AMM Mated Queen for sale - source and reason?

[Poly Hive]

Of course there are docile AMM but that word is very subjective. I had colonies that were lovely to work and also the others that were not...lol

I agree with Murray completely and only would add that it is a shame that both Cooper and BA expressed opinions that are now thought by the devotees to be facts. But that is life for you.

PH

 

[Into the lions den]

Well the Galtee breeding group, whose stated aim is to conserve and improve amm seems to have been successful in producing reasonably docile amm.
(I've no personal experience but have spoken to beeks who have had them in the past - sadly they no longer export - and also heard Michael Coda speak about them).

I have direct experience with Micheals bees. The good ones are indeed good, but they are variable. None were what *I* would describe as a truly gentle bee. The best of them were not unlike the best of our own, and you actually would not easily tell them apart.

 

[BBG]

To no-one in particular.

This would make it strange that Brother Adam spent almost 77 years of his life in breeding the best bee - a Buckfast - he could.

Then when he was satisfied, he stopped.

While those who do this for a living may have one eye squinted at them and those who are paid to research it are also liable to scrutiny for possible skewing to make their research 'fit the gap', shirley a monk who did that alone, breathing it, eating it, meditating it, working with it and praying for it should be regarded as having achieved what no other man could hope for.

He developed the Buckfast strain in 1919-ish so I would say he probably improved on things a bit over the following donkey's ears.

I don't know where I read it but Buckfast Abbey were knocking out 11 X 2 1/2 Tons of honey a year and Brother Adam designed and built a press to cope with the heather honey.

Sneaking up on the hive with HM's Queen residing and listening to the almost growl that comes from within, we would say the Buckfast strain Brother Adam developed and people like HM are carrying forward, is alive and doing very well indeed.

Inexperience on our behalf causing problems aside; we are expecting that hive in particular to go with a roar when the sun shines more strongly. Same for the others for they too are Buckfast strain but some diluted by local mating.

Errant daughters and all that . ......

The black heathens may return!

 

[RoofTops]

To no-one in particular.

This would make it strange that Brother Adam spent almost 77 years of his life in breeding the best bee - a Buckfast - he could.

Then when he was satisfied, he stopped.

I am not sure he stopped because he was satisfied, more a case of his employer calling time and telling him to put his smoker away for good. From what I have heard he was always trying to improve the strain right up to the end and those who carried on his work, mostly overseas, continue to build on his work as the Buckfast bee is a hybrid and needs regular injections of new blood.

 

[RoofTops]

I am sure I have shown this before or it may have been in the Other Place. It is an extract from Ron Brown's book "One Thousand Years of Devon Beekeeping" and is in the chapter about Thomas White Woodbury (1818 - 1870). At the very least it suggests imported bees were finding their way into Scotland as early as 1860. RB's book was published in 1975 so you can see by his comments in the second paragraph that even then, nearly 40 years ago, this debate about AAM versus imports was not new.

"Alas, the summer in 1860 turned out to be wretched, and with ill-
health beginning to trouble him, only one Ligurian mated queen was
produced, and this went to a correspondent in Renfrew, Scotland. The
wettest summer for many years was followed by the most severe winter
(comparable with 1963) and Woodbury noted with pleasure that the
tough, yellow Alpine bees survived better than the old English blacks,
and he records them foraging for pollen on one day in January when
the temperature briefly rose to 40 degrees F. The Scottish bees also
survived (despite a Renfrew minimum of 33 degrees of frost on the
24th December 1860. Later that year the Scottish beekeepers asked if
Mr. S.B. Fox of Exeter would write an article on the effect of frost on
beehives; such was the reputation of Exeter beekeepers at that time.
Issues of the “Journal of Horticulture” over the next few years were
full of evidence of the yellow bees’ superiority, recording bigger yields
of honey, earlier spring build-up, working at lower temperatures and
being much easier to handle. A letter written in the early l860’s men-
tioned that a hive of Ligurian bees accidentally knocked over during a
sharp frost, on the 7th January, had a patch of sealed brood 3” across.
This introduction of new blood was a milestone indeed, and although
it is very easy (and currently fashionable) to sentimentalize about the
vanished British black bees, the beekeepers of the l87O’s were unanim-
ous in preferring the Ligurians. This is what T.W. Cowan said of them
in the British Beekeepers’ Guide Book in 1893, “Much prejudice ex-
isted against them (Italian or Ligurian bees) at first, but their superiority
over the common black bees is now almost universally admitted. This
introduction has done much to improve our race of black bees by
introducing new blood”.

