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Thread: Catherine Thompson's research

  1. #21
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    fatshark - your PM box is full.

  2. #22
    Senior Member fatshark's Avatar
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    Apologies … now empty

  3. #23
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by fatshark View Post
    There's an interesting difference between the prevalence of DWV in the colonies reported here and the recent study by Furst et al. ...
    Also BQCV is ubiquitous in her study - is that to be expected?

    G.

  4. #24
    Senior Member fatshark's Avatar
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    Not sure, but the commercials around here are talking about it as becoming a problem. I can't remember the numbers quoted by FERA in unofficial results from the random apiary survey (for BQCV).

  5. #25
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    Murray McGregor says that his bees over time return to the dark strains.

    Mobus found the founder of his "Maud" strain err.. in Maud.

    Now whether you believe or not that the wing measurements are an indicator I found indications of AMM in Aberdeenshire, Morayshire and Perthshire. Given that the native wants to survive and the climate self selects I would gently suggest that there is hope yet. It's a case of looking.

    PH

  6. #26
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    AMM genetics is the biggest part of the background bee population in the UK, something around 40-60%.
    Someone at the Bibba conference presented data, can't remember who it was but I think it was either Kate or the person who stood in for Giles Budge.
    I would expect the percentage to be much higher in parts of Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
    Andrew Abraham's bees on Colonsay seemed to have the least introgression from other subspecies.

    Bear in mind those videos you have showing French AMM arriving in Scotland in the 1930s!

  7. #27
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    Sure they are. Bernard stated often about the "French invasion" but he was still convinced that native AMM was here.

    PH

  8. #28
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poly Hive View Post
    Sure they are. Bernard stated often about the "French invasion" but he was still convinced that native AMM was here.
    PH
    I don't doubt that for a second and I think in the UK and Ireland we also had a fair number of French and Dutch Amm colonies arrive in the first half of the 20th Century.
    That's not a problem for me.

    BTW, Kate is absolutely convinced that Wing morphometry is only of use in populations that have not been hybridised, and given that most UK bees are hybridised, it tends to get used in the wrong way here. The technique was developed by Ruttner and he never intended it to be used to try and pick out 'more Amm' or 'less Amm' bees from hybridised populations. She found no correlation between the % AMM according to the wings and the underlying microsatellite markers. She said at the Bibba conference that the way it is used by the vast majority here is totally erroneous. Went down like a lead balloon obviously.

  9. #29
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    The whole idea of discovering some sort of lost tribe of bees is a bit misplaced in my opinion, all the good lines of bees which have been independently verified as desirable have been associated with a talented beekeeper, or a group, who have had to work on them to get them where they are, unless I'm missing the best legends!

  10. #30
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I agree MBC. The Galtee bees are good because they have had 25 years of selection and improvement by people who know what they are doing.
    The genetic studies which have been carried out on European AMM show that there is a great deal of genetic variation within the subspecies.
    What we need to do is select for what we want from within a pure population of Amm. ie docility, nectar gathering potential and since the arrival of varroa, mite tolerant characteristics.
    The old chestnut about finding a long lost strain of AMM surviving in a hollow tree somewhere is a pervasive myth and unfortunately the Coop study tends to perpetuate that.
    We have some great Amm in Ireland but they are under threat. I heard at our monthly meeting on Monday that the West Donegal bees now have varroa as some clown brought in a colony of Buckfast to the area last summer. There were loads of feral colonies in the area and presumably they will be gone within a year or two.

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