The question was whether you were aware of Bernard's AMMs showing a tendency to apiary vicinity mating
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The question was whether you were aware of Bernard's AMMs showing a tendency to apiary vicinity mating
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No as I took my virgins to Conon Bridge to a bee farm to mate with drones from Bernards queen line up there. Very successful it was too.
PH
What about supercedure queens (didn't you mention you had a significant proportion of queens replaced by supercedure?)? Anything noteworthy on apiary vicinity mating with them?
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I have been away for a week and saw this in my in box http://www.hebrides-news.com/rare-bl...len-12417.html
Little shits...........
Yes about 60% superceeded on the Heather and this was known due to marked clipped queens. It could also be annoying to find the queen you had chosen for that seasons breeding was no longer there.
PH
I wasn't making any claims in favour of it Prakel. It's not something I've particularly noticed in my bees but then again I don't lay claim to my bees being especially close to being pure AMM. But it's something that both Andrew on Colonsay and I think Jon in Belfast have noticed in their AMMs. If it's something that AMMs do in poor weather or even generally it could have major implications for the true breeding of queens in the absence of II.
I just wondered if PH when he was custodian of Bernard Mobus' AMMs had noticed anything of the like.
P.S. Losing the two colonies might be down to late supersedure but I will leave that for another post.
That’s how I finished my last post so I will carry on from here.
When I started beekeeping in the late seventies Bernard Mobus' was still coming to Orkney and carrying out beekeeping demonstrations. I only meet him once when I was asked to make up a nuc before the gathered crowd at my mentors apiary. I was very wet behind the ears and a nervous wreck but everything went ok in the end. My mentor often received queens from Bernard that came in the post from Craibstone. My mentor had very good dark bees, he breed for the best traits and he often talked about the Maud strain but that meant nothing to me at the time. He often kept four year old queens that would produce nice supersedure cells. Late supersedure was common in his apiary and it was not unusual to have marked and unmarked queens in the same hive in September. After he died my mentor’s bees were distributed to several beekeepers in different parts of Orkney so that strain is now no longer pure. But the majority of colonies here are dark and a lot have a high percentage of AMM traits.
I tend not to inspect my colonies after late August because we don’t have to treat for varroa here (YET!) But on the occasions when I have been in hives in the autumn I‘ve come across the odd sealed queen cell. The most annoying thing is to open up a hive in the spring and find your healthy marked queen has been replaced by a drone layer or no queen at all and just an open Q C. In Clive de Bruyn’s Practical Beekeeping he said “supersedure is much more common than generally realized” although he didn’t specifically mention late supersedure. So I’m none the wiser if this is just an AMM trait.:confused: By the way there is a good Maud bee thread on this forum.
http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...ight=maud+bees
Did anyone else get the SNHBS newsletter ?
Great stuff.
Yup ... as a contributor, am I allowed to agree with your "great stuff"?!
Gavin's article on identification is a welcome addition for those interested: http://www.snhbs.scot/identifying-native-honey/
Did any members NOT receive their newsletter ... do let us know.
Looked at the facebook page lots of enthusiasm not much progress ?
Or am I being pessimistic
Useful reminder about spam though
I haven't had that for years mmmmm!
Sun's out I'm off to check my cell raising bar :)
How much progress are you expecting after a couple of months since the society's formation DR?! Serious question. The new society is a long term project. Speaking personally in my wee corner of it things are moving on. I've been grafting from one of Jimbo's Rosneath AMM queens and now have virgins on the go. I think we're talking years before there is a Scotland wide impact of everyone's efforts. Patience and dedication required! Oh and optimism!
Your amazement is not our primary objective funnily enough DR.
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Well good luck with it anyway
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breeding-Be.../dp/1904623182
I expect now wing scanning has been proven useless a load of scanners will turn up on eBay
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I can help with a possible logo suggestion
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...a67d8f560a.jpg
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Not sure why you've got your panties in such a bunch over this DR. God forbid people would try to overcome cynicism and do something positive. Is it because you bought a yellow "AMM" queen? If it's from the source I think it is I'm surprised you're surprised
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Breeding-Better-Bees-John-Dews
DR - are you on commission? Trying to recoup funds that Mrs DR does not yet know about? Supporting an economy in need? So many questions. Of course it would be poor form to name and shame the supplier.
