Co-op Imports New Zealand Bees

[gavin]

Given that .....

I can take you through my bees and say this is from that blood line and this is not. It is obvious. The non ones need smoking the purer ones do not.

and

The pure ones are just incredible. No smoke no stings. Wonderful.

then what is it that your NZ carnies are breeding with to make hybrids that do need smoking? And what are your NZ carnies doing to the beekeepers that have these bees? Sounds like it is every man for himself (now) in an area that once had a successful dark bee breeding group.

[Little_John]

I think there could be a lot of takers even at £13-99 for AMMish Queens
I would rather take a punt on an easy to introduce virgin (no pheromone) than £45 for a mated version which might get rejected anyway

By saying "no pheromone", I'm sure most regulars on here will know what you meant by that - but for the benefit of anyone new to beekeeping who may have read that comment in a literal (absolute) way, here's some dope on pheromones:

Journal of Apicultural Research. Vol. 35 (3-4) pp.122-123, December 1996

Relative attractiveness of queen mandibular pheromone components to honey bee (Apis mellifera) drones

Gerald M Loper; Orley R Taylor, Jr; Leonard J Foster; Jan Kochansky

Queen honey bees produce a mixture of pheromones whose functions are still incompletely understood. A total of five queen mandibular gland pheromone (QMP) chemicals have been identified; 9-keto-2(E) decenoic acid (9-ODA) is the most abundant and appears to be the most biologically active, although the other chemicals have varying effects on worker development, behaviour and response (Slessor et al., 1990). The proportions of these chemicals, especially 9-ODA and 4- hydroxy-3-methoxyphenylethanol (HDA), change as the virgin queens age and after they mate (Pankiw et al., 1996). 9-ODA also serves to attract flying drones to queens on mating flights even though drones are unresponsive to queens while in the nest.

My own focus is now upon why the virgin queen doesn't usually attract drones when in the nest or on her orientation flights, but does when on her mating flight. In what way is the mating flight different (rhetorical question) ?
My hunch is that the speed of movement may play a part.

LJ

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi LJ

There is some evidence though that the queens only are mated in the drone congregation areas.
Also some evidence that queens flying outside the congregation area or the "lanes" to and from them are not attractive to drones
The reports of apiary vicinity mating seems to break that rule
A lot of the studies appear to be conducted using queens tethered to balloons in some way
Good luck solving the puzzle

[Jon]

I have witnessed apiary vicinity mating a dozen times or more at 3 different apiaries so not every queen flies to a congregation area.

Also, a mated queen is more likely to be accepted than a virgin. Caveats apply

Direct introduction of mated and virgin queens using smoke:a method that gives almost 100% acceptance when hives have been queenless for 2 days or more.
J Antonio Perez-Sato1,2,Martin H.Kärcher1,3,William O H Hughes1,4*,Francis L W Ratnieks1,3. 1Department of Animal and Plant Sciences,University of Sheffield,Western Bank,Sheffield,S10 2TN,UK. 2Present address:Colegio de Postgraduados,Campus Cordoba.Km 348 Carretera Federal Cordoba-Veracruz.Congregación Manuel Leon Amatlan de los Reyes,Cordoba,Veracruz,C.P 94946,Mexico. 3Present addressepartment of Biological and Environmental Science,University of Sussex,Falmer,Brighton,BN1 9QG,UK. 4Present address:Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology,University of Leeds,Leeds,LS2 9JT,UK.
Received 15 June 2007,revised manuscript received 4 June 2008,accepted for publication 22 June 2008.
*Corresponding author.Email:w.o.h.hughes@leeds.ac.uk.
Summary
We compared the acceptance of virgin and mated queens introduced into queenless hives using either artificial queen cells or direct introduction accompanied by smoke. In Experiment 1,virgin queens aged 3-4 days were introduced into 5-frame hives than had been dequeened 1,2,3,4,5,or 6 days previously. Acceptance increased significantly with the length of time a colony had been queenless,and direct introduction gave significantly greater success than artificial queen cells (between 31% and 100% acceptance vs. 8% to 92% for direct and cell introduction respectively,depending on the period of queenlessness). In Experiment 2,virgin and mated queens were introduced into 2-frame observation hives that had been dequeened 1,2,3 and 4 days previously. The probability of acceptance was significantly higher for mated queens than virgins,for direct introduction versus artificial queen cells, and for longer queenless periods. Accordingly,the probability of a queen being balled by the workers declined significantly with the duration of the queenless period,and was significantly less for mated versus virgin queens. Finally,in Experiment 3,we introduced mated queens into medium-sized hives (10 medium Langstroth frames) that had been queenless for 2 days using both the direct introduction and artificial cells. All queens were accepted.

