Hi
@Into the lions den Would you consider supporting an initiative based around breeding Amm in Ireland to supply the demand here? Then the commercial bee keepers you are in contact with would know they had someone with a lot of experience helping them to develop more commercially friendly strains and it would also help the amateur bee keepers that are struggling to get hold of queens/nucs. There has been a real effort to develop more queen rearing groups over the last number of years (although Covid has slowed things down again) but so far they are still not able to meet demand.
Waited overnight to consider my response to this as it could be seen as deliberately provocative. One death threat if I ever set foot on the island of Ireland with bees was enough, never mind the diatribe from both sides and constant reposting the *very* incomplete tabloid coverage of our 2009 OTC case. (I make no apology for saving the bees.) Contrasted completely with the civilised and polite exchanges I had off stage with Aoife Macgiollacoda on the subject.
OK..lets go. The initiative proposed was at the behest of a group of Irish beekeepers of varying scales but slanted to the professional end. Most of them had, at some stage, had the Jolanta line queens we raise here, and were very much wanting regular supplies. With Brexit making legal movements difficult at best (unless you just post them devoid of paperwork....lots of that happening) they wondered if it was a possibility we would consider establishing an Irish unit. It was NOT my idea. I agreed to investigate so posted on several fora to canvass opinion. Did NOT go to the Irish forum which was perhaps an error at the time but with hindsight was probably best as opinions seem to become so enflamed so quickly.
The points mostly coming to me were that Irish queen prices are at a level that precludes viable commercial use and that, despite the prices being so high, availability is always difficult and sometimes impossible. The biggest producer only does a few hundred and single operations could use up that number on their own.
Of the 14 commercials and semi commercials that replied 12 wanted non Amm stock. Of that 12 a few import directly from southern Europe already and would never bee clients for later availability and higher priced (though not as high as current rates...we wanted the larger clients mainly) Irish raised stock we would provide. 6 offered to provide the locations for the project. All but one of the commercials said they kept their heads down over there as they can come under attack. Irish beekeepers applied for jobs in the mooted unit.. Another couple offered to come and train here to then run the Irish unit for us.
Based on the fairly scanty statistics in the mails I got I concluded that, of those interested in buying queens from the unit only about 25% of the demand was for Amm. A similar number wanted Buckfasts (mainly those already importing). Most just wanted good quiet healthy bees that got a crop irrespective of racial origin. This is what the Jolanta project is actually all about...very nice content bees that give a minimum of management issues yet grow strong and productive. They do very nicely in Ireland already.
It is plain than there is a gap in the market for real commercial queen rearing but is it enough to carry a full time business? Why has it not happened already?
The Amm market is primarily into the ones and twos trade...its the same here. The bigger clients on whom the success of a venture would depend are mainly in the 'just want good bees' class, unless they already import Buckfast.
So having gone through all the responses it could be seen that the Amm market was too small and mainly comprised the ones and twos market where they are often the most time consuming customers. The commercial market was a possible avenue but they did not generally want Amm, and the key customers were already importing themselves at prices an Irish based unit could not compete with. The remainder MIGHT constitute a market for a single person working on it doing a relatively modest 1500 queens a year. Quite easy to achieve, but if you take commercially viable pricing on 1500 minus all the costs and the wages, it works out pretty marginal. Add in the difficulties of being in what seems like a beekeeping war zone it was a pretty easy decision to make.....a non starter.
We would have used it just as an extension of the programme we have here which breeds bees very suited to Ireland and were the basis for people asking in the first place. Our selection criteria are severe...having over 4000 to choose from and a willingness to incorporate fresh lines from inside and outside our unit gives us a lot of genetic diversity and we really believe in that as it is what puts resilience into the stock. This does not sit easily with the narrower aims of the Amm movement. Our criteria are about the traditional reasons for keeping bees..a symbiotic arrangement where our rewards come from the various harvests (honey, wax, pollination etc) whereas in recent years a more conservation minded movement has grown up essentially from the amateur ranks, but also with some academics on board, in which purity in breeding has relegated the traditionally desirable attributes to a secondary role. Our criteria stand accused of being anti Amm as we like large gentle vigorous colonies with high brood fertility and an absence of disease. An example being that Jolanta allows a maximum of three cells of chalk brood in her breeder colonies..any more and they get evicted back to the main unit. Apparently this is us discriminating against Amm in which chalk is often an issue..
Late edit...you note I did not mention productivity. That's because that is the first hurdle any stock has to cross....the selection takes place ONLY among the proven producers.
