Does anyone know how many caucasions were imported? There is very little reference to them in the literature so I have always assumed that very few made it here and hence tend to discount their contribution to the gene pool.
Rosie
Does anyone know how many caucasions were imported? There is very little reference to them in the literature so I have always assumed that very few made it here and hence tend to discount their contribution to the gene pool.
Rosie
Hi Rosie,
They were imported to Scotland at one time. I think Grizzly mentioned them once on this forum and he is from the South of Scotland. I also once had a discussion with one of our older beekeepers who mentioned them in a discussion about propolis and how they propolised everything and how it took him years to get back to a normal hive, so they have been in the Central Belt of Scotland at one time.
I've managed to get my first lot of wings scanned and through drawWing (with guidance- thank you Jimbo). The colony IB1 (the first plot) has come in at 77% AMM. Jimbo kindly assessed her mothers colony earlier in the year, colony IB, and have placed the results here for comparison (the 2nd plot). This colony came in at 70% AMM.
Well done, Did you get your scanner to scan a number of wings? If you are still scanning single wings Jon or Rosie may be able to advise on the settings they use for the V330 scanner. How about a bit of history for these colonies. Where did you get your original colony? Was it from Ian Craig? What do you think other beekeepers in Renfrew / Kilbrachan have?
It's good to see you posting plots EmsE. It's also heart warming to see good plots coming from your area. I would also be interested to know the origin of these bees? I wonder what Gavin's Granny would make of them.
Rose
First one has a swallowtail butterfly zooming down to the corner. Second one evades me for now, maybe the message will get through this evening?
70-77% Amm means that it is Amm or near Amm, as long as the bees show the other traits too (at most a couple of orange spots, thick-set bodies, long hairs on the bum, air spaces under the super cappings) with maybe some drifters, or some bees that developed atypically, or a bit or hybridization in the dim and distant past. That's me just repeating the message that morphometry is only one tool, and one that is best at spotting obvious hybrids.
No obvious traces of the races from the far top right of the scale, ligustica and carnica.
Last edited by gavin; 14-01-2012 at 01:57 PM.
I did scan all the wings 1 by 1, but will try again at some point to scan more at the same time. I think part of the problem was changing the threshold for extraction too much. The other problem was that although I enabled macro's in morph plot, they wouldn't work in open office, so had to map over the 3 values for each of the 44 wings.Originally Posted by Jimbo
My first colony was from Ian and the queen in the colony IB is the a daughter from this, mated in the local area. Ian says that the bees are mongrels so it is possible that there will be quite a bit of variety in the area- it would be interesting to find out.
The queen in colony IB1 is the daughter of IB, and although mated locally, one of the other hives in the apiary (IA1) was headed by the daughter of a queen (IA) that had been taken out of the area to mate with drones from a feral colony. The plot for colony IA is in this thread, #
I'm looking forward to checking the other colonies and will try and get some pictures of the bees too & look at the other characteristics (although some may be beyond me)
I saw an aeroplane & the second a young foul. As you mentioned butterfly's Gavin, I saw one today in the garden which came as a surprise, but it wasn't able to fly (poor thing)
Spot on! They're as clear as day, an aeroplane and a foal. I'm starting to think that this is a woman's skill and - despite my ancestry - my feminine side just isn't quite strong enough.
On the other hand, maybe I was predicting that you were going to see a butterfly, and that after the event people are free to see other things in the leaves? Scary, huh?!
In weather like this, after putting out scraps for the birds (and waiting for them to disperse of course), maybe we should all be putting out some fondant for the butterflies.
plot.JPG
This is a plot I did today. I hauled 5 colonies all the way from Nottinghamshire to be distributed to various queen rearers in our area. This one wasn't mine unfortunately but this is the best of the 2 tested so far.
This blood line was selected for my Nottingham friend by Beowulf himself and they seem to still be fairly pure. I think they will prove to be an asset to our patch as they will bring a new strain of decent bees that can outcross with the existing ones.
Rosie
That looks decent all right. What do the bees look like? Is there any evidence of yellow banding?
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