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Thread: Apis mellifera mellifera(AMM) honey bees

  1. #11
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post

    Mind you, that Glasgow audience can be hard on their visiting speakers .... (only kidding Jim!).
    The Blues brothers discuss queen rearing for Glasgow beekeepers.

  2. #12

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    HI All,
    Jimbo wrote:
    I will be discussing the Rosneath results in April at the Glasgow Beekeepers as part of my talk. I should warn you that using software like Drawwing is not the whole answer. You need to look at other Morphometric charateristics of Amm. A lot of people get hung up with the Cubital Index and Discodal shift results only but it is still a good tool that beekeepers can easily use to see the amount of hybridisation in their colonies and use it to select Amm when breeding. The Rosneath results you have quoted are last years results and by selective breeding the results have improved again this year with some colonies giving a result up to 95% for Amm
    .................................................. .......
    Looking forward to April already!
    Eric
    .................................................. .
    Gavin wrote:
    Almost worth coming through to Glasgow for that talk methinks! Nice to see your lecturing career burgeoning Jimbo.
    ..........................................
    The more the merrier!
    Eric
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    Gavin wrote:;
    Eric - might this be a new crusade of yours? If so, I might just join you. I need something to take my mind off pesticides.

    Eric wrote
    Pesticides! What are pesticides?
    My interest in A.m sp is fostering this wonderful little creature and if my “crusades” raise hackles – simultaneously they hopefully raise awareness of important issues affecting her existence! I have no axe to grind with particular “hobby horses”. I have been true to my beekeeping ideals all my life fearlessly fighting the honey bee’s corner against measures and actions which I considered to be detrimental. Like importation, which I resisted ( sadly in vain!) with the help of Charlie Irwin, Gordon Stewart and John Morgan. The anti Varroa Lobby petition set up in 1982 achieved 6000 signatures – but the apathy among the’ body of the kirk’ lost us that battle. Including the whole membership of the BBKA, who refused to sign the petition on the advice of Tonsley and Karl Showler among others. These people who numbered among the elite of the English bee scene at that time knew nothing about Varroa and sure as hell were not going to listen to some rebellious Scot – nothing changes! Another issue was the beekeepers who brought bees from the South illegally before 1997 – when editor of the SB mag., I named and shamed such offenders and forced swift withdrawal, one exception was the Englishman who brought bees into the Helensburgh area and who was defended by a beekeeper of that area who shall remain nameless. I championed the organic acids in the late 1970s , and was crucified for it, before most beekeepers even knew about these treatments. Oxalic acid is now accepted as a ‘bulwark’ of anti Varroa measures. I am not going to “rant on” but I will continue raising issues concerning the honey bee which I deem important regardless of any consequences for as long as I am able! Hopefully with the backing of the apicultural fraternity.
    .................................................. .......

    Hi Alevrius
    Male female onother? - I know not! No Brownie points either!
    I was corresponding with Beowulf Cooper about AMM and the importation of exotic honey bee in the 1970s. Did you know that he was an enthusiastic philatelist?
    Eric

  3. #13
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    Hi Jon.

    Made my laugh. Being a Glasgow boy myself brought up in one of the toughest housing schemes in Glasgow I don't think I will have any problems with the crowd. By the way I thought I saw Eric in the audience. The one with the cowboy hat!.
    What your you tube clip does remind me of was the night I went into a pub down by the docks while waiting for my ferry in Belfast

  4. #14
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Definitely Eric in the cowboy hat but he will be saving the bottles for Gavin.
    Probably The Rotterdam or Pat's if you were near the docks and both of them are decent enough bars with live music at times. Not Rawhide though.
    Belfast bars are only a problem if you walk in with the wrong football shirt on.

