AMM as honey gatherers

[the naked beekeeper]

Inspired by the interesting thread about NZ bees, I wanted to ask what are peoples' direct experiences of AMM as honey gatherers?

I've read the books by Ruttner et al. saying that AMM achieve reasonable crops in any given year, be it poor or be it terrific, weather wise.

And I've read the arguments that other strains can produce massive crops given the right conditions, but also eat massive amounts if weather deteriorates frequently.

I want experiences and observations.

Just curious like............

Edit - There were some comments about it in that thread, but rather than hijack it, I wanted to ask the question directly as a seperate issue.

 

[mbc]

If they dont swarm and the weathers reasonable while the flowers are out they will collect a good crop, just like most bees really.

 

[Poly Hive]

Top crop from a hive as you already know from the other thread is in my experience 300lbs.

From 50-60 odd hives a ton of OSR and in a good season a further ton of heather.

PH

 

[Finman]

.

Honey yield depends on pastures.

One thing is that when the indivual hive is ready to forage surplus and handle it.

It takes 2,5 - 3 month time that normal hive build up itself to full power.
If you split 2 - box hive to two, the build up starts from beginning again.

I have had many races. Yields are now 3 fold compared to 50 y ago.
But so is the colony size too 3 fold. Non swarming features is one reason to that.


I nurse my hives in small spots. 2-3 hives in one spot. I have found that every year the difference between spots is 2-3 fold and even 5 fold. And distance between spots is only couple of kilometres.
Now it depends, what "races" you have in these spots.

When we look the history of AMM, Englishmen have distributed it to every continent first, but now professionals use it nowhere any more. In some places it is popular like in Norway.
I have nursed AMM 30 years and I have nothing good to say about it.

When I have had different races, Caucasians is the lasiest race what I had. It is rare race if we look the world map. Its origin is in subtropic climate, wrote one author.

You need a vivid imagination if you keep AMM and say that it is good.

.

 

[Finman]

.
Many dreams about bee stocks, which has a small winter cluster, small winter consumpti on, rapid Spring build up, and big yields. There is no such race or stocks. It is impossible.

To somebody 40 kg is a big yield. My neighbour got 150 kg as an average yield last summer.
Another neighbour got 80 kg five kilometres away.

 

[chipper]

Last season I received some AMM Queens (to compare with my Buckfast derived bees)
Just to have something different.....
These AMMs built up rapidly and the difference in yield was quite small...
Compared with Buckie nucs made up at the same time....
They built larger colonies than I expected....putting brood into 8 frames of my (10 frame) MD hives the strongest filled/occupied 3 supers....
It remains to be seen how well they will do in the 2nd season....

 

[BBG]

.

Honey yield depends on pastures.


I nurse my hives in small spots. 2-3 hives in one spot. I have found that every year the difference between spots is 2-3 fold and even 5 fold. And distance between spots is only couple of kilometres.
Now it depends, what "races" you have in these spots.

You need a vivid imagination if you keep AMM and say that it is good.

.

Finman that seems an awful lot of travelling with only 2 or 3 hives at each site AND a couple of kilometres apart??

 

[Finman]

Finman that seems an awful lot of travelling with only 2 or 3 hives at each site AND a couple of kilometres apart??

yes it is. The hive size is 5-7 boxes. If they are smaller, I join to get them bigger.

One spot had last summer one hive. The spot gove about 200 kg. i plitted the hive and at the end of summer the spot had 12 boxes.

From that point 1,5 km away there were 2 big hives. They brought only 30 kg each.

You may see that same bees make very different result and the reason is pastures and the distance what bees must fly. If you keep hives in the same place, you never find out, how good the site is.

It seems that there are busy and lazy hives, but my experience is that the stage of build up is the main reason.

If the hive is going to swarm, it forages almost nothing. Another hive at same time may bring 40 kg.

One poin is that the best blooming time of individual plant species is very narrow, 2 or 3 weeks.
What the hive does then whenmain plant has bloomed? It flyes far away and bring nothin to home.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Would also depend on the strain of AMM as to how good they are.

 

[Norton]

Chipper,

Last season I received some AMM Queens (to compare with my Buckfast derived bees)

Can you enlighten us as to the source of your AMM and Buckfast derived queens?

 

[BBG]

yes it is. The hive size is 5-7 boxes. If they are smaller, I join to get them bigger.

One spot had last summer one hive. The spot gove about 200 kg. i plitted the hive and at the end of summer the spot had 12 boxes.

From that point 1,5 km away there were 2 big hives. They brought only 30 kg each.

You may see that same bees make very different result and the reason is pastures and the distance what bees must fly. If you keep hives in the same place, you never find out, how good the site is.

It seems that there are busy and lazy hives, but my experience is that the stage of build up is the main reason.

If the hive is going to swarm, it forages almost nothing. Another hive at same time may bring 40 kg.

One poin is that the best blooming time of individual plant species is very narrow, 2 or 3 weeks.
What the hive does then whenmain plant has bloomed? It flyes far away and bring nothin to home.

OK, thanks for this. I will try this in one place this year see how it works out.

 

[DanBee]

These AMMs built up rapidly

Not an Amm trait; are you sure these weren't Carniolans?

 

[Finman]

Not an Amm trait; are you sure these weren't Carniolans?

http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/get-started/bee-races.html

German Black Bees, Apis mellifera mellifera

Fig. 3

Originally from throughout northern Europe, the German black bee (Fig. 3) was the first honey bee brought to the New World. They are brown/black in color and overwinter well. German black bees are nervous, aggressive and build up slowly in spring.

 

[the naked beekeeper]

http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/get-started/bee-races.html

German Black Bees, Apis mellifera mellifera

Fig. 3

Originally from throughout northern Europe, the German black bee (Fig. 3) was the first honey bee brought to the New World. They are brown/black in color and overwinter well. German black bees are nervous, aggressive and build up slowly in spring.

Nothing like sweeping generalisations.

 

[Finman]

Nothing like sweeping generalisations.

if you do not remember, what issue you are handling
Knowledge is that we take 230 827 individuals and we we identyfye from that the natural variation .

When you have one hive ....it is the only fact "my splended colony".

Beekeepers tend to overestimate their own colonies, best in the world. Not so much as potato growers....

Carl Frederick Gauss (1777-1855)

.

 

[mbc]

It should be possible to draw a bell curve for any characteristic you could think of, and then surely the purpose of bee breeding is to move the curve in a desirable direction.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Not so much as potato growers....

Nice diagram of how to earth up spuds Finman.

 

[OXFORDBEE]

Is that the guy who grew the spuds??

 

[RoofTops]

Gauss was a clever chap and probably knew all about potatoes too. When he was very young (under 10 I think) his teacher set the class a problem which he thought would keep them quiet for an hour or so. He asked them to add up all the numbers between 1 and 99, i.e. 1+2+3+4+...+98+99.

By the time he had sat down the young Gauss had his little hand up because he had worked out the answer in seconds because he realised it was easier if you looked at the problem as (99+1) + (98+2) + ... (49+51) + 50

It is easy to do as each of the terms in brackets is 100 except for the last one which is 50, or the number in the middle of the series. So the answer is (49 * 100) + 50 = 4950.

 

[DanBee]

Nothing like sweeping generalisations.

Maybe, but every text that attempts to list comparative characteristics of honeybee races notes that Amm exhibits a slow spring build-up. The only thing I found odd about Finman's reference was the use of 'German' in the name, when they're generally accepted to be west of Germany.

That said I was reading something from Switzerland recently where they were working with their "Native Amm bees" and it struck me that they're the wrong side of the Alps for conventional wisdom to prevail...