Colonsay reserve approved!

[Jon]

Sam Millar was there on Colonsay as well. He is a retired Presbyterian Minister.
Don't know if he brought a queen home to Co. Derry.

Kitta, there are loads of Irish clergy keeping bees, all denominations.

[Jon]

I think one of the most valuable contributions beekeepers make( that is, beekeepers who raise their own queens), especially since varroa and the demise of wild populations of bees sustaining themselves, is each virgin that mates with the local drones throws a net over the best genetics in the air at the time and preserves them in her spermethetica for years to come.

That is a nice way to envisage queen rearing. If you have a 4 year old queen it should have a good cross section of the genetics in your area 4 years ago irrespective of any more recent imports or negative changes.

[keith pierce]

How many beekeeping priests do you know? I've forgotten his name, but he's a priest, and he looks almost always amused.
Kitta

thanks

[mbc]

That is a nice way to envisage queen rearing. If you have a 4 year old queen it should have a good cross section of the genetics in your area 4 years ago irrespective of any more recent imports or negative changes.

Given the peculiar parentage of drones the time span captured could span much further back than that.

[Jon]

My oldest queen got superseded twice this summer. The first time I rescued her to a nuc, from a colony where her daughter was already laying, and they superseded her a second time in the nuc about a month later. The first daughter has sadly produced about 10% yellow banded offspring but the second one and some of the queens from the grafts I hurriedly took look like having mated better.

[Adam]

I think if any beekeeper breeds from his best, then that's a great start.

BIBBA seem to have good aims, but they are too small and ineffectual and cannot compete with the amount of imports arriving each year. A serious plan, funding, distribution of breeder queens etc would all be required.
What we need is action. Cue a Monty Python reference. I haven't seen one for a while

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YawagQ6lLrA

[GRIZZLY]

K.P. Sam Millar is your man - he was on our course and both he and his pal - who's name escapes me went back over the water with a Colonsay queen each. None to spare for me tho'.

[Peter]

I think if any beekeeper breeds from his best, then that's a great start.

BIBBA seem to have good aims, but they are too small and ineffectual and cannot compete with the amount of imports arriving each year. A serious plan, funding, distribution of breeder queens etc would all be required.
What we need is action. Cue a Monty Python reference. I haven't seen one for a while

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YawagQ6lLrA

It is easy to say that BIBBA should do this, that or the other, but as with most associations there are no paid staff! The members (and especially the committee members) are scattered all over the country so it would be very difficult to organise some sort of central breeding station to distribute breeder queens. It would probably make for a great deal of work from people who will not profit from it - in stark contrast to the profits being made by the importers. Until the amateurs work together as a force it is unlikely that any great progress will be made. BIBBA's first 50 years has been a disaster; the question is whether amateur beekeepers are willing to change that. Many will sit holding their hands out expecting to be offered stock - but how many are willing to pay seriously good money for it - and then work to distribute locally?

I guess that it is not 'ask what BIBBA can do for you...'.

There is also a problem in that those who have the good stock are not necessarily willing to share it.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Sam Millar ... is a retired Presbyterian Minister. ...
Kitta, there are loads of Irish clergy keeping bees, all denominations.

K.P. Sam Millar ... went back over the water with a Colonsay queen ...

I'm sure you're right, Jon - but I thought that amused smile might narrow the field a bit. Sam it is. Kitta

[The Drone Ranger]

Beekeepers with more than a few hives should shoulder the responsibility of making sure their bees have good temper and I believe that most of them do realise this
There is always the temptation to hang on to bad tempered honey producers
Hands up I did it this year with a hive which was steadily getting worse at each visit and paid the price by being stung to bits taking off the honey.
The real legacy of that bit of illogical thinking though will come back to haunt me where any queens that mated with the drones from that hive will have a proportion of ill tempered bees.
Grafting from one of those daughter queens stands say 10% chance of picking the wrong larva and producing a real bad tempered hive which won't show up till the new queen is laying
The good news is that if she only meets drones from good hives the temper might be fine
Of course her drones will probably throw up the bad temper when they mate with the next generation of young queens
As a lady beekeeping friend pointed out all she wants is for her young queens to meet "nice boys"

So there is the mechanism and it applies to hybrid bees and pure race bees in equal measure
This means that even in a single season you can bring about a great change in your bees and if you follow the same road each year they will be gentle as lambs
Each additional thing you try to select for leads to complications so if you are only going to do one thing I think it best to choose temper

Peter Edwards kindly pointed me toward his Stud Book which simplifies things for the more dedicated bee breeder and as with his other work comes with very good instructions.

If you are a beekeeper with one or perhaps two hives only then "parachuting in a queen" can only be a good thing but you need to realise the local drone population will mess things up for you as soon as your new queen swarms or is replaced in some other way
Fortunately you will have the advantage that your new queen will have mums genetics and her drones will be "nice boys" and the local situation will have been improved by you.

This is the area of contention now
There is no reliable large scale supply of AMM queens. There is however a ready supply of very highly bred queens with all the qualities you desire in a bee namely gentleness good health productivity fecundity low propolis production etc

Sadly they are not black, and they are wearing the wrong wings in public, but is it right to say to a beekeeper with a couple of hives that he shouldn't buy one of these queens.
If that beekeeper lives on the East coast of Scotland he might not have to bother because there will be plenty gentle drones in the air every summer from commercial operations and they will provide the "nice boys"
In some other areas where the local bees are of a more fierce type there is the option of forming a breeding group that would be particularly useful in areas where the crops sought by large scale beekeepers are not grown.
It still would benefit from finding gentle productive stock if not locally then from further afield

This is a long post and I'm sure most people reading it will know all this stuff already, but I wanted to say that each beekeeper plays a part in improving the temper of all of our bees
There are no real saints and sinners here the chaps with line bred gentle Buckfast or Carniolan or AMM help to make beekeeping more pleasurable for us all and although much has been made of the possibilities of bad temper being caused by crossing the races it is not necessarily the case and should not stand in the way of producing better bees, starting with better temper
Buying a queeen should not be viewed as changing things for the worse because other than in AMM strongholds it probably is bringing about improvements
£40 a time will be disincentive enough for most people