Is it time to stop importing live bees?

Murox said:

I have not read the book but having 'struggled' through a dull you tube video would not do so. I am not a 'scientific' person but even I examine and consider the breeding values of any animals I intend to use; the lack of anything meaningful & substantiative was worrying to say the least. Is this wooly wishful stance typical ??

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Yes.

B+. said:

It is interesting that Finland chose to replace the native Amm with Aml. Perhaps, they would have done better to choose Amc

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I don't think Finland ever had native feral Amm's. Ruttner in the Dark European Honey Bee describes the Northern historic limit of feral bees as around 60 degrees North (Oslo). Remains of bees dating back to 1175-12-25 have been found there. Their natural northern migration and colonisation after the last ice age was limited to the tundra at around 60-64 degrees North. The first bees taken to Finland were all imports....by beekeepers...presumably Amm from Norway/Sweden/Denmark.

Beefriendly said:

I don't think Finland ever had native feral Amm's. Ruttner in the Dark European Honey Bee describes the Northern historic limit of feral bees as around 60 degrees North (Oslo). Remains of bees dating back to 1175-12-25 have been found there. Their natural northern migration and colonisation after the last ice age was limited to the tundra at around 60-64 degrees North. The first bees taken to Finland were all imports....by beekeepers...presumably Amm from Norway/Sweden/Denmark.

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You seem to know more about Finnish beekeeping than I do (it's a while since I read that book). I stand corrected.

madasafish said:

I see from your location you are in Norfolk..

Without in any way wishing to belittle your achievements , If I were based in a warmer county I would expect to produce more honey than the UK average which is heavily skewed by beginners and small hobby beekeepers..

As it is, I too raise my own queens - it's a struggle as I have limited resources (and ability )- but I manage to exceed the UK average per hive - approx 14kg iirc.. (last year mine was 23kg)... but frankly the weather after mid June was appalling..
It would need a really bad Spring and Summer for my average not to exceed the UK average.. it is a really low bar to cross...
Again: this is not meant as a criticism of you but a general comment: I would like to achieve the averages German beekeepers reached nearly 40 years ago.

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My point is that any beekeeper in most parts of the country should be able to produce reasonable bees that aren't too swarmy, don't follow and sting and get a reasonable amount of honey without needing to buy new queens in each year from overseas.

My location isn't brilliant - monocultures and such-like. However with the potential of increased woodland in the country, to absorb carbon, maybe we will see better forage in a few years and we'll get the yield the Germans did 40 years ago!

Hebeegeebee said:

My point is that any beekeeper in most parts of the country should be able to produce reasonable bees that aren't too swarmy, don't follow and sting and get a reasonable amount of honey without needing to buy new queens in each year from overseas.

My location isn't brilliant - monocultures and such-like. However with the potential of increased woodland in the country, to absorb carbon, maybe we will see better forage in a few years and we'll get the yield the Germans did 40 years ago!

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I have some sympathy with your position. By culling the worst behaved queens, and propagating the best, some improvement should be possible...but that (maternal selection) depends on the quality of the drones that your virgin queens mate with. If your neighbours practice some sort of selective approach, I think you probably would get a slight improvement....but...after a while, that will level-out and inbreeding will become more of an issue. I remember reading something where they looked at this (in Germany) and they reckoned that 20 years would be the most you could do that for (assuming no injection of new genes).
I don't think we can rely on new woodland any time soon. There is so much competition for land (homes, solar farms, etc) that I doubt the land would be available.
I think the only certainty (and what we should plan for) is what we have. Modern farming practices aren't going to change much (if at all).

B+. said:

Nice enough guy but I was bored with his presentation.

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I think Jo was bored with his presentation!

B+. said:

I have some sympathy with your position. By culling the worst behaved queens, and propagating the best, some improvement should be possible...but that (maternal selection) depends on the quality of the drones that your virgin queens mate with. If your neighbours practice some sort of selective approach, I think you probably would get a slight improvement....but...after a while, that will level-out and inbreeding will become more of an issue. I remember reading something where they looked at this (in Germany) and they reckoned that 20 years would be the most you could do that for (assuming no injection of new genes).
I don't think we can rely on new woodland any time soon. There is so much competition for land (homes, solar farms, etc) that I doubt the land would be available.
I think the only certainty (and what we should plan for) is what we have. Modern farming practices aren't going to change much (if at all).

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I am not worried by inbreeding in that there will always be someone who brings in different queens to a mating area, even if you thought that you had dominated your own 'back yard' with many colonies of your own.

I am optamistic about new woodland; Someone suggested to me that the government will start to push farm subsidies to planting them (trees) rather than just owning land. We'll see!

Hebeegeebee said:

My point is that any beekeeper in most parts of the country should be able to produce reasonable bees that aren't too swarmy, don't follow and sting and get a reasonable amount of honey without needing to buy new queens in each year from overseas.