Over a hundred years after the first importation of a Ligurian queen,
there is a tendency among many beekeepers now to think of this strain
as having evolved in a much warmer climate and therefore to be less
suitable for work in Britain than the old English Black. Here is a
translation from the German of Mr. Hermann’s own description. “The
yellow Italian Alp-bee is a mountain insect; it is found between two
mountain chains to the right and left of Lombardy and the Rhetian
Alps, in the territory of Tessins, Veltlin and South Graubunden. lt
thrives up to the height of 4,500 ft. above sea level, and appears to
prefer the northern clime to the warmer, for in the south of Italy it is
not found. The Alps are their native country, therefore they are called
“Yellow Alp-bees”, or tame house bees in contra distinction to
the black European bees, or common forest bees, who on the slightest
touch fly into your face”.
Here is Woodbury’s own opinion about the Ligurian bees, quoted
from an article of his published in the “Bath and West of England Agri-
cultural Journal” in 1862. “From my strongest Ligurian stock I took
eight artificial swarms (nuclei in our terminology, RHB) in the spring,
besides depriving it of numerous brood combs. Finding in June that the
bees were collecting honey so fast that the queen could not find an
empty cell in which to lay an egg, I was reluctantly compelled to put on
a super. When this had been filled with 38 lbs. of the finest honeycomb*
l removed it, and as the stock hive, a very large one, could not contain
the multitude of bees which issued from the super, I formed them into
another very large artificial swarm. The foregoing facts speak for them-
selves; but as information on this point has been very generally asked,
I have no hesitation in saying that l believe the Ligurian honey-bee to
be in finitely superior in every respect to the only species that we have
hitherto been acquainted with”."

 

[wightbees]

I enjoyed reading that,cheers

 

[hailtryfan]

ditto

 

[Midland Beek]

(Revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event. Though the word revisionism is sometimes used in a negative way, constant revision of history is part of the normal scholarly process of writing history.)

Only you are not allowed to revise certain 'historical facts'. Do that and you might go to prison.

 

[tonybloke]

Only you are not allowed to revise certain 'historical facts'. Do that and you might go to prison.

I think your mixing up 'revisionism' and 'denial'

 

[For want of a better word]

Returning to the OP... why should any beekeeperer want an AMM queen?

Improvement of stock... resistance to disease... fit for purpose?

I can see why beebreeders have strived for the perfect bee strain and hope that the bee improvement program will persist..... history repeats itself !

 

[RoofTops]

Returning to the OP... why should any beekeeperer want an AMM queen?

Improvement of stock... resistance to disease... fit for purpose?

I can see why beebreeders have strived for the perfect bee strain and hope that the bee improvement program will persist..... history repeats itself !

Which was the point I was trying to make I think. Imported queens started to arrive in Britain (can't speak for NI) over 150 years ago. No doubt those early Italian queen in Renfrewshire (a bit to the left of Glasgow) interbred with the local bees and their genes must have spread wider as the years went by. If colonies in some parts of Scotland survived IoW disease 60+ years later was it because of their "native" qualities (AMM) or was it perhaps the diluted Italian blood in them?

 

[gavin]

If colonies in some parts of Scotland survived IoW disease 60+ years later was it because of their "native" qualities (AMM) or was it perhaps the diluted Italian blood in them?

