that trait
A lot of AMM type bees in Scotland are French by descent so that could make a difference ?
It might be driven by change of environment for any race of bees rather than an evolved ?


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[Jon]

Whenever I see AvM it is in perfect mating weather on warm sunny windless days.
I think it is a trait of some but not all queens.
I have seen it at every mating site I have ever set up so it is not just specific to certain locations.
It could certainly create problems re inbreeding if there were only one hive.
Thinking about that, maybe the presence of a dozen hives on the one site could contribute to the phenomenon in some way.
That number of colonies so close together would never occur naturally.

[busybeephilip]

I have watched this AVM thing occur many times now with my own mating boxes, I am still not convinced that it is an actual mating event, in most cases the bees are flying low with none if any drones present in the gathering (there are no drones in my mating boxes). More likely a form of absconding behaviour. As everyone knows, this theory goes against the whole idea of breeding in bees or maybe I should say inbreeding. As we all know inbreeding in bees is just simply bad and bees have evolved a mechanizm to prevent this by queens mating with many drones of different genetics at distant mating sites. If AVM was a true mating behaviour then the Apis melifera melifera we know would suffer from serious inbreeding and would have died out many hundreds of years ago. I dont see how the presence of many full hives near mating boxes would influence this, or even if one hive was used with selected genetics for drones. I have many boxes well away from hives were this behaviour occoured. This only seems to happen when small mating boxes such as apideas are used, the bees could be aware of the smallness of their home and simply want to find a new home which is suitable for colony expansion - makes some sense as this happens when bees swarm and select a new home. One of those unexplained mysteries.

[SDM]

For sure queens can draw a crowd when coming and going, but reports of "drone " comets are specific enough that I'm happy they are drones.
Jon's observations pretty much shoot down the theory that it's a behaviour for sub optimal conditions..I'm not so sure that he's right about population density being unnatural. Imagine an ancient oak forest where trees may have multiple suitable cavities and given bees gravitate to other bees when swarming. I imagine many colonies could end up in a few acres.
Bees will go to great lengths to try to ensure their genes survive in some form. eg. queen less hives not ejecting drones presumably in the hope of them mating. So I reckon they'd accept an occasional bit of insert if it meant their survival.
I doubt it's to do with mating hive size as reports certainly predate apideas .
As the only other "race" that has displayed it so far( that I know of)
is Buckfast which is largely Amm in its origin, I'm left thinking it must be a genetic( perhaps epigenetic) trait..
One of the things I love about beekeeping is that for all we know about bees, a relative novice can still come up with a question that doesn't seem to have an answer yet.
Thanks to everyone for the input.

[Jon]

I saw this once with a supersedure queen taking a mating flight from a full colony so it's not just a phenomenon associated with mini nucs such as apideas.
It's not absconding either as the bees return to their Apidea after this behaviour.
I have checked this loads of times when I have seen the mating swarm and queen return to the Apidea and you find eggs 2 or 3 days later - which suggests that even if what is seen is not the actual event where mating takes place it seems to have something to do with the process in terms of the timing of the event.

I saw a mating swarm this afternoon when I was caging queens for posting tomorrow.
They are quite common especially if you have 50+ Apideas on a site.
If you get a sunny afternoon such as this afternoon queens will be out mating.

[The Drone Ranger]

The large number of young queens all in one location at one time might be a driver
Thats unlikely to occur in nature
On the other hand some authors listing AMM traits including Vicinity Mating have done so despite themselves having very few hives
The big queen rearers of yesteryear Pellet Sladen Root Snelgrove etc don't seem to mention it as far as I know

If it wasn't for Jon I might be sceptical

UFO's have a better historical track record it appears http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/caseview.asp?section=sortoldest
starting way back in 329 BC , when Beowulf --- sorry, Alexander the Great spotted one
That blew my argument right out of the water regarding people misinterpreting what they see as a UFO
Why did Patrick Moore not see more of them though, nobody has explained that little mystery :)

