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Thread: New BIBBA website

  1. #91
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by madasafish View Post
    Sorry: it's all BS in my view. Fine words, no actions.
    I also share your incredulity, as it is not hard to rear queens even if the matings can sometimes be suspect due to the mixture of drones.
    But even then the queens reared are at least local which is a step forward from importing.
    The problem in Bibba has been that proposals get shot down before they even get trialled somewhere.
    I don't know what the bbka is up to but I don't see any great support emanating from there.
    As soon as someone has a plan to rear queens, someone else will jump up with a 'how do you know your queen is the right sort of queen' argument.
    Result - lack of concrete action.
    Steve says that things have been rejigged in Bibba so I am still onboard as a supporter but end product is needed fast.

    And it is not all BS as there is action from some of us, especially on the big island to the west of you.

  2. #92

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    Looking out the window of the conservatory I'm watching the sparrows we have about a hundred now
    When I came here 10 or so years back ther were only a few and lots of chaffinches
    By feeding at the right times and having the right cover sparrows have flourished sadly the chaffinches have diminished in numbers
    If it was the beekeeping world we were looking at then the two would have interbred and become flourishing hybrid charrows
    Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 24-10-2013 at 04:20 PM.

  3. #93

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    Don't get carried away DR. II might be a useful extra but there are so many other things to get right first. Good numbers of stocks to maintain a breeding pool, means of identifying and selecting the better stocks for your situation. Unless you are tapping into someone else's breeding work.

    Jon identifies hybridised colonies and either requeens them or uses them to make bees and (transplanted) drones. Sounds like a good strategy to me.

    Sent from my BlackBerry 8520 using Tapatalk
    Probably am getting carried away here's a link to the Federation of Irish Beekeepers and how they struggled with II initially
    http://www.irishbeekeeping.ie/articles/ii.html
    Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 24-10-2013 at 10:02 PM. Reason: forgot link :)

  4. #94
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Redmond who wrote that article does all the II work for the Galtee Group. He is regarded as the most knowledgeable II practitioner in Ireland.
    That FIBKA site is like a time warp. Most of the pages are years old.

  5. #95

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    Hi Jon

    Yes from a while back but the it shows everyone starts somewhere
    The Galtee group are the experts and they had to master II
    Gavin thinks that is getting carried away
    I'm not sure it is because would Galtee have made any progress without
    a) a large membership
    b) good mating locations
    C) artificial insemination
    d) some quality breeding stocks

    I contrast that approach with taking a pretty hybridised bee and scanning the wings looking for something which shows some promise
    As I have said my bees range from 0% to 77% this year to me that's meaningless
    If I started with the 77% which I wouldn't incidentally because they had chalk brood early season
    I could spend the rest of my life selecting for the most AMM characteristics but that would still be a hybridised bee.
    Now as long as you realise that what you are breeding for is less likely to be AMM than if you went to the local dog pound and selected two black and white dogs and started trying to recreate a border collie that's fine.
    I have learned a lot from discussing the AMM or not AMM question including that the supporters of AMM should stop blaming the rest of the beekeeping community for their lack of progress and instead take a long hard look at what they themselves do,

    Sorry that seems a bit rude on reading back but you get the drift
    Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 25-10-2013 at 12:52 AM. Reason: apology

  6. #96
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    DR. Some may get up on their soap box but I prefer to encourage people to start up their own group.
    Whatever stock you work with, you will have more success working together with your neighbours.
    Unless you are the sole beekeeper on an Island like Andrew Abrahams you will have very limited sucess going it alone.

  7. #97
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post
    The Galtee group are the experts and they had to master II
    Gavin thinks that is getting carried away
    Not what I was saying at all. II is a useful part of a bigger effort, not one of the first things to turn to. It was you that was getting carried away not the Galtee folk.

    Locally there are beekeepers who have traditionally kept local dark stocks and not imported a variety of types over the years as some others have done. Their bees vary from being obvious hybrids, to stocks that seem to show a high proportion of several Amm traits, not just wing morphology. Stability seems to me to be an essential precursor to progress in breeding. It makes perfect sense to turn to that sort of material to start breeding.

  8. #98
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    And as I've alluded to, there are people locally willing to sidestep soapboxes and spend their own valuable time trying to improve things in a collaborative way and with their eyes open about the difficulties.

    A much better way to proceed than to turn to the importer of queens or packages for a temporary fix which ends up making things worse for everyone (unstable genetics locally, poorly adapted bees, new pests and diseases and new variants of pests and diseases coming in .... )

  9. #99

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    And as I've alluded to, there are people locally willing to sidestep soapboxes and spend their own valuable time trying to improve things in a collaborative way and with their eyes open about the difficulties.

    A much better way to proceed than to turn to the importer of queens or packages for a temporary fix which ends up making things worse for everyone (unstable genetics locally, poorly adapted bees, new pests and diseases and new variants of pests and diseases coming in .... )
    Sorry Gavin if that upsets you but a hybrid is a hybrid and anywhere that migratory beekeeping occurs the bees will be hybidised
    Trying to breed back to something like AMM has no more validity than any other process of selection from the hybrid bees
    There is no reason why choosing ones with fluffy bums and nice wings should be exclusively considered desirable

    I don't get on soap boxes, in fact I largely just keep myself to myself, not joining lots of organisations and pressure groups
    Some other beekeepers are members of everything under the sun, on committees ,preaching their message etc -- good luck to them
    I always welcome the Jehova's witnesses at the door because they are very nice people,well dressed,well meaning and committed
    That doesn't mean I accept any of their views or I would ever consider becoming one
    To me working against nature, which puts every effort into increasing the hybridisation of the honeybee, is in fact a waste of time and effort
    On imports you had best address those points to the importers but they have nothing to do with the breeding of AMM from the background population of bees
    To maintain an AMM or any other pure bred population you would need the 4 conditions I listed in post #95

  10. #100
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post
    To me working against nature, which puts every effort into increasing the hybridisation of the honeybee,
    I think nature plays a longer game than this. It might put every effort into hybridisation but in the long term the undesirable traits resulting from this hybridisation will be lost anyway if the hybrid bees are not adapted to local climate etc etc. Maybe the attempt to breed locally adapted Amm, with other desirable traits, actually helps nature by bypassing this long winded evolutionary process that would see many of the "poor adaptation to local climate traits" lost anyway. Of course it means you miss out on all the desirable traits as well which is what nature "wanted".....I guess it works both ways ! Interesting topic guys

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