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Thread: Maud bees

  1. #81

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    Quote Originally Posted by Duncan View Post
    Is the dark colour of AMM dominant over the lighter coloured AML and Buckfast?
    Hi Duncan
    Nice to hear from you welcome to the forum
    Lots of bees are black but not Amm
    AMM crosses are most often stripey because of Italian bee genes
    That would suggest colour is a combination of parents genetics
    So one of the features AMM fans look for is even colouring dark brown or black
    You can have caucasians or carniolans which are black as well so colour is not a reliable guide
    I find bees tend to get more black down the generations in this area (presumably the local drones)
    They don't have many AMM features though

  2. #82
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post
    I find bees tend to get more black down the generations in this area (presumably the local drones) They don't have many AMM features though
    This seems to be a common observation which I've also seen, also often noted in the States with reference to 'survivor' stock. Andrew Abrahams mentioned a claim that commercial bees left feral in the Australian bush tend to revert to the darker colouration in a period of ten years or so in the Bibba magazine; article on his trip to Tasmania.

  3. #83
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    I wish my bees would go black on their own. For me it's a constant struggle!

  4. #84
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    yellow coloration is dominant over black
    Inheritance of colour patterns in the honeybee is governed by 3 major allelic genes
    having their expression modified by 6-7 polygenes with alternative alleles for light
    and dark - Jerzy Woyke

    The link I had to the paper has gone dead but it may be elsewhere on the web

    There is a thread about this on the forum somewhere but the bottom line is that if a pure black AMM queen mates with a yellow drone or two you will notice some yellow banding in the workers.

  5. #85

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rosie View Post
    I wish my bees would go black on their own. For me it's a constant struggle!
    The ones round here might be becoming black but they won't be much like AMM, more carni or caucasian I think

    Jon what colour would the drones be if your queen crosses with a yellow drone I'm expecting black ?
    Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 02-12-2013 at 02:58 PM.

  6. #86
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    has to be black as the drones she produces have nothing to do with the sperm in her spermatheca.
    I never see yellow drones in my own stock but I do get the odd colony with a lot of yellow banded workers.
    These must come from the virgin queen dallying with a few yellow drones on the mating flight.

  7. #87
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post
    The ones round here might be becoming black but they won't be much like AMM, more carni or caucasian I think
    Are many people using caucasians in your neck of the woods? Rarely here of them down here. Now, Carniolans, that's another matter!

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    I often get the feeling that the genetics of black in carniolans is different in some way to the black in Amm. It seems easy to keep carniolans black and I find I am suspicious of anything totally black in case the colour is coming from carniolans rather than Amm. It could be that the genes that make carniolans black is more dominant than the ones that make Amms black. Is that possible?

  9. #89
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I don't think so Steve. It is fairly complicated genetics but the genes which control abdomen colour in carnica are going to be the same ones which control colour in AMM.
    It was all in that Woyke paper.
    I don't think anyone would have brought in the caucasian subspecies for a long time in NI
    I have seen some very black and vicious colonies in my time, one of which I know had Carnica genetics in it as it had started out with a Carnica queen several years before.
    This one, which was bought by a Friend for £250, completely emptied the box as soon as the crown board was lifted, coated every beekeeper within 50 feet and would follow for hundreds of yards.
    It was terrifying. If you looked at the arm of your jacket later it was like a pincushion of stings.


    What we still have in NI is older guys who are Buckfast afficionados who import queens, and new beekeepers who buy nucs from Fragile Planet, Easy bee and similar companies and they could be getting anything.
    There is some Carnica genetics comes in via this route.

  10. #90

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    I know nothing about genetics, but like listening to you all discussing the subject. Why do wild bees revert to a darker abdomen? What are the selective pressures, in wild/feral bees, that will determine the colour of a bees abdomen? Can't be just a climate thing if it happens in US, UK, Australia. Predation? A lighter/stripier virgin may get ate if she is more visible?

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