Morphometry in a new light

[gavin]

Well folks, Jon kindly sent me the raw data for colonies 44 and 46, two of his better ones. Curious to see how the data looked in 3 dimensions, I loaded three variables (CS, DI and HI) (OK then, CI, DS and HI) into a program written by Micha Bayer of SCRI's Bioinformatics group called CurlyWhirly. You can freely rotate the 3D plot manually by spinning the plot with the mouse. Here is one projection of the three variables for the two colonies. The two colonies fall into separate 3D space in some projections even though both are 'good' Amm. Do you like?!

Jon_44_46..jpg

The program can also take video clips of the rotating figure. Have done so, but it is taking hours to upload to YouTube so you'll have to wait for that.

G.

[Jon]

I know a guy called Richard Bache who might be put into a spin by that programme!
Don't you just love it when beekeeping gets like Star Trek.

[gavin]

Right! I boldly went where no man has gone before and finally converted 60% of the file (that's all the free download will let me convert) to a more suitable format and uploaded to your favourite video website.



It is more fun to download CurlyWhirly and play with data yourself. The data files are plain text and there is an example which gives you the idea.

[Jon]

How do you get the data from Drawwing into the application?

[Hugh]

Maybe I’m too new to beekeeping to know what you’re on about and what it can do for you, but what do these graphs and video tell you and how can it help the poor bees??

[Jon]

Hi Hugh.
It is a way of checking if you have native bees, imported bees, or some kind of hybrid between different races of bee.
Different races of bee can be distinguished by certain physical characteristics such as tongue length, colouration, or in the case of the graphs, characteristic patterns on the wings.
The native bee of the UK, Ireland and North West Europe is Apis Mellifera Mellifera.
Native bees are considered to be better adapted to our climate and foraging conditions, especially the further North or West you get, ie they can survive in the grim mizzle which we all know and love.
If you are interested in breeding AMM, the graph is a good indicator of the racial purity of your breeding stock.
The problem with bee breeding is that drones can fly for miles so the virgin queen can mate with a variety of drones of unknown provenance.
It should not of course be used an an exclusive means of selection of breeding stock as gentleness, honey production, frugal overwintering and the usual desirable features should be taken into account along with the graphs.