A little bit of banter helps clarify things more than the fierce disputes you get elsewhere which only divide the community
Agreed. The link to the bkf posted earlier shows how it SHOULDN'T be done.
Jon - true about the Italians. I have one only now. 3 year old queen. Lays like the clappers - all the time. I'm amazed that she hasn't run out of sperm yet.
[QUOTE=Jon;22228]I agree Adam. Excess frugality is a bad thing. I don't like colonies which come out of winter on only 3-4 frames of bees as they will not be built up until the end of May, ie just in time for the June gap!
We find that most of the OSR crop comes in during late May/early June. No problem with frugal bees - some of our frugal colonies have >11 frames of brood by then.
>There is a happy medium though, as Italians in particular are reputed to keep rearing brood right through the winter with the associated excess consumption of stores.
And how! When the NBU was at Luddington the then director, Vince Cook, changed all the stock to NZ Italians; they needed 60lbs of sugar per colony to get them through the winter! What lunacy - pumping in all that sugar.
>The point is that within AMM you have different ecotypes and there is a lot of variation.
You can breed for what suits your area.
Spot on!
Peter Edwards
[QUOTE=drumgerry;22229]One thing to bear in mind is that subsidies for OSR will not last forever and in my opinion nor should they.
With the high demand for oil I doubt that subsidies enter into the equation.
>I also don't think the getting of big honey crops is a simple function of colony size. It's one of the biggest criticisms levelled at AMM by some. That the queens produce small colonies which will only ever get modest honey crops for you. My experience is that big colonies don't always get lots of honey and it's often a smaller colony that wins out in pounds produced.
Absolutely right. It was Bro Adam who pushed the idea that to get large amounts of honey you needed large colonies - but I rather think that he had ulterior motives (why else would he have pronounced A.m.m. extinct?). Until you have seen the amount of honey that a small colony of A.m.m. can produce then you could be forgiven for any incredulity. So often I see a colony in a single brood box with 8-10 full supers above; it never fails to amaze.
Beats me why anyone with even half a brain keeps knocking our native bees? Trolls?
Peter Edwards
That's equally true of most of the AMM bees available I'm sureOriginally Posted by Peter
Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 26-10-2013 at 11:07 PM. Reason: too long as usual
As Peter E says
"Beats me why anyone with even half a brain keeps knocking our native bees? Trolls? "
There no denying the logic in that statement
Our native bees are hybrids now
Speak for yourself DR, my native bees have stubbornly poked a proboscis out at the romans, saxons, normans and english, ignored IoW desease and Bro. Adams with his false pronouncements, turned their back on the double barreled names and their cash rich imports propaganda, and are now weathering the storm of internet shopping, all this while being robbed for millenia by their supposed custodians with their legendary thirst for mead.As Peter E says
"Beats me why anyone with even half a brain keeps knocking our native bees? Trolls? "
There no denying the logic in that statement
Our native bees are hybrids now
Still, well done DR, this thread would look like cheerleading for AMM without a bit of devils advocacy !
Keep it going chaps, a most enjoyable read so far.
Is DR a hybrid?
This reminds me of the time I was once accused of being a racist because I favoured one bee race over another. If you use the word "subspecies" then suddenly you're not a racist after all.
Steve
Hi DR,
You got the genetic DNA evidence that all Amm are hybrids?
You been doing sneaky genotyping experiments out in you shed?
I would like a look at your results
Subspeciesist!!
Guilty melud!Subspeciesist!!
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