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Thread: Drone Congregation Areas

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Calum View Post
    A setup like that does not exist in scotland but could be a nice project for an area that has no bees at all. - Do Coll or Tiree have any bees at all? That would be a nice day out for all the beekeepers from Mull!

    just food for thought

    Calum
    I've only just seen this. Coll has bees, I gather, but none known on Tiree (no trees there either). Not a day trip these days as the ferry no longer calls at Tobermory (unless of course one hires a boat to go direct!). Instead you have to go to Oban, stay overnight, then travel from there, all the way along the sound of Mull, past the home you left the day before. Daft or what?

    I must take a look to see if we have a DCA over our garden. South facing large slate roof, tall spruce trees ..

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by linchpin View Post
    You can also set up your own DCA within Apiary, metal sheeting sitting in full sun creat's a thermal
    Do you think that brings benefits LP? Could you really induce apiary vicinity matings with drones from the same apiary by laying out something that heats up in the sun - horticultural black plastic would be easier than metal sheeting I'd have thought.

  3. #13
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    Drone flyways (or highways?) - some great information in that article, thanks for posting it, Jon.

    I was surprised to read that there were always several DCAs for an apiary, and how much information is already out there. When I have more time I'll try to track down some of the literature quoted there.

    Meanwhile the very first drones of the season have made their appearance at my own apiary (which is miles from anybody else's), just in time to see to my supercedure queen which is due for her mating flights next week.

    Doris

  4. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Calum View Post
    . A setup like that does not exist in scotland but could be a nice project for an area that has no bees at all. Calum
    Calum - I must admit a similar thought has occurred to me. And there are unfortunately plenty of beeless areas in Scotland. Inspired by Bro Adam and his Dartmoor mating apiary, I had thought for my own purposes (in the long term) of perhaps trying to approach the Crown Estate Commission who run Glenlivet Estate for an out apiary. I'd be fairly confident (if using near native breeding stock) that I could maintain a pure strain in an upland area like that. I'd have thought there'd be plenty of similar mainland areas in the West Highlands,Sutherland and Caithness.

    And as a strange coincidence I was reading the chapter in Beowulf Cooper's book on drones and DCAs today whilst my daughter was ice skating - brrr!! As to locations of DCAs he gives grid references of locations throughout the UK including Scotland which he and Mobus recorded. Admittedly this was in the seventies and much has changed but it'd be interesting to see if any were still in operation.

    Gerry

  5. #15
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    It would be a bit of a shame if folk started moving nucs from varroa-rich areas to places they thought there were no bees/beekeepers. In places where there's no varroa (and, I gather, in some places where there is varroa) there are still feral colonies and in the more 'remote' areas there are beekeepers who are not SBA members or members of a local association, so no way of checking whether or not there are bees in the area. In other 'remote' areas, folk have bought package bees because they were unable to find local stock, and those would happily mix with your native stock!

  6. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trog View Post
    It would be a bit of a shame if folk started moving nucs from varroa-rich areas to places they thought there were no bees/beekeepers. In places where there's no varroa (and, I gather, in some places where there is varroa) there are still feral colonies and in the more 'remote' areas there are beekeepers who are not SBA members or members of a local association, so no way of checking whether or not there are bees in the area. In other 'remote' areas, folk have bought package bees because they were unable to find local stock, and those would happily mix with your native stock!
    Fair point Trog. I would never advocate the movement of bees into varroa free areas and didn't anywhere in my message suggest doing so.

    In Moray and most of the rest of mainland Scotland Varroa is endemic so I would have no qualms about moving bees to upland areas. Are you suggesting that we shouldn't be moving bees to the heather either? Correct me if I'm wrong as well but isn't Eric trying to harvest the genes from known survivor feral colonies in his area and why wouldn't we want to move our bees to within reach of other feral colonies (in varroa areas) to accomplish similar?

    Your point about package bees is well made but are we to do nothing for fear of them? A conversation with the local postie would tell me who does and does not have bees in the area.

    In any case, doesn't Beowulf suggest that native bees are adapted to cool weather, within or local to, apiary mating? Should we be concerned about queens from these native colonies ranging far and wide to mate with drones in the ordinary course of typical Scottish weather? He suggests that DCAs are typically in use during long periods of settled weather. And I think we know how many of those we get!

    Gerry
    Last edited by drumgerry; 14-05-2010 at 12:31 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by drumgerry View Post
    In any case, doesn't Beowulf suggest that native bees are adapted to cool weather, within or local to, apiary mating?
    How much evidence is there for this, does anyone know? In other words, what is the likelihood of success of an association apiary trying to focus on Amm when the area is dominated by beekeepers importing large numbers of packages and queens from abroad?

    G.

  8. #18
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I have never come across any research re apiary mating other than the Beowulf Cooper observations.
    It looks like you might be heavily outnumbered by Carnica drones.
    Establishing a mating apiary with a few good drone producing colonies some distance away and using apideas for mating queens might be the only hope.
    Last edited by Jon; 14-05-2010 at 03:16 PM.

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    Yeah, but where would be safe. I now know that all three of the bigger commercial beekeepers are importing and some packages are being installed tonight. Until now one of them had not imported bees (perhaps forever) but the glens where that company operates will now be full of carnica drones just as the others will be. There is nowhere to go, and I fear that the hobby beekeepers in the area will be facing angry hybrid colonies for years to come.

  10. #20
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    Does hybrid always equal angry? Some of ours are pretty mongrel and perfectly amicable if treated properly. In autumn, after taking off any honey, we may be followed all of five yards by two or three bees but they very quickly go home when we reach the shrubbery. On the other hand, they don't have access to rape, don't get transported to the heather, or anywhere else, for that matter, and have a huge variety of mixed forage all around them.

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