Late season swarming

[alancooper]

My bees are "local" (blackish) to Fermanagh and possibly related to local Irish Midland bees (where historically I think Carniolan bees were common). If swarming does occur it happens late in the season (once in early September but normally in August). I do not seem to be troubled with early season swarming (late June-July). My query (as a beekeeper of 6-7 years) is whether late swarming is a feature of bee "type" (ie., genetics) or bee management (eg., slow build-up in the Spring/early Summer) .

[Jon]

Where did you hear that Carniolan bees were common in the midlands?
From reading some of bee forums such as beekeeping forum Carnica seems to be a very swarmy subspecies.
Late swarming seems to be rare in NI. I don't think I have ever had bees try and swarm later than the end of July.
Curiously I had none of mine swarm this year out of about 20 colonies. Taking bees to fill apideas every now and again probably helped.

[alancooper]

Where did you hear that Carniolan bees were common in the midlands?
From reading some of bee forums such as beekeeping forum Carnica seems to be a very swarmy subspecies.
Late swarming seems to be rare in NI. I don't think I have ever had bees try and swarm later than the end of July.
Curiously I had none of mine swarm this year out of about 20 colonies. Taking bees to fill apideas every now and again probably helped.

I heard it from a Leitrim Buckfast beekeeper five or six years ago - so it is unsubstantiated. The facts are that I got my first bees from a Fermanagh source, supplemented them with bees from the Midlands beekeepers association, and have also added to them with bees from Fermanagh. They are usually well-behaved/productive and for the past few years I have been selecting for traits by breeding from my "best" queens.

Maybe my late swarming is related more to bee management and other conditions than to their type. I hope the thread on this continues.

[nemphlar]

You may be on to something, as a 2nd year beginner I bought a queen from thornes, nothing would stop her laying and on a visit to the heather I found 2 massive swarms hanging conveniently from a beech tree, mid August. Since sticking with locals I'd be very surprised to find a swarm past mid July. To be fair at the time with no protection I was able to snap the conveniently thin branch and drop them back in the super, they were very quiet

[wee willy]

Swarming at the heather is a well know phenomenon !
Remember, to take advantage of the short foraging season ,colonies need to be BIG , Therefore it becomes a matter of balance difficult to be accurately called!
VM


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[Jon]

There is a guy in Leitrim imports a lot of Buckfast queens and packages from Germany but I don't think he works with Carnica.
The same chap has an anti native bee agenda.
Have a look at his website!!!

http://www.irishbeekeeping4you.info/html/mellifera.html

As an aside, the Spanish part is riddled with spelling mistakes. I stopped counting at 10.

There was a guy quite local to you, a joiner, Eric Edwards from Caledon, importing Carnica queens a few years back. Not sure if he still does.

Wing morphometry will actually distinguish very well between pure Carnica and pure Amm as the wing venation pattern is quite different between the two.
If you have been improving local mongrels the morphometry would probably give you an idea as to whether your bees are more Carnica than native although that is more speculative than distinguishing between pure races.

The Galtee stock is very good as it has been intensively selected for well over 20 years. Redmond Williams uses II to keep selected breeder lines going.
If you contact Aoife Nic Giolla Coda she could fill you in on the charactistics of the bees.
It is a bit of a myth that Amm makes a frugal and tiny colony as a lot of the Galtee stock makes a big powerful colony. The queen I got last years heads a double brood box colony and is a prolific layer.

Re the bees is the midlands, John Summerville from Tollamore is one of the best known queen breeders in Ireland and he is a dyed in the wool native bee man.

[alancooper]

Jon,
Our Q rearing group is happily converted to the benefits of native AMM and we have just finished restocking with native AMM - from Jon Summerville.

[Jon]

You will have good queens if you got them from John.

[Bumble]

I've got a question or three, looking towards next year.

What would be the advantages of buying a native queen, or two, in an area full of mongrels where their descendants will probably mate with carniolan or buckfast drones? Would I need to keep buying in? Does anybody know if the native black's, or any type of bee's, genes are dominant?

I've realised this is probably in the wrong thread, sorry.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Alan
Reading the old beekeeping books there are many references to late swarming as a characteristic of bees from heather areas
Makes sense really that they reserve swarming for when there is flow
When those bees were relocated to a mixed flora location they tend to carry on with the late swarming
So I would say you are right it might be a characteristic of some strains inherited from parent stock