  5. #15

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    Hi

    The hat is actually an Oz Bushman's hat!
    Eric

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    Hi Eric,

    Where are the corks then? Actually I have a similar hat that I might just wear to the meeting in April.
    To go back to your original question I think it would be difficult to produce enough native bees to supply the commercial beekeepers as there is no commercial bee breeding setups , however I think there is a possibility,especially in the West, to strengthen the foothold the native Amm still have This could be done by local associations educating their membership about the dangers of importing bees and to set up breeding programs to supply and improve their local bees

  7. #17

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    Hi Jimbo
    It’s good to laugh! The midges can dodge the corks; I wear a midge hood with the hat – total protection!!
    I note that interest is being drummed up for the April show - Looking good!
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    Jimbo wrote:
    To go back to your original question I think it would be difficult to produce enough native bees to supply the commercial beekeepers as there is no commercial bee breeding setups , however I think there is a possibility,especially in the West, to strengthen the foothold the native Amm still have.
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    Eric wrote:
    I am pleased to see that ‘party politics’ seems to have been laid aside here. The question I posed was done to widen the AMM story and explore the present limitations.
    I actually participated in the original Stoakely Morphology Seminar , in Peebles at which Ian Craig was also present, when Dr Eric Milner was in his hey day! I still have the wing samples used then – somewhere - which were squirted up on a white wall using a 10” X 10” overhead projector and measuring each sample with a ruler – tedious work but that was a fun day!
    .................................................. ...............................

    Jimbo wrote:
    This could be done by local associations educating their membership about the dangers of importing bees and to set up breeding programs to supply and improve their local bees.

    ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
    Eric wrote:
    I hate to say I told you so. But if anyone cares to drop the ‘party politic’ stand and refer to the May 2006,Scottish Beekeeper magazine and have a look at the Open Letter on page 125, which I wrote to the SBA Executive 5 years ago on this very subject. Dare I say that I was ahead of the game yet again. By 26 years if you count the anti Varroa lobby as well!
    I was impressed with your 95% AMM result. My next questions were going to be – “How many queen rearing colonies were involved and how many queens total, were in the 95% success batch. You can probably see where I am going, but there are solutions available which could supply the need for more bees generally and also the facility to foster the AMM residue in the isolated area; even the Scottish islands with folk like Margie the project has no chance of failing! . Especially if intelligent discussions were to take place without playing silly buggers (sorry Popz!)

    Eric

  8. #18
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    Hi Eric,

    I can see where you are going so I will give you a wee sneak preview. The Queen used was a 75% Amm. Using the Cupkit system 8 Queen cells from 10 was produced. 7 of those were used in Mini nucs and taken to 3 apairy sites. One of which you kindly offered me which had 3 colonies which were also 60-70% Amm. So thanks for that. 3 mini nucs were left there. Two mini nucs were left at the original site with two colonies and two were taken to a site near the south end of the Rosneath Peninsula with 4 hives on it but also has about 15 -20 colonies in the close vicinity owned by other beekeepers. 5 of the 7 colonies mated successfully. 3 of the mininucs gave a 95% Amm result, 1 gave I think about 75%. the other one at the south end of the Penisula gave a rubbish result. This I think is due to all the new beekeepers getting hybrid colonies from the local association which had an effect on the Amm result. (I still built up the colony and sold it on to a new beekeeper who lives miles away from me). There are other beekeepers near some of my sites who still have Amm bees in the 70 - 85% and not related to mine but at some point I would need to bring in fresh blood so co-operation with other like minded people would be good thing. At present there are about 35 -40 colonies on the Peninsula and the long term aim is to get back to native Amm bees. As I said in an earlier post using Drawwing as a tool only assists you in your selection when breeding you also need to look at the other morphometric characteristics of Amm.