That's a bit unnecessary, John. If IOW disease swept though, destroying most of the Amm before it, and the Aml stock was resistant, then what would happen would be that Amm would be lost and Aml would take over. You'd end up with Aml and Aml-leaning hybrids. That didn't happen - presumably what happened is that there was resistance in the Amm stocks and that they repopulated areas that lost stocks when IOW struck. The same thing happens when any new disease rips through a population. That is why there is partial resistance to AFB in Scottish native stocks but little resistance to EFB. It is also why wild potatoes in Mexico are mostly resistant to late blight but those in Peru are not. Selective sweeps, geneticists call it. The same has happened with Varroa resistance in some parts of the world.

Besides, IOW disease would have encountered mixed stocks in England before it reached Scotland, so if your hypothesis is correct then hybridised Amm types would have thrived in England too.

It is abundantly clear that man has been bringing in exotic bee races for a long time. Yes, it is perfectly true that no-one can guarantee that any Amm around today is exactly the same as the Amm around before any deliberate imports, but they must be close. I still return to the point that if stocks tend to return to something like Amm over time then that shows the best direction to go. Breed better bees from that than get on this continual importation treadmill - for those whose bees tend to return in that direction at least.

It is a modified bee, and crystallised back out from the various bees brought in to replace the lost stock ...

LOL!! You are starting to sound like Dee Lusby now Murray. Didn't she use that turn of phrase? You'll be forcing your bees into unnaturally small comb next ....

 

[the naked beekeeper]

That's a bit unnecessary, John. If IOW disease swept though, destroying most of the Amm before it, and the Aml stock was resistant, then what would happen would be that Amm would be lost and Aml would take over. You'd end up with Aml and Aml-leaning hybrids. That didn't happen - presumably what happened is that there was resistance in the Amm stocks and that they repopulated areas that lost stocks when IOW struck. The same thing happens when any new disease rips through a population. That is why there is partial resistance to AFB in Scottish native stocks but little resistance to EFB. It is also why wild potatoes in Mexico are mostly resistant to late blight but those in Peru are not. Selective sweeps, geneticists call it. The same has happened with Varroa resistance in some parts of the world.

Besides, IOW disease would have encountered mixed stocks in England before it reached Scotland, so if your hypothesis is correct then hybridised Amm types would have thrived in England too.

It is abundantly clear that man has been bringing in exotic bee races for a long time. Yes, it is perfectly true that no-one can guarantee that any Amm around today is exactly the same as the Amm around before any deliberate imports, but they must be close. I still return to the point that if stocks tend to return to something like Amm over time then that shows the best direction to go. Breed better bees from that than get on this continual importation treadmill - for those whose bees tend to return in that direction at least.



LOL!! You are starting to sound like Dee Lusby now Murray. Didn't she use that turn of phrase? You'll be forcing your bees into unnaturally small comb next ....

As a caveat I would add that the beekeepers needs would dictate whether they get off the importation treadmill and lean towards a more native type bee.

As has been pointed out, it would appear that without management (ie. most beekeeping) the native bee would outsurvive the other colonies eventually and dominate. Colonies would gradually lean towards a more native ecotype behavior and apperance.

For me, that is a reason, why I work with it.
I prefer to work with nature.
And manage as less as possible.
No imports.
Very minimal feeding.

But outsurvive, does not mean out compete a honey yield in a season.
And for that reason (money), then I see that beekeepers want more prolific bees in their stocks to aim for more honey production.

They are not worried about sustainability, as any loss of pedigree can easily be requeened from the same source. So regardless of the eventual crystalisation as to what the bee would eventually evolve into..the beekeeper intervenes by keeping his/her bloodline 'pure' via requeening, so exacerbating mongrelisation is not an issue for them. (It is for everyone else)

I like to have honey surplus.
But my needs aren't driven by a need to squeeze every last drop of profit from my bees, at a disregard to what nature and the environment is telling me is the best performing bee in terms of survival.

I can't afford to requeen and wouldn't want to bring in new genes constantly.

