Jon

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Jon
, 24-03-2010 at 12:31 PM (6266 Views)
I got three samples back this morning, one of my own (34) and two from my father's apiary. (Sample A & B)
Thanks again to Roger Patterson for taking the time to do them.


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Surprisingly, his two samples are showing more hybridization than mine, probably from Carnica Drones as his bees are very dark with little or no sign of yellow banding.
He has a neighbour a quarter of a mile away who buys in queens so that is probably the explanation.

I also thought that sample 34 from my own apiary might have had a higher percentage of AMM as it is a sister queen of 33 which was much better. This is the queen from the previous blog entry which I have combined with a queenless colony.

These 3 colonies are headed by 2009 sister queens.

Click image for larger version.  Name: jon-col19..jpg  Views: 73  Size: 60.3 KB  ID: 154Click image for larger version.  Name: jon-col33..jpg  Views: 63  Size: 61.5 KB  ID: 155Click image for larger version.  Name: jon-col34..jpg  Views: 106  Size: 37.6 KB  ID: 156

There is quite a lot of variation but I suppose that is not surprising as sister queens have the same mother but not necessarily the same father. In fact, they are more likely to have different fathers as an egg laid by a queen could be fertilized by a sperm from any one of the drones she mated with. After that, there is the lottery of the drones the daughter queens meet on a mating flight.
I suppose one positive from a native bee point of view is that the discoidal shift is predominantly negative which is a characteristic of AMM bees.

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Updated 24-03-2010 at 12:54 PM by Jon

Tags: amm, morphometry
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Comments

  1. gavin's Avatar
    I wonder just how frequently people look at their dark bees and assume that they are largely native. Things were so much simpler when imports were more obviously colour-coded. Having said that even Amm was imported in quantity in some parts - there are old videos around of French Amm being hived at the college in Aberdeen some time early last century.
  2. Jon's Avatar
    I will take some more samples from my father's apiary at some point but given the level of hybridization in those two, I wouldn't expect other colonies to be much different.
    There was a thread on another forum, I think you posted on it, where someone reckoned he had "English Blacks" but after sending off wing samples it turned out that they were mostly Carnica and only 20% fell into the AMM category.
    My number one selection criteria is temperament.
    I think I will keep selecting mainly on that characteristic and check with DrawWing from time to time to see where I am at.
    It's definitely a useful tool.
    Black bees which are very prolific probably have a lot of Carnica genetics.
  3. Jimbo's Avatar
    Hi Jon,

    For a number of years I have been selecting breeder queens depending on wing morphometry and have just about got to about 90% for AMM. When I started I also tried to breed for temerament, however if you look at what work was done in Germany with the Carnica strain and the Danish and Irish bee breeders. in my opinion it is best to get the strain of bee pure first before you try to breed in traits. Occasionally I do get an aggressive queen which I quick deal with. It has been proven that by crossbreeding strains you do tend to produce aggressive bees. Most beekeepers in Scotland tend to have hybrid bees and also stinging bees.

    Jimbo
  4. Jon's Avatar
    Hi Jim.
    My bees are really docile. I don't tolerate aggressive bees.
    I work them with nitrile gloves and I just use a veil rather than a bee suit.
    I haven't selected based on wing venation but some of the samples I had tested a few months back were not too bad for AMM purity.
    You have to be careful if you select just on the wing venation as it's possible that you are selecting for wing pattern alone rather than underlying AMM genetics. I think it could be useful for eliminating black bees which look superficially like AMM but are quite hybridised. Gavin is the man to explain this better than me.