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Thread: Horner method for controlled mating

  1. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    I wonder whether there might be an improved performance of drones that have been on the wing for a while as a general physiological warm up -flying to a DCA or just 'out and about' prior to AVM?
    I know the drones certainly get a warm up with AVM, the aerial acrobatics of the virgin queens and the drones chasing them is quite spectacular, even flying slap into the ground,trees,bushes, and even people watching...and gone again in a flash, i am sure only the fittest drones get to mate, and at the time this is all going on the drone provider colonies look almost as if they are swarming, but the great activity is the drones.

  2. #22
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Nice description Pete, I've never observed this AVM business; only DCA activity (which, if time, assistance and kit allow, I hope to finally get some footage of next summer).

  3. #23
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    This might be of interest to those of us trying to achieve isolated AMM matings.

    This is the abstract but the whole report is freely accessible.:

    "Northern Poland is inhabited by native Apis mellifera mellifera (AMM) and the non-native A. m. carnica (AMC) which was introduced by beekeepers. However, hybrids between the two subspecies of honey bee are relatively rare. The lower than expected proportion of hybrids is hypothesised to be related to reproductive isolation between AMM and AMC. To verify this hypothesis, we allowed the AMM and AMC queens to be naturally inseminated in an area inhabited by both AMM and AMC drones. Genotype of the queens and their sexual partners were derived based on random samples of their worker offspring. Assignment of parental genotypes to the two subspecies was performed with a Bayesian clustering method. In colonies headed by AMM queens, workers were fathered mainly by AMM drones. On the other hand, in colonies headed by AMC queens workers were fathered by drones of both subspecies. The partial reproductive isolation reported here between AMM and AMC may facilitate conservation of the declining population of AMM."

    You can find it here:

    http://link.springer.com/article/10....592-013-0212-y

    It seems too good to be true but if you are one of those who thinks science is infallible you can drop your guard if your only worry is carnica. I will still be aiming at isolated mating sites though. I would be interested to hear comments from a geneticist though as the rest is quite easy to follow and seems quite conclusive that AMM queens don't like or don't encounter carnica drones. On the other hand carnica queens will mate with anything.

  4. #24
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    That is a very interesting little paper and the authors are well known and well respected researchers.
    If true, that is great news for us AMM breeders.

    There are a couple of things I don't like about the design of the study though.
    It compared the mating of two groups of 24 virgin queens, one Carnica and one Amm group.
    The were put in mini plus mating nucs with 2500 bees in each one.
    However, all the workers in both groups were Carnica.
    I don't know if this could have had an effect on the results but in my opinion workers play a key role in the mating process as I have seen the queen leave and mate with a small mating swarm of attendant workers several times. It would be interesting to repeat the same experiment in the same area using all AMM workers in the mating nucs to rule out any possibility of an effect from the workers.

    The other thing I was a bit wary about was the assumption about the genetics of local colonies based on a sample of just one bee per colony yet we know colonies are made up of sets of half sisters with different drone fathers.
    I suppose this was likely to even itself out if by chance a worker was sampled which happened to be unrepresentative of the colony as a whole.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    That is a very interesting little paper ...
    Agreed - but the study is deficient by no mention being made of the weather conditions which prevailed on those days during which mating flights took place - for it is well known that AMM mating frequently takes place under poor weather conditions which carnica (and ligustica) find non-conducive to mating.

    Thus, should there have been several inclement days at the beginning of the experiment's mating flight period (an assumption, of course) - then those days would have produced only AMM-AMM matings - whereas on the later 'good weather' days the remaining carnica queens would have been able to mate with drones from both sub-species.

    Therefore there is a possibility (and I wouldn't put it any more strongly), that the results obtained could have been due solely to weather conditions, and nothing more complicated than that.

  6. #26
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Little_John View Post
    for it is well known that AMM mating frequently takes place under poor weather conditions which carnica (and ligustica) find non-conducive to mating.
    Is it that well known? Who knows it, as a result of long term comparative observation? How do we quantify 'poor weather conditions'? How bad must the weather be to allow amm a mating advantage over carnica which itself isn't generally thought of as a soft bee?