Selection and improvement of ones best is my way to go. That puts a stop at least, to adding to the hotch potch pool of genes beekeepers bring into the UK every year making future matings unpredictable and their own beekeeping unsustainable. (without constant re-importation.) And by gradual improvement by beekeepers together, a local bee can be selected for better honey yields and thriftiness...

 

[Into the lions den]

That's a bit unnecessary, John. If IOW disease swept though, destroying most of the Amm before it, and the Aml stock was resistant, then what would happen would be that Amm would be lost and Aml would take over. You'd end up with Aml and Aml-leaning hybrids. That didn't happen - presumably what happened is that there was resistance in the Amm stocks and that they repopulated areas that lost stocks when IOW struck.

Why so Gavin? If the resistance was there in the A.m.m. stock why did it take the best part of 60 years for it to stabilise? Acarine was still a big issue as recently as the 1960s in black stock. Yes the bees are more or less unchanged blacks nowadays, but they went through a long period of turmoil until a largely strain stable bee emerged which is most likely 95% Amm, but with crucial inclusions of benefit from the incoming genetics, and you could do morphology from now till the end of time and not spot it.

It is also a moot point if a bee which can survive is the same bee as the one that is desireable to keep. I can see where both types would have their followers (perhaps not the best word given certain , from our own experience unjust, labels attached to hybrids).

My contention, and it IS merely a theory, is that there was an overlap period where the new stock was in the area and the last of the old bees had not yet died. Some hybridisation took place. Over the very long time scale the old bee genetics gave the resistant bees incorporating them an environmentally influenced marginal advantage, and they then went on to mate with other colonies with some of the old genes in them and so on over many generations. To take so long for it to arrive at todays situation implies that the genes for the old blacks must have become pretty dilute in large areas, less so in others.

Why not back to Aml types? Well environmental factors heavily favour Amm, disease factors favour a TINY factor in Aml and discriminate strongly against a TINY factor in Amm. You could possibly, by natural routes, say we now have a GM Amm as our feral/local bee. Took many years to sort itself out though.


Besides, IOW disease would have encountered mixed stocks in England before it reached Scotland, so if your hypothesis is correct then hybridised Amm types would have thrived in England too.

I believe in certain parts they do, and like in Scotland it is primarily at the extremities or in harsh environments, where those very environmental factors favour the black bee and cause the same biases to drift back towards native to take place. There are also large tracts of England where the environment and climate today do not create this bias and carnica genetics in particular are at least a match for them, plus the Buckfast complex hybrid also was bred for English conditions, so in at least the southeastern half of England the tendency to revert to native is less prevalent, even absent.

It is abundantly clear that man has been bringing in exotic bee races for a long time. Yes, it is perfectly true that no-one can guarantee that any Amm around today is exactly the same as the Amm around before any deliberate imports, but they must be close.
I do not see how we are arguing on this. Its is pretty well what I think, albeit coming at it from the other end.

I still return to the point that if stocks tend to return to something like Amm over time then that shows the best direction to go.

On that one we differ. If we did it would be wild oats and primitive livestock in farming today. Improved varieties would not have a sustained place. Aspiring to what nature will drag you back to in an unmanaged situation leads that way. As soon as you indulge in lots of selection you are moving away from the local model to one that will drift back to it if left to its own devices. I know that is not exactly what you are saying and that you believe in selection from that stock, but that rather contradicts the statement that what the bees naturally revert to shows you the way to go.


LOL!! You are starting to sound like Dee Lusby now Murray. Didn't she use that turn of phrase? You'll be forcing your bees into unnaturally small comb next ....

Oh dear............you have my permission to shoot me!

 

[Poly Hive]

LOL

Bless her....

PH

 

[mbc]

The idea that any population of bees is static is a misnomer, they are all evolving as the generations pass.
I'm sure Bro Adam would not have been happy with the idea that his beloved Buckfast breeding programme had reached its conclusion with the final bee he produced, indeed, its been many years since I've read any of his work but I'm sure I recall something he wrote himself to that effect e.g. its an ongoing process.

