Example of hybridization

[Jon]

yellow-banding2..jpg

This colony is headed by a black queen mated mid July 2010 but at least 50% of her offspring show yellow banding, probably from Buckfast crosses.

The queen was one I took in an Apidea to an apiary with Galtee drones but she obviously strayed into bad company. There are two apiaries close by with Buckfast bees.

I haven't done morphometry on this one so it might be interesting to take a sample as I am sure the % AMM is low.
A queen like this can still produce perfectly good AMM type drones as her own drones will not be influenced by the yellow drones she crossed with.

[Jimbo]

Hi Jon,

I have noticed this with one of my colonies that was mated in an apidea and moved near to other beekeepers bees. In our area no one as far as I know has brought in a queen so I don't know where it has come from. I have less than 50% and the orange banding is not as strong as you have i.e. Only one orange band.
I noticed it when I was collecting bees for wing morphometry. I did think at the time I should keep the black bees separate from the banded bees but thought this will influence the result. I might do this in the spring and see what I get from banded v black bees

[Jimbo]

Hi Jon

I have checked some images of the other bees species. I don't think they are Carniolan. They could be Lingustica or Caucasica or something else
If you read the paper by Adam Tofilski he did not look at Lingustica therefore I don't know where they sit on a Drawwing plot. He also showed that if you plot all the wings separate there is some overlap of the groupings. It would be neat to get a pure Lingustica sample and do a Drawwing plot.
I supose this is all academic as your plots all fall within the agreed Amm criteria

[Jon]

I have less than 50% and the orange banding is not as strong as you have i.e. Only one orange band.

That one was mated in Mervyn Eddie's apiary and he has 12 colonies all with Galtee drones. I believe he has had a quiet word with the neighbour and offered to requeen his stock for him next year. I think the neighbour has agreed to take up the offer which bodes well for next year.
I brought several batches of Apideas to his place over the summer and the best ones were the first lot which were mated in June.

I did think at the time I should keep the black bees separate from the banded bees but thought this will influence the result.

I would say in the colony above, if you separated the black bees they would be pure AMM ie crosses from my queen mated with Galtee drones whereas the yellow ones would have a scattergram intermediate between AMM and whatever way Buckfast plots.

[Jimbo]

Hi Jon,

Before I set up a site I was offered on a nature reserve owned by the MOD I set out some jars with honey to see what was attracted to them. There ware no honeybees attracted therefore I thought it would be a good isolated site.
I did a similar honey pot trap in my garden more than 3 miles from the site and attracted a number of bees.
There are a number of beekeepers within 3 miles of the garden.
I did a wing morphometry on the bees and found then to be only 35% AMM. I now know not to keep my important stocks in my garden until the beekeepers in the local area change their queens. I have an agreement with them to do this as soon as we have enough good black stocks

[Jon]

I would have at least a dozen beekeepers within 3 miles of my main apiary and at least one of them is a Buckfast fan who buys in queens all the time.
I like to swamp the area with drones so with luck I get mostly matings with my own drones. (cue talk of inbreeding!)
I think that drones can fly much further than workers or queens so I would say you need a radius of much more than 3 miles to get the matings you want all the time.

The history of the galtee group is interesting with respect to winning over neighbours.

If we get our breeding group running well next year it could make quite a bit of difference as it will introduce far more native type colonies to the general area.

[Jon]

I checked a few wings from this colony and it is showing only 30% or so AMM.
Most of the queens I reared last year showed 90% -100%
It is rearing a lot of brood and building up nicely.
If it develops into a double brood colony like a lot of yellow bees do it could make a good cell raiser.
Its drones should be ok.


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