  7. #27
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    Is it that well known? Who knows it,
    It is well repeated as opposed to well known and is one of the claims which can be traced straight back to the Beowulf Cooper books.
    I say the jury is out until someone sets up a properly controlled study to look at this.
    Anytime I have witnessed mating flights it has been on calm sunny days with the temperature in the high teens or low 20s.
    In good weather conditions my queens are laying in 8-10 days from emergence but if conditions are poor most of them take 3 weeks plus.
    I do see the odd one start to lay when it must have flown and mated in poor conditions but that would be the exception rather than the rule.
    They wait in the apideas for the right conditions then they all fly and mate on the same day.
    I remember one Monday night at our queen rearing group about 20+ people found eggs in their apideas. The queens had emerged 8-9 days earlier and the weather had been hot and sunny for the entire week. These were all grafted from the same Galtee queen so the virgins were pure Amm.
    The thing is, all it takes is a decent weather window of 15 minutes and they can fly and mate. It has to be relentless rain and low temperatures to keep them in.
    Last edited by Jon; 27-12-2013 at 12:41 PM.

  8. #28
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    These are all good questions and reinforce a point I made earlier that it's impossible to design a perfect scientific experiment, especially with bees. Nevertheless it demonstrates that races aren't all the same which is hardly surprising given the millions of years of separate evolution and climatic conditions they have been through.

    Whatever the reasons for the bee's behaviour in these trials it's still good news for Amm enthusiasts and it helps explain why there are still plenty of Amm genetics everywhere despite so many years of mixing of races.

  9. #29
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rosie View Post
    it helps explain why there are still plenty of Amm genetics everywhere despite so many years of mixing of races.
    There is another paper which noted something similar with AMM managing to stay relatively pure in an area where there was some Buckfast.

    ORIGINAL PAPER
    Morphological and molecular characterization of the Landes
    honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) ecotype for genetic conservation

    James P. Strange

    Lionel Garnery

    Walter S. Sheppard
    Received: 13 March 2007 / Accepted: 21 May 2007 / Published online: 6 July 2007

    Abstract
    A population of honey bees (Apis mellifera mellifera
    L.) with an annual colony brood cycle adapted to
    a locally abundant floral source in the Landes region of
    Southwest France is the subject of genetic conservation
    efforts. This population is maintained by local beekeepers
    in an area that experiences both an annual seasonal influx
    of non-local colonies and the permanent culture of im-
    ported stock. However, some colonies native to the Landes
    do not have the adapted brood cycle and their status as
    ecotypic are in question. The present study used mor-
    phology, mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites to char-
    acterize the endemic population and suggests further
    genetic conservation strategies. These methods yielded
    different degrees of discrimination of native and imported
    colonies and provided a powerful suite of tools for local
    resource managers. Colonies from the Landes could be
    differentiated from non-local French
    A. m. mellifera populations using morphometric analysis, and from non-native
    and reference populations using mtDNA and microsatellites. Seven morphological characters were identified by
    discriminant analysis as informative for delineating the
    Landes ecotype from other A. m. mellifera populations.
    Mitochondrial haplotypes for the population were characterized and five microsatellite loci were found to be
    informative in characterizing the Landes population.
    Asymmetric gene flow detected with microsatellite alleles
    was observed to be 5.5–5.9% from imported to native
    stocks of honey bees while introgression of native micro-
    satellite alleles into imported colonies was 21.6%

    Morphological and molecular characterization of the Landes honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) ecotype for genetic conservation


    For anyone interested in breeding AMM, I am collating these links on a page on the NIHBS site. Just added that one from Poland, thanks Steve.
    Last edited by Jon; 27-12-2013 at 12:56 PM.

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    It is well repeated as opposed to well known and is one of the claims which can be traced straight back to the Beowulf Cooper books.
    I say the jury is out until someone sets up a properly controlled study to look at this.
    Anytime I have witnessed mating flights it has been on calm sunny days with the temperature in the high teens or low 20s.
    In good weather conditions my queens are laying in 8-10 days from emergence but if conditions are poor most of them take 3 weeks plus.
    I do see the odd one start to lay when it must have flown and mated in poor conditions but that would be the exception rather than the rule.
    They wait in the apideas for the right conditions then they all fly and mate on the same day.
    I remember one Monday night at our queen rearing group about 20+ people found eggs in their apideas. The queens had emerged 8-9 days earlier and the weather had been hot and sunny for the entire week. These were all grafted from the same Galtee queen so the virgins were pure Amm.
    The thing is, all it takes is a decent weather window of 15 minutes and they can fly and mate. It has to be relentless rain and low temperatures to keep them in.
    Hi Jon

    Hopefully Peter Edwards is watching this and will be able to confirm that he has seen a queen returning with a mating sign at 5 degrees C.

    How do you know Galtee are pure Amm?

    Are you sure queens can mate properly in 15 minutes? I suspect it takes at least all afternoon and probably 2 to gather all the sperm they need. This has been shown to be the case with Caucasions although I don't know if it applies to other races.

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