[Little_John]

A lot of the studies appear to be conducted using queens tethered to balloons in some way
Good luck solving the puzzle

Thanks. I'm currently working on the design of a queen-bee mating chamber. Although many have tried this over the centuries, they didn't have the advantage of having seen the act of mating itself - which was captured fairly recently by the use of high-speed photography. It wasn't totally authentic of course, as the queen was tethered in front of the camera (like your balloons, maybe ?), but it did go some way to demonstrate that securing the queen in the flat position is counter-productive. Which was the method of restraint used by Lynn Royce and others in their 1992 mating chamber experiments, despite which they achieved mating in some 50% of introductions.

My approach is to accomodate this need for the drone to bend the virgin almost double in order to penetrate her from below - also I'll be ensuring that the queens are 'flying' within the chamber in as natural a way as possible, as Phillips (1923) reported that drones have little or no interest in a virgin queen at rest.

I've discussed my proposals with Ratnieks, but he's pretty dismissive of the whole idea (nothing like a bit of encouragement ...) - which has firmed-up my resolve to crack this captive mating problem even further. "Red rag to a bull" etc.

And anyway - it's good occupational therapy

LJ

[prakel]

I've discussed my proposals with Ratnieks, but he's pretty dismissive of the whole idea (nothing like a bit of encouragement ...) - which has firmed-up my resolve to crack this captive mating problem even further. "Red rag to a bull" etc.

Nothing like being told that you can't do something eh?

On another point, I wonder whether there's ever a 'need' for the queen and drone to spend time on the ground after initial locking? I've seen this with bumblebees and they stayed there for a fair while in fact I was unable to observe to the end due to demands on my time from a less than understanding employer (try it: 'why aren't you working?' ... 'I'm watching bumblebees have sex'). I asked a US scientist/beekeeper/writer about this and received the usual dismissive response that seems common to many 'expert' beekeepers.

Manley mentioned this same phenomenon (related to him by a third party) in Honey Farming.

the other case in point was related to me in a letter two or three years ago in the following words: 'Some years ago, watching the bees one Sunday, we saw a virgin emerge for her mating flight, and noted the time. The situation of the apiary, flanked on two sides by very tall fir trees, enabled the flight of the bees in the sun to be followed clearly against the dark background. We saw the virgin pursued by a considerable number of drones, and the race continued swiftly in long zig-zags, a number of drones being "tailed off" at each sharp turn at a height of about fourty feet. These zig-zags continued for a considerable time, the height being evenly maintained and the distance from us not appreciably increasing. Suddenly something fell, fairly slowly, from the crowd, and, my father keeping watch on the hive, I ran to the spot to search. Unfortunately I misjudged the distance and went too far, for after a vain search I saw a queen rising apparently from the path in front of me. I at once looked for the drone, and sure enough found one on the grass verge, just as my father announced the return of the queen to her hive. The genital organs of the drone were missing, and my father was able to report that the queen had returned with the drone appendage clearly visible, having been absent from the hive twenty-five and a half minutes. We did not, unfortunately, time the period when the bees were on the ground, but we estimated it at about twenty minutes.....'

Honey Farming page 89.

This twenty minute estimate of the time spent on the ground certainly ties in with my bumblebees and again, makes me wonder whether we're expecting too much of the queen's legendary 'wing strength' even when combined with that of the drone to secure full completion of semen transfer while on the wing.