Anyway - the point is I followed the link because the title looked interesting and I want to breed good bees. The 80 page booklet is COSTED AT £234.57p. I was intrigued this must be some good, must-have text. Thankfully there is a very useful review.
"The author spends a lot of pages in this small booklet explaining why a bee breeding program for Apis melifera melifera, the dark British bee, is essential in the UK. What is missing is how to do it and a better justification of why hybrid bees are such poor value. If you want to learn how to raise queens or select useful traits this is definitely not the book for you."
Many thanks to the out-of-pocket reviewer.
Just teasing drumgerry
Best plan to protect native stocks would be to take the wheels of Murray Magregors vehicles so he can't drive down to Italy for a lorry load of Italian packages
I'm doing the native bee club and everyone else a service by exposing the tat sold as AMM by importers
Hi FD
That book is of great historical importance
It outlines how to find a unicorn in a herd of horses
Hang on
No I'm wrong that's another book entirely
Im going to put my copy on Amazon
It got left out in the rain and the pages all stuck together
You can't read it now but you can still wave it around to banish bad spirits :)
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I'll re-acquire my sense of humour in a minute DR. Maybe I'm a bit over-sensitive....
And absolutely agree about the crap being passed off by importers.
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You can have the one I raised on the right for a tenner
That's still £25 cheaper than the one on the left
They are both dead but I think mine is better value :)
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...0b0b64e3a7.jpg
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On a different subject
The first queens I raised and put in mininucs are laying
Also the second lot are laying
Had to give them fondant (bad weather) so a quick check for eggs only
The first bunch were using a cupkit cassette
The next lot grafted
I wonder if there will be a difference in size or quality
It's not scientific (in my case) because they were different mother Qs and different queen raising hives
But it might be interesting to explore next spring
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Waste of time in my thoughts.
It's not the how you get to the larvae in the cell so much as the feeding and nurturing from that point on and then the luck of the mating.
PH
But what about larvae already selected to be future queens?
With dozens of eggs/young larvae why do the bees choose the ones they choose?
We know there's worker policing capable of egg selection and I'm sure Gavin (or greengumbo or someone ... aargh! my brain is melting) and I once discussed selection of rare genotypes as future queens.
That would be the Moritz 'Royal Families' paper again :) .
...and yes, it's quite interesting when looking at a comb of young larvae from a queen-right colony, under magnification, to observe the difference in brood food quantity between cells with larvae of much the same age. A few cells always seem to be better supplied than the rest from the very outset.
I have the Queen raising frame in the hive where the larva came from Ben Harden style
Maybe the ones that dont get started are the peasants :)
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Attachment 2838
D'oh! Wrong sort of bee. Common carder, Bombus pascuorum, I think.
I expect the Amm were all out hammering the lime. For once we had a lovely calm evening and you could hear the trees humming with activity from 100 yards away. It sounded wonderful (to a beekeeper at least).
SNHBS Winter workshop on identifying native honey bees in Aberdeen on the 18th November !
Should be good day and pretty hands on.
Its free to members (www.SNHBS.scot to join !) and there are about 15 tickets remaining.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ident...ts-38578048983
Thanks to the 40 odd members of SNHBS who attended at the weekend ! Great fun and very informative. Hope to run similar workshops next year and to start on a larger survey.
Hi GG
How many members have AMM bees ?
No idea of the full 150 strong membership DR but if the workshop was representative then a high proportion !
One of the surprising aspects of the day was the number of Amm like types that people brought along from their stocks. Obviously it can look Amm and have wings like Amm but still not be. Encouraging though. A bigger survey is planned next year so hopefully can get a better idea of the situation.
There's some info online now at the SNHBS website to help you identify Amm, DR.
You might have some - or perhaps just near native.
Kitta
https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/pr...25/38054_1.jpg
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note I know -
The yellow small queen on the LEFT is Amm because the commercial supplier says so and sold it as such
The big black one on the RIGHT is not Amm because I bred that one myself and I say its not
just to make sure there is no confusion