Here's a thing....

[gavin]

The Austrian carnica breeders association has an interesting page devoted to their native breeds carnica/amm which mentions historical 'mixed areas' but makes no reference to temper issues.

Some fine words from Google Translate:

For the dark bee today it is especially important that the remaining population of intensive selective breeding is operated. Only a good Economical and a good behavior of the bees can get the endangered breed of bees yet. Legally regulated protected areas - if the bee is not further developed in economics and behavior - only ghetto, which only delay the loss of this subspecies, but ultimately can not prevent.

edit: closer to home Ricky Wilson, Wales (p.40-43, Pembrokeshire Beekeepers Association Breeding Project: The Story so Far) seems happy with carnica X amm bees too.

An interesting article. However he explains that he is line breeding the two types and creating hybrids which seem productive and gentle, apparently in the first generation. Several people have said that it is the later generations that show the bad temper. I can't think why he's going down that route as if he's distributing queens locally he'll come unstuck with his line breeding before long. Unless he keeps replacing his carnie and Amm lines from elsewhere.

This year in my own main apiary I'm struggling with horrible bees. They look to me like Amm x carnie cross derivatives, and a couple of them are amongst the worst bees I've seen for behaviour. No sign of the blackish Iberian type that Murray told me had been imported by a neighbour some years ago, and which also had a fierce temper. I wish that I had better information on the genetic make-up of all the bees around here, but it looks to me like 6 miles away we've managed to stay fairly pure Amm (we had a few accidental first generation Italian crosses last summer but have moved them on now) and at my main apiary the influence of carnie-based apiaries (I have at least three commercial guys with bees within a couple of miles) is overwhelming. I'll be requeening soon with Amm-type queens from elsewhere.

[nemphlar]

Perhaps a silly question. Can someone explain are the various AMM types that are being claimed, being compared against a recognised genetic type? And do the queen sales need to conform to this type

[gavin]

Not a silly question. A mix of provenance (do they derive from a recognised source of Amm?), visual checking (do they look right?), morphometrics (hair length, wing vein patterns and the like), even, for some, DNA tests.

Some sources have been verified by all of these, others not. Do queen sales need to prove their type? Depends how they're marketed I suppose. The same applies to all queen sales of course. The NZ carnies are in fact not pure carnies anyway, they're derived from repeat crossing of German bred carnies onto Italian stock so they still carry Italian DNA. And of course, in nature, perhaps none of the established types were always free of a degree of mixing.

[mbc]

interesting article

That piece has wound a lot of people up round here, in particular the line "The next step was to look at what breeding material was available, mainly dark temperamental bees that were not for the faint hearted to handle." dismisses the rich abundance of native bees carefully nurtured by many beekeepers*, which undoubtedly exist in pure (and not so pure) form across west Wales, without a backwards glance in a headlong rush to buy in bees from elsewhere to avoid any long winded selection work.
I have a lot of time for Ricky but hes shat on his chips with this nonsense IMHO

*these "not for the faint hearted to handle" bees are mostly kept by old style beekeepers who use a minimum of protection, unlike the users of the new crosses, this tells its own story about temperament.

[gavin]

You certainly wouldn't get me browsing off that man's chips. Which takes us back to caveat emptor I suppose (only that's a different thread!).

I was surprised that he managed to source Amm from 'a Scottish island'. If it was *that* Scottish island I doubt that the vendor was made fully aware of his breeding plans, and that he would be keen to supply replacements.

It would be nice if folk would report back to the Welsh magazine on their experiences of these hybrid bees a couple of years down the line.

[Rosie]

He's wound people up round here too especially as he implied that he was talking on behalf of his county association and BIBBA (of which he is not even a member!).

[mbc]

He's wound people up round here too especially as he implied that he was talking on behalf of his county association and BIBBA (of which he is not even a member!).

Not to mention implicating the NBU with his choice of carnies, thats another bit that really sticks in my craw, our own National Bee Unit advocating using foreign bees, they should be deeply ashamed.

[prakel]

An interesting article.

It just goes to show that there's often 'more' to a thing than is necessarily apparent at first sight.

My initial comment on this subject wasn't intended in any way to advocate mass imports or cross-breeding. I was merely trying to tease out some definitive recent (this century?) research. I don't quite buy the way in which some of the amm fraternity in this country have latched onto the 'carnica X amm =killer-bee' argument, mind, I don't buy the way certain vested interest beefarmers have taken the opposite stance either.

[Jon]

I don't quite buy the way in which some of the amm fraternity in this country have latched onto the 'carnica X amm =killer-bee' argument, mind,

It's not a case of latching on.
Ruttner carried out experimental work and published the results of crosses and reciprocal crosses as an increase or decrease in percentage aggression.
It's not an opinion piece like the Beowulf Cooper stuff.
The chapter I referred to in Dadant is based on his peer reviewed published work elsewhere.

[mbc]

I don't quite buy the way in which some of the amm fraternity in this country have latched onto the 'carnica X amm =killer-bee' argument, mind, I don't buy the way certain vested interest beefarmers have taken the opposite stance either.

Quite right, I have a fair bit of experience of the first and subsequent crosses and there is no certainty what their temperament will be like, many follow their mother, while others have a range of behaviour.
To me this is the issue, this uncertainty, at least with breeding "in strain" you have a fair degree of certainty about the outcome, if you can keep the matings true. Its the variability, uncertainty and instability of mixing up the bees which misses the wood for the trees and sets everyone back in the middle to long term.