[Bumble]

my pure AMM was the same. But they could not provide me with 3 national brood boxes of brood. The Carnies can.

And that's why some new beekeepers lose swarms in their first season when they follow well-meaning advice to buy gentle carnies and a standard national brood box.

then what is it that your NZ carnies are breeding with to make hybrids that do need smoking? And what are your NZ carnies doing to the beekeepers that have these bees? Sounds like it is every man for himself (now) in an area that once had a successful dark bee breeding group.

It isn't just the breeding groups that suffer. Plenty of ordinary, I suppose you'd call them 'hobbyist', beekeepers have maintained their own stocks of local bees for years. Just one or two new beekeepers with their nice new carnie bloodline crossing into the local gene pool has meant that their hive management has to change, and quite significantly too. Keeping bees on double or triple brood can be too challenging for some of the older beekeepers.

[Poly Hive]

Rather unfair criticism as as far as I know there is no one in the area with bees apart from one other person who is running bees I supplied him with.

The arguments over imports are long running and no doubt always will. As for the imports being in the 1000 range... I think it is a great deal more than that considerably more.

From a business point of view the way forward would be to use the same techniques that the Canrie people have done and have the queens raised in a better climate than ours.

I run my carnies mainly for producing nucs but they can and do support them selves in poor weather and also produce honey, though sadly their cappings are on the wet side not the bonny raised type the AMM built.

I further would point out that I ran pure or as pure as I could tell AMM for many years. I also bought Bernards bees before he went to France. My best ever AMM unit produced over 300 lbs of honey from a single brood box so I very well aware, possibly more than many what a good one can do. The down side is they had a nasty habit of not surviving the winters, and could be VERY stingy. The good ones though were amazing.

PH

[drumgerry]

Why on earth would we want to raise queens abroad only to import them? Sort of defeats the purpose of having our own sustainable system. Oh of course the answer will be the commercial guys need mated queens in March or some such ludicrous argument. My counter argument is there needs to be an adjustment of expectation and if mated queens are only available in our Scottish climate from June onwards so be it. If the commercial guys don't like that and can't run their businesses in that scenario maybe they need to find another business. The reality of raising queens is that the commercial guys could do it but they prefer to import.

And didn't Bernard select for temper?! I think Galtee shows that AMM is a gentle bee if bred as such. Not sure why AMM should be less able to survive a winter. Certainly my and others experience of native type bees shows them to be generally better suited to a Scottish winter than strains from mainland Europe.

And I can guarantee that if your Carnies lived here in Speyside I'd be feeding them most summers to keep them alive. I take it you're comfortable selling bees who will produce such huge colonies to people? I wouldn't be to be honest.

[Poly Hive]

Bernard did indeed select for temper but I bought in from all over. AMM that is and some were good and some were crap.

If AMM were bred abroad then imported it would solve the Gorgon knot if non supply. And that is the major issue. Try and buy an AMM queen. Go on... try. I have. Why am I now using Carnies? I cannot buy AMM. It is that simple. It is frankly not my choice it is what is available. That is the commercial reality. What happened to my AMM? they were destroyed by a landowner. Long story I am not going into but I can tell you this much he was not his fathers son with regards to attitude and manners.

Moving on. AMM is not a great winterer. Sorry to prick your bubble but my death rates were on average 40% and as I was comitted to keeping a certain number of colonies I had to buy in. I was in a job at the time which paid well so it was not a disaster but it taught me a serious lesson... they winter ish... And Bernard found the same in reality. Argue if you like but back then that was the position.

The carnies produce nice colonies and I have no issues with selling them on. I am honest unlike some and tell them what to expect and give my number for advice? I am no snake oil merchant for info. I also ran note the past tense one of the most widely read bee sites in the UK. It was hacked last night by some (expletives deleted) and will be back up shortly due to the efforts of my web guru bless him. It is getting close to 1 million pages read.

As for feeding in Speyside you might be surprised. They are doing very well on the Black Isle.

PH