Drifting and downright squatting

[gavin]

Two colonies, ESBA1 at the association's place and one of my own, have Buckfasty bees in them now which I don't think were raised by the resident queen. Both are the westmost colonies at their sites, and in one at least the bees at the east side of the original box seemed uniform and dark but the intruders (if that is what they were) were at the other side. Frames at rt angles to the entrance and boxes facing south.

Am I witnessing the contamination of the area with imports? Will drones from them now cross with my queens? Is this subsidised from the public purse? Or is this coincidence and the queens are now finding different packets of sperm from the corner of their spermathecas?

Here are dark bees from ESBA1, close-up and more distant, and a frame with some very different looking bees from the same colony (the split with the original queen). Also Jon's plot (posted in the 'Your gallery' thread) from the sample of bees taken from the E side of the box and which were all dark.

[Jon]

Or is this coincidence and the queens are now finding different packets of sperm from the corner of their spermathecas?

I haven't got the reference at hand but that theory about 'packages' of sperm has been completely discredited - quite a while back as well. I think it was the 70s or 80s.
The sperm is completely mixed in the spermatheca so the yellow bees must be coming in from elsewhere.
What is true is that if a queen mates with 10 drones they do not all contribute an even 10%. One might contribute 40% and another a very small percentage.
There was a paper which did DNA work on the workers to work out how many drones the queen mated with and the percentage of viable sperm each contributed. No idea where that one is either but I remember reading it.

[The Drone Ranger]

Gavin I think there are some more Buckfast type bees appearing because folk are buying what is available
The swarm which was stinging as I boxed it here are buckfast type (they are normally gentle)
My theory would be don't graft from that hive
Put a Snelgrove board on following his plan to put just the queen excluder in for 3 days and add the board on day 4
That's to get the best queens less pressure to rush things ?
The bees will select the best larva and I think they will choose the ones you want them to rather than the interlopers
Jon is not convinced
Neither am I totally, but random larva selection seems likely to be worse

[Jon]

That concept you describe is known as 'cryptic female choice', ie the workers can actively select a particular larva as opposed to picking one at random. I think the jury is still out on that one. The Bibba magazine had an article on this a few years back but I was not entirely convinced. Par for the course with Bibba magazine articles actually. There has been some pure stream of consciousness stuff in it recently.

[Dark Bee]

When a colony of Italians is introduced to an apiary - one soon finds them in every hive. That has been the experience here when that has happened. Carniolans and natives are allegedly much less prone to drifting, proving that might be a different matter . The book hives of the continent would support the claim, but the population increase in the last of a line of hives away from the prevailing wind might not!
The yellow bees which have appeared in the above hive must have come from a colony somewhere in the vicinity.

[Jon]

The yellow bees which have appeared in the above hive must have come from a colony somewhere in the vicinity.

I agree as there were no yellow bees in the sample I looked at and it was a large sample of 70+ bees.

[gavin]

Italians rather than Buckfasty then?

[Dark Bee]

Italians rather than Buckfasty then?

I don't wish to upset anyone, but I do not know what a buckfast bee is, or how I might recognise them if encountered. There is no doubt a strain or type of bee was developed in the Buckfastleigh area by Bro. Adam who was an able bee breeder. He has now been dead many years and the particular strain must inevitably be diluted by now. However good luck to those who choose to keep this bee.
Italian bees when crossed with natives produce very aggressive bees here, but when Buckfasts cross with the natives the resulting bees are much more aggressive still - handling them is like dodging machine gun fire. Experiences in other countries may be different, but I doubt it. If I were you, I'd use drone traps, decoy colonies and anything else to keep your blacks pure.

[The Drone Ranger]

There are two types of italian colour the very light yellow like the NZ types sold years ago by KBS and others
Then a more tan coloured type which might be less easy going
The Buckfast colouring as you a have said yourself Gavin is more ginger and although Brother Adam fixed the characteristics he was not overly concerned with colour as he considered that a less important aspect of his bees

Heres a pic of Buckfast allegedly
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur...ed=0CDYQrQMwBQ

Its not clear because Italian crosses probably look similar and CI for Buckfast is 2.4 Italians 2.55
I think he light NZ types still retain the yellowness in the banding when they are crossed

[Dark Bee]

DR, the tan coloured Italian to which you refer is or used to be known as the Ligurian Italian. It was more or less the colour of leather - is that the one you have in mind?