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I’m really sorry your arguments make no sense. So someone who has been treatment free for 25 years has been ‘lucky’? Here is an interesting paper based on experiences with treatment free here in Ireland - are all these beekeepers in Louth just lucky...

It is an uphill struggle because a small minority of beekeepers insist on - selfishly in my opinion - importing bees. Despite the risks this poses. How did Varroa reach Ireland or the UK for that matter? It wasn’t someone working with native bees that’s for sure.

Hi Big Ears, it seems to be a trait of Amm across its range. This is a study from Poland on that very subject Partial reproductive isolation between European subspecies of honey bees - Apidologie Unfortunately the mechanisms at play are nowhere near 100% effective so the conservation of Amm is...

And apologies if i am going on but there are lots of beekeepers in Ireland that treat and it has not stopped wild colonies surviving in the face of varroa or beekeepers being able to keep their bees treatment free

I don't mean the questioning of your name as an attack beesnaturally - it is just interesting how we all define things differently. I know I sent you this link in a private message and maybe I posted this up here before but I think for those that are interested it is well worth a watch.

My dream as a beekeeper is to be able to set swarm traps in my local woods and replenish or increase hive numbers from free living colonies of Amm bees. Currently where I live this is not possible due to others keeping invasives but this model where you are interacting regularly with free living...

Hi Swarm - I over winter bigger colonies in double Rose boxes which are the equivalent of a medium national I think. Looking at colonies in this setup they are averaging 5 frames of brood. Smaller colonies I just keep in the single Rose and this year they are averaging 3 frames of brood right...

That is a very positive start to the season! I took advantage of the weather to take a peak at 4 four of my hives. All with good levels of brood, stores and lots of pollen. My strongest colony already had a section of drone brood. Looks like this good weather will continue for another few days...

A friend had a Warre hive blow over - reassembled fairly quickly but no guarantee the bees will make it. Still struggling with video so here’s a couple of photos from last year that I really liked. One of my bees on Mallow

Hmm tried posting a video of two colonies flying but the video didn't show - only the sound. Will have to work on my tech skills

Glad everything survived the storm. My hives all held up but a couple of my chicken houses were not so lucky despite being weighed down with truck straps and concrete blocks. Spent yesterday afternoon piecing one back together.

I just run a bar across so that national frames hang leaving a bit of extra space in the box in terms of width. The more unoccupied space in the box the better I find. As long as you don't leave a swarm in there too long your shouldn't experience comb being built where you don't want it. I...

Love your set up!

A quick and fun way to expand your colonies quickly if you find the right locations is to set swarm traps. If you follow the instructions in this link closely you have every chance of success https://horizontalhive.com/honeybee-swarm-trap/bait-hive-how-to-catch.shtml I caught ten swarms last...

Your apiary sounds wonderful! Great history to it too.

I thought these videos might be interesting viewing for anyone interested in the most up to date genetic studies of Amm populations in the UK. Good news for Cornish beekeepers - concerted breeding efforts look to have made an impact on the level of purity there in just the three years from 2015...

Best of luck with them! Exciting season ahead

Hi Big ears, good luck with your first step into keeping native black bees. Have you found it easy to source a colony?

Hi Steve, please excuse my forum illiteracy - how do I find the blog? And before anyone points out the Blogs tab - I looked there before asking :)

Hi Dani, I feel strongly about British Amm too and French and Belgian, Swiss, Russian - I could go on. But I guess you already know that :) The point is I would be just as strong an advocate for Carnica in their native range or Linguistica in theirs. Or any of the other subspecies. It is a...