Aggressive 2nd Gen Buckfast

[mbc]

Another point largely forgotten is that most of the AMM is from imports of French and Dutch stock after the 1947 and 1962 winters that decimated bee colonies throughout the UK. So, even though they are AMM they aren't really native are they. Buckfast was present in the UK before these imports were made.
Best regards
Norton.

Nonsense. Most beekeepers dont buy bees or queens and let nature do the restocking in my experience, obviously you deal with beekeepers with a bit more to invest Norton .
Is it true you can buy queens for 6 or 7 euro's in Cyprus ? How much do you sell yours for ?

 

[drstitson]

most italians don't actively raise queens.

they seem to just let colonies swarm and hope to catch the culprits to allow for increase.

if new queens needed the £7-8 euros they cost mean it is much less cost effective to bother going down the DIY route.

 

[Norton]

Hello,
I do not know of anyone selling queens for 6 or 7 euros here- but I'd be interested if you have a source!!!!
I sell queen cells for 7 euros! I can't tell you about the queens because we are not allowed to advertise.
So your AMM are native then are they? I have news for you and it's not nonsense as many would agree.
Best regards
Norton.

 

[victor meldrew]

Nonsense. Most beekeepers dont buy bees or queens and let nature do the restocking in my experience, obviously you deal with beekeepers with a bit more to invest Norton .
Is it true you can buy queens for 6 or 7 euro's in Cyprus ? How much do you sell yours for ?

Got to back Norton on this one .

The 1920s saw a bigger devastation of the local bee (I of W disease)
The Buckfast was developed as a response to this .
Bees were imported in large quantities from all over the globe .
The subsequent two events quoted by Norton did indeed lead to more imports .
My own bees are native types but native to where?
VM

 

[mbc]

Not doubting that imports have, and do happen, however any imports of, lets say yellow Italians (because its easy to spot the difference) brought in to my area would quickly revert to a native looking bee within a very few open matings with the local drones. I'm not saying these native looking bees would suddenly become pure amm, just that the majority of drones in the area are ( or close enough niot to make much difference )
Does anybody honestly think IofW or a few hard winters killed off 70% , 80% , 90% or even 100% of the indigenous bees ? If not, and beekeepers were too poor to buy replacements then what bees do you think would repopulate their hives the next season, or the season after, magic swarms all the way from Devon maybe or descendants of a few thousand imported stocks ? I think not ( at least not the majority in most areas )
Maybe I'm pigheaded but I dont want to believe this guff that is trumped out so regularly about the disease susceptible, unproductive, aggressive native bees being displaced by wonder imports.
Believe what you like, but we all know how quickly populations of bees bounce back after a crash

 

[Norton]

I'm thinking of forming a Facebook group to oppose these imports of undesirable nasty Welsh bees in to England.
Norton.

 

[madasafish]

Does anybody honestly think IofW or a few hard winters killed off 70% , 80% , 90% or even 100% of the indigenous bees

If you are going to rewrite history.. lets have some FACTS...Otherwise you are just making unsubstantiated statements ..

A lot of beekeeping seems to be full of opinions backed up by nothing more substantial than opinions.

 

[Swarm]

Are there any facts that suggest all AMM colonies were lost to any/all of these events? None that I've seen, just opinions again.

There can't be any pure AMM because they were either wiped out or bred out is hardly based on facts either.

I am more inclined to agree with mbc, as I don't see it far from reasonable for a considerable number of colonies to have survived.

As for the buckfast bees, are they really?

 

[mbc]

I'm thinking of forming a Facebook group to oppose these imports of undesirable nasty Welsh bees in to England.
Norton.

I'd certainly join the supporters group if it was a reciprocal deal !
I've never tried to sell any bees outside of my own locality, but sometimes demand stretches a long arm

 

[Phil280]

Hi everybody.

I see the Buckfast-fraction vs. Non-Buckfast-fraction has the same kind of religious tendency as here in Austria.
The situation is very different to that in the UK - we actually have functioning and very well bred A.m.carnica (in the east and south) and A.m.m. (northwest and west) and still some beekeepers here insist on having the right to own whatever bee they want without consideration and respect for the native populations and the beekeepers that breed them.
Sadly in some of the Austrian counties buckfast bees are allowed to be kept even though most of the surrounding counties and countries to the east and south have a buckfast ban!

Pure greed must be the motivation of these bee keepers because there is no other reason to import and keep buckfast bees in a country that has good bee populations. My native colonies made an average of 52 kg each this year (by 20.07.) and there is still plenty for them left.

I have to resort to taking my queens to isolated breeding stations for mating as the local populations have already been spoilt by buckfast genes.

F1 are usually still rather calm and produce plenty of honey. They have a large number of workers with orange rings on the abdomen, don't stay put on the comb but run around franticly.
F2 in all the cases I have had were trouble. One colony was so bad it went for me and everyone else a good 20m away.(was requeened asap)

IMHO you should try to get as close as you can to a stable neo-native bee population in the UK. That can surely only be achieved by stopping new imports of everything other than pure A.m.m.
Existing queens replaced free of charge by the beek associations.
- or not?

