Veil and gloves? who wears those ever (seriously)!Originally Posted by Castor
Yes on the todger, not as painful as the tip of the nose. Had worse swelling there too.indexbody.jpg
I'm the chap in the cap.
Veil and gloves? who wears those ever (seriously)!
Yes on the todger, not as painful as the tip of the nose. Had worse swelling there too
I'm the chap in the cap.
Yep. Good German Carnica are very docile. I remember the IWF videos and the woman who was demonstrating rarely wore a veil.
I was stung on the inside of nose last week. I was removing the cell from an apidea to check that the queen had emerged and a bee came out like a missile through the entrance slot and buried itself in my snout. My eyes were watering for 10 minutes afterwards and the worst thing is, it was not even my apidea. God knows what it was filled with. Psycho yellow mongrels.
Last edited by Jon; 18-07-2014 at 01:35 PM.
thats why I always say
SELECTION and queen raising....
We have some neds with Buckies here, they are alright for a generation or two. After that iffy, very iffy.
The swiss have bred some lovely gentle black bees...
Our regional beekeeping expert says its easy to get much imprved gentle bees withing 3 generations of selection.
Anything showing signs of aggression should be culled and replaced before it gets to make any drones.
Hi Calum, do have any evidence to back this up, I only ask as I look after both black and buckfast and Italian's, I've found it more to do with how clumsy the beekeeper is, and the weather to how their temper is, the temper of the bees has not gotten any worse with subsequent generations, I do keep hearing it will from other keepers but when I ask them if how they know this it's always third party information.
Thanks Dave
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Hi crabbitdave
I have noticed a lot of people on the forum who are interested in AMM have widened their definition of "local" to encompass the whole of the UK now
It seems the theory is
If you start with gentle Carnica then the bees temper will be worse in subsequent generations because you introduced non local genetics
If however you start with gentle AMM the temper will be worse in subsequent generations because of bad local drone populations
The local drones are always the same but the reasons for poor temper well they are flexible
These drones are of course the old narrow definition of local being 10 miles or so
I have 6 hives of third/fourth generation carnies. Calm as could be..I can and do manipulate them in shorts and T shirt without veil. (in good weather of course)Hi crabbitdave
I have noticed a lot of people on the forum who are interested in AMM have widened their definition of "local" to encompass the whole of the UK now
It seems the theory is
If you start with gentle Carnica then the bees temper will be worse in subsequent generations because you introduced non local genetics
If however you start with gentle AMM the temper will be worse in subsequent generations because of bad local drone populations
The local drones are always the same but the reasons for poor temper well they are flexible
These drones are of course the old narrow definition of local being 10 miles or so
I was wandering about near a couple of hives and a fast moving bee flew right into my eyeball
I must be getting slow I cant even blink quickly these days (that hurt)
Anyway as a parting shot it stung me on lower eyelid (that hurt as well)
I only like the ones where I can gently poke around without smoke doing inspections etc
I still wear a jacket and veil though
Take your point about carnies madasafish there's no reason to expect them to go bad
Up here its a bit cold for shorts being north of the brass monkey line
Most of the time I wear a jacket and veil and always light a smoker (which i rarely use). I have some 3rd generation buckfasts which are less calm at times.. although not aggressive.
Shorts weather is two weeks a year here: edge of Staffs Moorlands and 400 feet above sea level.
Hi DRHi crabbitdave
I have noticed a lot of people on the forum who are interested in AMM have widened their definition of "local" to encompass the whole of the UK now
It’s hard to define “local” because even if you take your own apiary as an example I’m sure there will be variations in flora and micro climates just a few miles away. I would call bees that have been successful in Northern Scotland over many years as local even if they’re not pure AMM. (Don’t ask me to define many years!) Dark bees have always done well up here and some of them are hybrids. My mentors AMM bees would be flying on cool dull days when according to the books they should have been at home. I agree with these two paragraphs from this article linked to Hive Alive.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/28290890 It does meander a bit and those Natural beekeepers deserve everything they get.
“And Mr Carreck advocates breeding from bees already found in a location rather than those brought in from elsewhere, pointing to recent European research which found that in experiments across 11 different countries, honey bees originating locally consistently outperformed imported ones in their capacity for survival.”
"Another novel aspect of this project is that we will work with local beekeeping communities to breed from the bees they already keep, rather than using centralised national breeding centres that could produce stocks that are poorly adapted to regional climatic conditions and foraging landscapes.”
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