[prakel]

The large number of young queens all in one location at one time might be a driver Thats unlikely to occur in nature

This is something, the likely opportunistic nature rather than an inherent trait that I've speculated on several times, but I think that it's probably been dismissed as the mad ramblings of that southerner... :)


On the other hand some authors listing AMM traits including Vicinity Mating have done so despite themselves having very few hives
The big queen rearers of yesteryear Pellet Sladen Root Snelgrove etc don't seem to mention it as far as I know

While there's no doubt that some of the current world authorities on bee mating behaviour are extremely sceptical about avm there are plenty of historical references. A few examples:


She may take one or more orientation flights to mark the location of her hive within three to five days after she has emerged from her cell and mating sometimes occurs on these flights.

Queen Rearing by Laidlaw & Eckert 1950

Jay Smith who, despite having some questionable ideas, appears to have ran a successful, large scale queen rearing business wrote that:


Upon one occasion when the queen and a horde of drones were in the air they made such a buzzing that Mrs. Smith asked if that was a swarm. It sounded like one.

Better Queens by Jay Smith 1948

...the unstated implication being that this must have been close by/in the mating yard.


The first flights of a queen from the hive are very short, and, like young workers, she flies in circles near the entrance, as if fixing the location. Several such flights may be taken before she really takes a long one. Finally, however, she leaves the entrance and flies in ever increasing circles upward, and, if there are drones in the apiary or near by, she is usually mated. The height to which she flies and the distance from the hive at which she meets the drone depend entirely on circumstances; it may be near at hand or even a couple of miles away. This is a matter very difficult of observation, naturally, but the mating has often been observed by chance. It is a very simple matter to see the first circles of the virgin on leaving the hive entrance, and if drones are plentiful it is not hard to see that many of them start after her.

The Rearing of Queen Bees by E.F. Phillips 1905

and finally, a tantalising paragraph which suggests that the writer was aware of localised mating (for reference: he was clearly an 'Amm man'):


The bee's peculiar method of mating we believe to be due to a necessity to prevent the reproductive castes of the same hive continuously mating; but the mating of queens with drones of the same strain and race is compatible with the production of sound stock, and further, is not only the true method, but the one endorsed by nature.

The belief in the necessity of the queen being crossed when mating, has undoubtedly led to extremes in that matter. At the present time, especially in this country, no breeding is considered right that does not include a considerable amount of out-crossing.

Practical Bee-Breeding by A. Gilman 1928

[prakel]

The big queen rearers of yesteryear Pellet Sladen Root Snelgrove etc don't seem to mention it as far as I know

I don't think that this one is quite as ambiguous as it first appears...


A large apiary kept for honey production possesses all the best conditions for the successful rearing of queens and frequently also for obtaining a high percentage of matings with drones of selected parentage for the improvement of stock.

Bees and How to Keep Them by F.W.L. Sladen 1916

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi prakel
That's a well researched post you must have a fair collection of bee books
SDM original question was about genetic markers for AVM
I don't think they will exist
Identical twins start with exactly the same DNA and yet due to external factors they diverge
So I suspect that The Dorset Hypothesis put forward by yourself may well be correct
Epigenetics ?

I note however that you have dodged the UFO / Patrick Moore dilemma
Is it a government cover-up ?
:)

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[prakel]

I note however that you have dodged the UFO / Patrick Moore dilemma
Is it a government cover-up ?
:)

It's simply too clever a conundrum for me to tackle so I took the easy option and had a go at the avm thing ;)

[gavin]

In the plant world, towards the N and W fringes there is an increasing frequency of inbreeding and outright avoidance of sex at all (viviparous plants, I'm thinking). Sex is risky in a cool, wet and windy environment. (Don't fancy it as much myself in those conditions, outside anyway). Where honeybees become sparse and the weather variable I can see there would be selection pressure for their reproduction to be more local - and the underlying genetics would adapt to that. AVM (just like supersedure as an optional alternative to swarming as a strategy) still seems an open question to me, not as something that happens to every colony all the time but is there in the mix to ensure survival in poorer conditions.