Greets
Phil

 

[keith pierce]

Hi everybody.
Pure greed must be the motivation of these bee keepers because there is no other reason to import
you should try to get as close as you can to a stable neo-native bee population in the UK. That can surely only be achieved by stopping new imports
greets
Phil

I agree.
i am not for ramming any paticular bee or type of beekeeping down anybodys neck, but its the imports that i have a problem with and the problems that it brings. I would love to go back to pre varroa days.

 

[Norton]

I've never tried to sell any bees outside of my own locality

Whew! What a relief!

 

[Norton]

Pure greed must be the motivation of these bee keepers

Phil: Why do you say this?

 

[madasafish]

Hi everybody.

IMHO you should try to get as close as you can to a stable neo-native bee population in the UK. That can surely only be achieved by stopping new imports of everything other than pure A.m.m.
Existing queens replaced free of charge by the beek associations.
- or not?

Greets
Phil

Perhaps you will care to explain:
how you are going to enforce this?
How you are going to get commercial beekeepers to agree as they probably have more bees than the entire private beekeepers.?
And finally.. Local Associations supplying queens foc? You are surely winding us up.

Sorry but your proposals are just impractical so cannot be taken seriously.

 

[keith pierce]

My family came over to ireland from st ives in wales in 1720. Before that i think they came from suffolk. We have crossed out the natives for 300 years, but in the winter i feel the cold that i swear i must have italian blood in me.
Some of my friends would still be in shirt sleves while i would have my termals on.
I may be classed as native, but have not fully adapted to our cold winters yet.

 

[Norton]

Maybe it's just low blood pressure or an underactive thyroid gland

 

[drstitson]

There's a lot of italian blood in wales now - like bedford and various other enclaves of la dolce vita down to mass immigration of workers last century.

easy to spot - your supposed welsh blacks take a break between 12 and 4 every day.

 

[Phil280]

Hi Norton.

I am speaking for the situation in Austria here that is by nature more or less the cross point for A.m.m. and A.m.carnica.(to some extent A.m.ligustica)
I think a well bred ligustica, carnica or mellifera in a region they actually come from and have been acclimatized to for thousands of years is just as good as any buckfast.
Plenty of Beeks here have proven that there is no difference between a well bred buckfast and a well bred A.m.carnica for instance. Still the myth of the buckfast with recordbreaking amounts of honey seems to make people buy them.
This is the reason I claim that for Austria the motivation can only be greed built upon a story that beeks can make a bit more money out of Buckfast. This is also backed by the fact that mostly commercial beeks keep them.
I am not saying that Buckfast bees are no good - they seem to be just as good as locally well established native bees.

On one hand beeks claim to be eco-friendly, on the other they go and import bees that destroy the genetic pool of the native populations with the artificial genetic cocktail in Buckfast drones. It is the same for A.m.carnica that is sent all over the world. Surely one would think that man kind has learnt from importing non-native plants and animals that run riot - but it seems not.

Not far away from my apiary I have a commercial beek that keeps Buckfast right on the border of a county that allows him to keep them. Practically every F2 from my apiary is a disaster and I have to take my queens to the mating station. Normal selection within the local population is no longer possible.
All feral colonies in the area have been affected.

To bring this back on topic....some have mentioned it before - you only need to apply Mendel's Laws.
From experience I can say that F1 (pure bred A.m.carnica with at least something that has buckfast in it) is usually sort of ok.
F2 is no more fun to work with. Unless you like being stung and want bees that run around like mad and spill out the top of your super like a shaken lager when you lift the lid off of the hive.

Greets
Phil

 

[Phil280]

Hi madasafisch

Well it has worked in other european countries that only allow native bees.
It may be worth looking at other countries for ideas.
The local beek clubs and associations here supply pure bred material for free. Some will allow you to take larva, some will give queen cells. That idea might get the absurd prices for bees in the UK back to normal.

The proposals are only impractical until a group of people sit down and stick their heads together and work things out. Thre are two options - You can try and make things better or live with the situation.

Greets
Phil

 

[Norton]

Hello Phil,
IMHO everyone is wasting their time trying to breed bees if they cannot control the matings either mating stations or AI. This applies to all breeds/ssp.
Buckfast in Germany usually produce upwards of 70kgs from spring rape with individual annual yields that go over the 150 kg mark - uncommon but it happens. There is no way AMM or carnica would obtain this due to the inherent swarming instinct of carnica and that AMM just doesn't form powerful enough colonies. So it is not just a small amount of honey.
You talk about Buckfast bees being the problem, what happens in the hydridisation areas between AMM and canica?
When you talk about the Buckfast beekeeper near you, do you mean Horst (PN)?
Best regards
Norton