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And for those of us who don't live in one of those "most parts of the country" ???
I wouldn't wish my local mongrels on anyone and I have no intention of ploughing another lone furrow over the odd decades I have left trying to breed something that has some of the qualities you mention.
I wasted my first 5 years trying to do exactly that. Never had a honey crop and buggers were only marginally slower out of the traps when you opened a hive....and they still swarmed annually.
Sod that for a game of soldiers when I can buy the finished article that is pleasant to work with doesn't swarm every year and gives an excellent honey crop. The fact that they have come from Denmark, Germany, Slovenia, Poland etc is irrelevant in my opinion. Ohh I bought some English bees and they turned out no better,,,,,even tried some bonafida Amm's (well 96% at DNA level). They were okay but lacked the fecundity and honey gathering propensity of breeds that have been selected for these traits over a century or so.....fingers burn.

Hebeegeebee said:

My point is that any beekeeper in most parts of the country should be able to produce reasonable bees that aren't too swarmy, don't follow and sting and get a reasonable amount of honey without needing to buy new queens in each year from overseas.

My location isn't brilliant - monocultures and such-like. However with the potential of increased woodland in the country, to absorb carbon, maybe we will see better forage in a few years and we'll get the yield the Germans did 40 years ago!

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If you start with reasonable local stock, I could agree with you.

But many local bees appear swarmy, stingy and don't produce much honey...although I would qualify the latter as the ones I know don't. There may indeed be local bees which arte worth breeding from here.. but I appear to have failed to find any...

And I am at the age where spending ten years to improve my local stock means I'll be incapable of beekeeping (or dead!) before the ten years are up...

Local forage here is great and varied all the spring/summer/autumn period (but all natural, no agricultural crops at all) but most years it appears inaccessible after mid June due to heavy and frequent summer rain (except 2018 which was an exceptional and once off year)

Hebeegeebee said:

My point is that any beekeeper in most parts of the country should be able to produce reasonable bees that aren't too swarmy, don't follow and sting and get a reasonable amount of honey without needing to buy new queens in each year from overseas.

My location isn't brilliant - monocultures and such-like. However with the potential of increased woodland in the country, to absorb carbon, maybe we will see better forage in a few years and we'll get the yield the Germans did 40 years ago!

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Not knocking you in any way but any beekeeper can raise queens are you sure, the average beekeeper is VERY average!!! The average hive number for beekeepers is 4.5 Your profile says you have say 3 times that number. Most of those few hive owners would struggle to find a couple of nuc boxes let alone a dozen or 2 and a decent queen to start from. I find many beeks that can’t even bring themselves to splat a queen, not really a great start to a selection process. There is a huge disconnect with many new beeks nowadays as many have little experience of any livestock or even a pet dog.

If inbreeding is an inevitable problem with producing queens from your own stock, does the answer lie in obtaining queens from just outside your local area?
Maybe arranging swaps with other bee keepers in those areas?

Courty

mbc said:

If we're posting links to video's, this is my kind of guy:
https://youtu.be/6p0zjZDgCJY
Go Joe!

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I have applied all of Jo's bee improvement principles and they work!

Yeghes da

Courty said:

If inbreeding is an inevitable problem with producing queens from your own stock, does the answer lie in obtaining queens from just outside your local area?
Maybe arranging swaps with other bee keepers in those areas?

Courty

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Get a few colonies and you will sharp work the answer out..

Courty said:

If inbreeding is an inevitable problem with producing queens from your own stock, does the answer lie in obtaining queens from just outside your local area?
Maybe arranging swaps with other bee keepers in those areas?

Courty

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It is always a good idea to bring unrelated material in. I generally have 1/3 of my test queens from other areas but my test lines are changing all the time anyway.

For want of a better word said:

I have applied all of Jo's bee improvement principles and they work!

Yeghes da

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Please point me to a bee improvement principle in his book. I am at a loss to find any.

Courty said:

If inbreeding is an inevitable problem with producing queens from your own stock, does the answer lie in obtaining queens from just outside your local area?
Maybe arranging swaps with other bee keepers in those areas?

Courty

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Yes

My bees have been sourced from other beekeepers who keep Amm in Cornwall, not seen any problems or inbreeding.

We get introgression from bees kept by the less well informed beekeepers who follow the mantra that (so called) Buckfasts are best and import queens on a regular basis to make up their winter losses, or requeen regularly for whatever reason

I move my stripey bees away from my "mating" areas to apiaries that are in a stripey area. Noticeably even those apiaries are producing darker bees.

B+. said:

Please point me to a bee improvement principle in his book. I am at a loss to find any.

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Jo gave me a copy of his book... must read it sometime!

Chons da

For want of a better word said:

Jo gave me a copy of his book... must read it sometime!

Chons da

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So, you have a copy of his book gathering dust on a bookshelf somewhere but you haven't read it. Then you tell me that you've applied all of his principles (expounded in his book) and they all work (https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=698248&postcount=212 )?
Do I have it right so far?

B+. said:

So, you have a copy of his book gathering dust on a bookshelf somewhere but you haven't read it. Then you tell me that you've applied all of his principles (expounded in his book) and they all work (https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=698248&postcount=212 )?
Do I have it right so far?

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Jo has been a guiding hand beekeepering wise for the past decade or so, and I confess I have not comprehensively read his book....I am not a great reader, tend to scan for the information I need.

Are you comments tongue in cheek or just an attempt at humoresque sarcasm?

Chon da

For want of a better word said:

Are you comments tongue in cheek or just an attempt at humoresque sarcasm?

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If I had to read it, I want to share the pain around