  9. #19

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    Jimbo wrote:
    I can see where you are going so I will give you a wee sneak preview. The Queen used was a 75% Amm. Using the Cupkit system 8 Queen cells from 10 was produced. 7 of those were used in Mini nucs and taken to 3 apairy sites. One of which you kindly offered me which had 3 colonies which were also 60-70% Amm. So thanks for that. 3 mini nucs were left there. Two mini nucs were left at the original site with two colonies and two were taken to a site near the south end of the Rosneath Peninsula with 4 hives on it but also has about 15 -20 colonies in the close vicinity owned by other beekeepers. 5 of the 7 colonies mated successfully. 3 of the mininucs gave a 95% Amm result, 1 gave I think about 75%. the other one at the south end of the Penisula gave a rubbish result. This I think is due to all the new beekeepers getting hybrid colonies from the local association which had an effect on the Amm result. (I still built up the colony and sold it on to a new beekeeper who lives miles away from me). There are other beekeepers near some of my sites who still have Amm bees in the 70 - 85% and not related to mine but at some point I would need to bring in fresh blood so co-operation with other like minded people would be good thing. At present there are about 35 -40 colonies on the Peninsula and the long term aim is to get back to native Amm bees. As I said in an earlier post using Drawwing as a tool only assists you in your selection when breeding you also need to look at the other morphometric characteristics of Amm.
    ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
    Hi Jimbo
    Many thanks for the objective information Jimbo.
    My question re the queen mother(s) would have probed the size of the gene pool, which you have conceded is painfully small, even considering any “potential“ lurking in the indigenous Peninsula colonies.. How many of these useful unrelated “sex determining alleles” do you reckon ‘from a past thread’ exist in your gene pool? Bearing in mind the Bienefeld work promulgated in the February Scottish Beekeeper magazine. This is a purely objective line of thought - with no intent to ‘score’ Brownie points. Is it possible to expand on this without references to my Bushman hat?
    What degree of AMM was indicated in the mother of the breeder queen? Some degree of DNA sampling would be a boon – actually there is such a skill waiting in the wings for an opening in the Glasgow BKA, Simon I think is his name! The lady curator of the Glasgow Art Galleries has an excellent source of pre 1910 AMM DNA as a Standard!
    This “mother” queen if still “above ground” and in possession of a high level of AMM pedigree could be a marvellous tool to flood your ‘suspect’ beekeeper apiaries with her drones in this coming season. Using the Pfefferle, ½ frame worker/drone device already mentioned in conversation with Calum in another thread and making up even 3 frame nucs using these 50/50 frames which could be transported to these out apiaries (do you have Varroa on the Penisula”?). You will have early drones which are replicates of your “batch” queens’ grandmother unless I miss my quess you have a hidden unrelated ½ generation of alleles to play with. The mind boggles – No? Non ‘party political’ critically constructive comments from Gavin/Jon would be great? This genetic material could be useful in the next generation of the ‘suspect’ apiary colonies.
    By similarly flooding the Peninsula with drones from the “batch” daughter queens a latent (slightly inbred) AMM gene pool could be created quite rapidly and new female blood would find a ready-made source of (good) AMM genetic material.
    I was pleased to note that you did not discard your “unacceptable” results, but sold them on, unlike a would be AMM breeder who spoke to the Glasgow BKA some years ago informing that due to the proximity of an “exotic bee” importer, he was suffering many (too many!) failures. He could still have sold these queens, which were probably perfectly good hybrids to a less discerning beekeeper and offset some of his heavy outlay!
    Eric

  10. #20
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eric McArthur View Post
    My question re the queen mother(s) would have probed the size of the gene pool, which you have conceded is painfully small, even considering any “potential“ lurking in the indigenous Peninsula colonies.. How many of these useful unrelated “sex determining alleles” do you reckon ‘from a past thread’ exist in your gene pool?
    Eric. Groundhog day was 2nd February.
    A single queen can carry all or most of the sex alleles if she has mated with a good number or drones.

    re number of queens, last year was the first year I grafted and I hatched about 120. I have some colonies showing 100% according to wing venation but as Jimbo says, there is more to it than that.
    If you requeen all your colonies every year and graft from a new unrelated queen that is all you have to do to avoid a genetic bottleneck. I know a few people who do this with a new Galtee queen every year. You requeen all your colonies with the daughter queens of the queen you are grafting from which means that all your colonies produce pure AMM drones. The following year you graft from a new unrelated queen whose virgin daughters will mate with the drones from the daughters of the previous year's queen.

    1 new unrelated queen per year which you graft from = no in breeding / no genetic bottleneck.

    This is not the system I use but it works very well.

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