[The Drone Ranger]

We have mild climate compared to say Russia so you might expect Caucasian bees to do the same ?

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[prakel]

I have watched this AVM thing occur many times now with my own mating boxes, I am still not convinced that it is an actual mating event, in most cases the bees are flying low with none if any drones present in the gathering (there are no drones in my mating boxes). More likely a form of absconding behaviour.

I've now seen, on a couple of seperate occassions, something similar to this. Low flying, circling around the apiary in an eerily quiet manner which is something that also fits in with what Jon has previously described.

I'm also inclined to think that it may be a prelude to an absconding event, both times the 'swarm' has initially settled close by (and been caught). My thoughts are that the circling may be an attempt to recruit 'extras' from other colonies before heading off. Bit far fetched perhaps but one thing for certain is that the low, silent, circling is nothing like the behaviour which I've observed firsthand at a DCA it's also different to the 'comets' which Ged Marshall mentioned to Gavin.

By the way, this phenomenon has only been noticed here when we've been playing around with small mating nucs.

[Jon]

By the way, this phenomenon has only been noticed here when we've been playing around with small mating nucs.

Having dozens of mini nucs with virgin queens on the same site must greatly increase your chance of seeing the event and may not necessarily be related to the size or lack of it of the mini nucs.


both times the 'swarm' has initially settled close by (and been caught).

If you leave this alone it will usually return to its mini-nuc within a couple of hours.

[busybeephilip]

If you leave this alone it will usually return to its mini-nuc within a couple of hours.

And I have found that on many occasions this does not happen?

surley if someone had 50 hives instead of 50 nucs in a concentrated area and this was a trait of these bees then the same thing would have been observed much more often, it only seems to be associated with small queen rearing nucs of the apidea size - I've never seen this or heard it happening when using for example a 5 frame nuc for queen rearing ???

[Jon]

How many people set up 50 five frame nucs with virgin queens on a single site?

Asi mentioned above, I also saw this happen with the supersedure virgin queen from a full colony once. The other times it has been with queens flying from Apideas.

[SDM]

, it only seems to be associated with small queen rearing nucs of the apidea size -

It's one of those occasions where figuring cause and effect by observation.just doesn't work. You've picked the cause you wanted to be the cause when it really could have been any factor. As Jon said you've never seen an apiary with 50 virgins in 5 frame nucs or 50 hives yet you are sure it wouldn't happen in them.
A really ridiculous( but funny) comparison is a post I just read on a Facebook beekeeping page. Some guy noticed about a month ago that his dog was eating bees, as many as 30 a week. Since then he has noticed that honey production has slowed down significantly. His conclusion ? Rehome the dog.!

Got any Apidea's that need rehoming ?

[busybeephilip]

The fact is that this cause does not happen so often with a larger type of colony, certainly has not been reported on this forum apart from Jons one off experience from a full colony mentioned above. The size of the mating box may be relevant as a trigger for AVM and there is little evidence to say it is not a cause. As SDM says no one knows why this happens, certainly not a mating event as listed in any refereed journal.

Beowulf Cooper mentions in his book "The Honey bees of the British Isles" I quote an interesting sentence page 66 " Apiary Vacinity Mating. It is more than a coincidence that most of the superseding characters which we know are, as the geneticist says, recessive. It is only under conditions of a moderate degree of inbreeding that the character shows up " this is followed by numerous witness descriptions of odd mating behaviours then, I quote "The effect of this type of mating behaviour is that a queen is likely to mate with one or more drones from her own hive....... thus here we have a powerful mechanism for securing some degree of inbreeding with its advantages and disadvantages"

So what does this mean - AVM behaviour is seen in supersedure type queens and is a sure sign of inbreeding. Good or Bad ?

