Scottish bees

[Greengage]

Whats the story with these Beinn Eighe to bees that are supposed to have survived in the Highlands,
Are they on to something or is it just a media thing. I just read the scottish beekeepers report for 2014 and found it interesting

[The Drone Ranger]

A media thing probably

[gavin]

It is getting difficult to find pure examples of the native types but they've managed it there.

[Greengage]

I read the report and it said on the last page "Morphometric testing has shown that Apis melifera melifera colonies were successfully produced using the grafting and mating methods described. Worker bee samples have been harvested from 6 hives and DNA tested by Dr Ewan Campbell (in press) to assess the degree of purity achieved."
http://www.scottishbeekeepers.org.uk...%202014%20.pdf
So what was (will) the result be are they pure Amms and can Morphometric testing be relied on as I read somewhere it cannot. Im curious and interested iin this subject.

[Jon]

Wing morphometry works well to identify pure race populations where morphometry has never been used by beekeepers as a selection criteria.
Ruttner devised the technique to distinguish between pure race subspecies.

It is of little or no value in already hybridised populations. If a sample shows 50% of the wings corresponding to Amm wing pattern it is not necessarily a 'purer' sample than a colony which shows 30% wing pattern. The reverse could be true. It is just pointless to use it in situations like this.

This paper explains the limitations.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Greengage
Because these bees are varroa free that would indicate they have not had any contact with the general bee population
So they are isolated at least
You could move to Colonsay and take a hive of these bees with you if you like once they are credited with Amm varroa free status

[The Drone Ranger]

Wing scanning ?
The French physician Mesmer claimed he could cure sick people using magnets
When it was proved that waving his hand round them without magnets still cured them he then developed his theory of animal magnetism
Eventually the placebo effect was given credit for the successful outcomes
Mesmer never accepted this

Mesmerism, animal magnetism and other rubbish still persists because people want to believe it


Wing scanning orthodoxy then seems to be, if you scan your hybridised bees wings it proves nothing, but if you scan your Amm bees it is strong evidence of purity.

[Greengage]

Hi Greengage

You could move to Colonsay and take a hive of these bees with you if you like once they are credited with Amm varroa free status

At £15 pounds a jar of honey it must be something special, Aside from getting married, drinking in the brewery, praying and Macphie bagging how would i survive, with one hive.
Looks like a stunning place to live but you cannot eat the scenery. There is a place off the west coast of Ireland Inishbofin, I would like to live there it still has corncrakes and as far as i know one beekeeper who established an Apiary there in 2013 but I do not know the status of them or if he still has them. Jon tks for the link Ill have a read,

[emcampbell]

Hi all bit of background to the article on the BBC ! It was a bit poorly written right enough but the SNH article was better if you can hold of it.

So about three years ago I was doing a survey for acarine mites from hives across Scotland and as a wee bonus to those who participated, Jimbo of this site offered to do wing morphometry on peoples samples. We ended up with about 95 hives from across Scotland. Most but not all were from people who had never bred bees using wing morphometry as any indicator of Amm etc. I'm well aware of the limitations. This led to more contact between myself and the people in charge of the Beinn Eighe bees. They are a satellite population from other native varroa free stock in Sutherland that have been bred for Amm characteristics (not only wings) over a long time from stock originally taken from Maud in the 1980s and some other Amm lineages, I believe. I did a few genetic tests on the ones at Beinn Eighe as well to confirm markers for Amm. They are Varroa-free which is our major interest in them as part of SMARTBEES EU project but it is also great to have a native bee population in this isolated area with no other hives nearby. Cheers for the interest !

[drumgerry]

There is a place off the west coast of Ireland Inishbofin, I would like to live there it still has corncrakes and as far as i know one beekeeper who established an Apiary there in 2013 but I do not know the status of them or if he still has them.

I visited Inishbofin in 1998 Greengage - gorgeous place but one of my abiding memories was the large pancaked rat on the road just beyond the ferry - yeugh!