I think the problem we have in Britain is that the grass has always been greener, the early AMM beekeepers wanted better stock from the continent and the later beekeepers of Italian, Carniolan or mongralised stock hark back with envy to the unsullied, pure AMM times.
The shame of it is, that at the time of great improvements in bee breeding elsewhere, our most prominent breeder ( himself from other shores ) scoured the world for improved stock rather than working with what we had already. I think we should remember that the time since the advent of the movable frame hive and our greater understanding of genetics and breeding techniques are very small in terms of how long the bees have been around and there is still time to have our own renaissance in bee breeding. If we look at how they have managed on the continent and the New World it would be wise for us to see that the greatest leaps of improvements have been made by institutions or corporations - no man is an island ! - whereas our own national bee institutions ( I'm thinking of the NBU ) happily borrow bees from our better organised neighbours.
I've just had a wee peek at the National Beekeeping Centre for Wales website and though I wish them all the best, its disheartening to see it seems to be based around a few poly nucs kept in the gardens of an ugly cottage which is a tourist attraction on an old railway line - eat your heart out Kirchaim Bee Institute !

 

[countryman]

if they are from a supplier called peter who lives just outside chichester west sussex he charges about 80 quid they are breeders, carnolian strain and very good quality bees his standard queens for hives are about 35 quid

 

[trihy120]

The idea that any population of bees is static is a misnomer, they are all evolving as the generations pass.
I'm sure Bro Adam would not have been happy with the idea that his beloved Buckfast breeding programme had reached its conclusion with the final bee he produced, indeed, its been many years since I've read any of his work but I'm sure I recall something he wrote himself to that effect e.g. its an ongoing process.

I think the problem we have in Britain is that the grass has always been greener, the early AMM beekeepers wanted better stock from the continent and the later beekeepers of Italian, Carniolan or mongralised stock hark back with envy to the unsullied, pure AMM times.
The shame of it is, that at the time of great improvements in bee breeding elsewhere, our most prominent breeder ( himself from other shores ) scoured the world for improved stock rather than working with what we had already. I think we should remember that the time since the advent of the movable frame hive and our greater understanding of genetics and breeding techniques are very small in terms of how long the bees have been around and there is still time to have our own renaissance in bee breeding. If we look at how they have managed on the continent and the New World it would be wise for us to see that the greatest leaps of improvements have been made by institutions or corporations - no man is an island ! - whereas our own national bee institutions ( I'm thinking of the NBU ) happily borrow bees from our better organised neighbours.
I've just had a wee peek at the National Beekeeping Centre for Wales website and though I wish them all the best, its disheartening to see it seems to be based around a few poly nucs kept in the gardens of an ugly cottage which is a tourist attraction on an old railway line - eat your heart out Kirchaim Bee Institute !

if 70-80 years was given to breeding amm surely we would have a very worth while bee to use today, but until that work is done it cant be expected to compete with foriegn bees being constantly improved over many years for commercial production while amm was bred for hundreds of years to swarm by skep beekeeping

 

[Hivemaker.]

if 70-80 years was given to breeding amm surely we would have a very worth while bee to use today,

Not 70 or 80 years,but BIBBA have been working hard at this for around 40 years.

 

[Into the lions den]

the early AMM beekeepers wanted better stock from the continent and the later beekeepers of Italian, Carniolan or mongralised stock hark back with envy to the unsullied, pure AMM times.

I suspect both sides of the above are generalisations. For sure the second part, of which I can speak with direct experience, is at least in part untrue.

What proportion of beekeepers 'hark back with envy' (the whole use of words makes it seem rosy) to those days? No idea really, as most just keep their opinions to themselves, BUT, from the people I mix with (which are from both ends of the spectrum between one hive to thousand plus) there are relatively few (a significant minority) who are definitely seeking to return the area to A.m.m., or what they see as A.m.m.. I will respect other peoples efforts, but do not want that scenario myself.

On the other hand we have the number of people wanting to buy queens this year......more than ever before.