Lot of unknowns but what is clear is that very few serious commercial queen breeders ever comment on this phenomenum maybe because inbreeding is avoided using bee lines of well characterized parentage.

[Jon]

Beowulf cooper writings are just a stream of consciousness, imho, with no science or experimental work to back them up. I don't rate his stuff at all.

[prakel]

it only seems to be associated with small queen rearing nucs of the apidea size - I've never seen this or heard it happening when using for example a 5 frame nuc for queen rearing ???

Likewise, I've never seen it happen with mating nucs on half length frames totalling a comb area of just over two bs deep frames.

Fascinating stuff for sure although I don't think I'd be wanting to keep bees which had been bred for a propensity to mate in the apiary; far prefer to think of them making their way to a DCA.

[SDM]

We have mild climate compared to say Russia so you might expect Caucasian bees to do the same ?

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Not in the summer season we don't and no doubt they have a more predictable season too.

[busybeephilip]

Beowulf cooper writings are just a stream of consciousness, imho, with no science or experimental work to back them up. I don't rate his stuff at all.

You could be right not sure what you are meaning, however, his book is endorsed by several respectable persons such as Prof Kenneth Mellanby (re President BIBBA at time of publication), Albert Knight (sec BIBBA), Rev Eriv Milner and Adrian Waring - all respectable black native bee persons

Even so - inbreeding is the last thing I want in my bees if AVM is a true trait

[mbc]

Beowulf cooper writings are just a stream of consciousness, imho, with no science or experimental work to back them up. I don't rate his stuff at all.

Not rating his stuff is a bit harsh, I don't think he was a natural author but that he felt he had to get something out there to refute the anti native bee propoganda rife at the time. I agree he presents some of his largely unsubstantiated observations as fact, but if viewed as a failure in style rather than deliberate miss representation I find his work valuable.

[Jon]

Trouble is his writings have become scripture for a lot of the senior Bibba people and it's an act of faith rather than science.
I don't agree with combating propaganda with propaganda.
Claims such as 'Amm makes a smaller brood nest but the individual workers live longer' come from Beo Cooper and none of this is properly evidence based.
Getting back to the AvM, there is definitely something interesting going on there but it is clear that none of us have the complete picture yet.
I am certain that what I have seen on multiple occasions is not simple absconding.

[prakel]

Not rating his stuff is a bit harsh, I don't think he was a natural author but that he felt he had to get something out there to refute the anti native bee propoganda rife at the time. I agree he presents some of his largely unsubstantiated observations as fact, but if viewed as a failure in style rather than deliberate miss representation I find his work valuable.

I've not seen any quantity of his articles but the book itself was compiled posthumously from his notes I believe so yes, I'd agree that plenty of lee-way needs to be given. We just don't know what his book might have looked like if he'd lived to write it himself.

[prakel]

Trouble is his writings have become scripture for a lot of the senior Bibba people and it's an act of faith rather than science.
I don't agree with combating propaganda with propaganda.
Claims such as 'Amm makes a smaller brood nest but the individual workers live longer' come from Beo Cooper and none of this is properly evidence based.

I totally agree with not 'combating propaganda with propaganda' but doubt very much that Cooper himself was the originator of much of it, he simply repeated it, for instance Wedmore makes those claims in the 1932 first edition of his 'Manual of Beekeeping' at a time when Cooper would have been around 15 years of age:

Amateur Entomologists' Society Biography of Beowulf A. Cooper
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjl69vHm4rPAhVYGsAKHfgKAX4QFggyMAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amentsoc.org%2Fabout%2Fcoope r-biography.html&usg=AFQjCNG7wqrzqD71FNA9tKkZ1Ct_ATgm7g&sig2=Izo6Ga76MYK0MzdnhBM6FQ

[prakel]

Being in the right place at the right time....

I stopped off at our mating apiary this afternoon and found one of these small clusters on the ground about two feet in front of a mating nuc, still bees at the door fanning wildly (as were the bees in the cluster) and a sparse covering of bees on the combs:

2750

Had a good old rummage for the queen:

2751

...but couldn't find any sign of her.

At this point my phone died on me but just as I was about to call it a non event I noticed another, tiny, cluster three feet further on. So I ran across the field to a friend's house and borrowed a camera in an attempt to get some kind of record:

2755

Yes, there was a queen in amongst them (and an inquisitive wasp).

2754

More photos to follow.

[prakel]

A few photos of the tiny cluster and the queen:

2756275727582759

and finally, she's going home:
2760

Nothing specific to suggest she was taking part in a mating but yes, she was outside the hive as were most of the workers (even if they'd misplaced her).

[SDM]

Was it hot enough where you are to be temp. related absconding ?

[prakel]

Was it hot enough where you are to be temp. related absconding ?

No I wouldn't say so but they have had a hard time with wasps of late, an issue that grew directly out of the fact that it was a badly made unit to begin with and should have been remade but time and 'stuff' got in the way of good beekeeping. The queen emerged 1/9. If they settle down again I fully expect to see eggs this week but I reckon that she was mated prior to today.

So many possibilities to what's going on, one line of speculation based on your question could run: attempt to abscond; queen gets seperated from bulk of bees which are clustered as a swarm; (if I hadn't intervened) queen returns to hive; other bees finally return too.

I think, to get a handle on this we need to start breaking these little clusters to search for the queen. Is she there, is there any suggestion that she's just mated? I can't say that I noticed any drones amongst the cluster -and no, our bees haven't started to eject them yet so there are still plenty available.

[Jon]

I have opened plenty of those clusters and they always have a queen.
Bet you a fiver that queen is laying within 3 days.

[Jon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxUSB_Jvlts


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXj-9jk4KUI

[prakel]

I have opened plenty of those clusters and they always have a queen.
Bet you a fiver that queen is laying within 3 days.

Looking at her and the bees around her I'd be surprised if she isn't, but thats because i think she was already mated prior to today.

[Jon]

Could be that mating has already taken place - but the question is why does this clustering behaviour occur in or around the same time as queen mating if it is not simple absconding.

[mbc]

Could be that mating has already taken place - but the question is why does this clustering behavior occur in or around the same time as queen mating if it is not simple absconding.

I think it would bee a miracle if the queen wasn't mobbed on the way out and on her way back occasionally given how excited a colony can get at this time. I've observed what could have been avm, but saying that it could easily have been caused by the queen accidentally getting distracted from her purpose by over excited bees getting in the way.

I'd forgotten about Coopers book being compiled and published posthumously, good point Prakel.

[greengumbo]

I saw an interesting seminar by the team that carried out the recent tracking of Bumblebees by radar at rothemstead. They tracked individuals from cradle to grave on every foraging run. The work was recently published and made a splash on the Beeb etc. Superb stuff.

Afterwards they showed some early data from honeybees on tracking of drones. The interesting thing I noticed was that drones seemed to go around in wee gangs and flew directly near and around colonies, almost waiting for queens to emerge. There were also two sites of heavy drone activity within 100m of a few colonies. This was very early data but my interpretation was that it was showing some form of AVM.

[Jon]

The drones also move into the apideas with virgin queens presumably to get into pole position when she takes a flight. I see Apideas which were set up drone free with maybe 20-30 drones in residence a week later.

[Jon]

I'd forgotten about Coopers book being compiled and published posthumously, good point Prakel.

Indeed. He might not have agreed with some of the spin added by those who put it together.

[SDM]

The drones also move into the apideas with virgin queens presumably to get into pole position when she takes a flight. I see Apideas which were set up drone free with maybe 20-30 drones in residence a week later.

That I've definitely seen , apidea stocked from supers but there's almkst always drones about a few days later.

[prakel]

The drones also move into the apideas with virgin queens presumably to get into pole position when she takes a flight.

Could be but equally it may simply be some deep seated instinct that tells the drone that he's got a better chance of being treated well if the weather/flow collapses.