AMM Mated Queen for sale - source and reason?

[mbc]

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

Village beekeepers vs. Internationally acclaimed Bee Institutions with government support and funding

Yep, we should be neck and neck with the carnie breeders of Europe by now.

 

[wightbees]

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.

What type of queens?

 

[mbc]

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.

Of course claiming beekeepers seeing the grass is greener is a generalisation, what else could it be ?

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.

People being prepared to pay £ 75 for an amm queen suggests quite a few " hark back"

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

The NZ carnies have had glowing revues ( mostly from yourself ITLD ! ) so no wonder there is a large demand as people hold you in high regard.
Congrats on the chair of BFA by the way.

 

[trihy120]

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

was talking about buckfasts, carnolians not far behind either the germans are breeding them since 50s

Village beekeepers vs. Internationally acclaimed Bee Institutions with government support and funding

Yep, we should be neck and neck with the carnie breeders of Europe by now.

+1

 

[Hivemaker.]

was talking about buckfasts, carnolians not far behind either the germans are breeding them since 50s

Thats what i thought you were talking about, BA,hence my comment about BIBBA, which is a lot more than just one person.

 

[Into the lions den]

Congrats on the chair of BFA by the way.

TY......going to be a busy couple of years with fundamental changes underway.

£75 for a breeder queen is not all that expensive btw, indeed if it IS a special breeder queen as suggested by some she is at the low end of the price range. Breeder queens are brought in from Buckfast Denmark and other places at a higher price that that. I know some I I breeders queens go for 150 to 300 pounds, and there have been some gone for inexcess of 1000, but not in the UK.

Not too fond of the Danish Buckfast btw having trialled them up here. Will be very good further south but a bit soft in our heather areas. The imported bees that HAVE satified all my criteria are very few indeed. Three actually. 1.Sue Cobeys original Vaca Valley NWC's
2.Polish baltic coast bred A.m.m.x carnica.
3.NZ bred carnica

There will be a plethora of other types that would do as well just never been met by me up to now.

 

[mbc]

£75 for a breeder queen is not all that expensive btw, indeed if it IS a special breeder queen as suggested by some she is at the low end of the price range. Breeder queens are brought in from Buckfast Denmark and other places at a higher price that that. I know some I I breeders queens go for 150 to 300 pounds, and there have been some gone for inexcess of 1000, but not in the UK.
.

" We also have a supply of AMM Queens. These are as near native as we can find. They will fly in colder temperatures and can overwinter on less stores. Only Limited stocks of these available. "

Nothing in the advert to me suggests that these are valuable breeder queens with any provenance.

 

[Into the lions den]

Nothing in the advert to me suggests that these are valuable breeder queens with any provenance.

I know. Its was someone else that threw that in, I had read the ad. However at £75 unless someone has money to burn I cannot imagine them being bought for any other reason, especially with there being a significant number of smaller scale black bee breeders and vendors out there offering their queens at half or less that rate.

3 years ago I was selling 5 bar nucs headed by new seasons A.m.m. type queens at under that price...............then EFB arrived (or rather .'was detected') and I stopped selling ANYTHING outside our area.

 

[mbc]

I know. Its was someone else that threw that in, I had read the ad. However at £75 unless someone has money to burn I cannot imagine them being bought for any other reason, especially with there being a significant number of smaller scale black bee breeders and vendors out there offering their queens at half or less that rate.
3 years ago I was selling 5 bar nucs headed by new seasons A.m.m. type queens at under that price...............then EFB arrived (or rather .'was detected') and I stopped selling ANYTHING outside our area.

I'm surprised that no ones responded with a request for a few names of these vendors, as judging by the number of pm's I've had regarding amm , there seems to be quite a bit of interest from forum members.

 

[Bob Bee]

I'm surprised that no ones responded with a request for a few names of these vendors, as judging by the number of pm's I've had regarding amm , there seems to be quite a bit of interest from forum members.

I can let people have a list of people in Westest Cornwall too. Pm though, as I'm keeping my head down.

 

[madasafish]

I'm surprised that no ones responded with a request for a few names of these vendors, as judging by the number of pm's I've had regarding amm , there seems to be quite a bit of interest from forum members.

Can be found in 30 secs with Google.

 

[NoBBy]

AMM mean Apis Mellifera Mellifera or the the European dark Bee which would be our native Honey Bee.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apis_mellifera_mellifera

 

[BBG]

To no-one in particular.

1930s Chicago - vast meat freezers - huge problem with rats eating said meat.

30 cats were introduced - half died soon after

Remainder mated and produced kittens - over half died.

These mated and their offspring had thicker fur and shorter tails - less than half died.

Next load of kittens were the fighting machine:

Shorter, thicker fur - short tails - stockier build - nobody died

 

[DanBee]

perhaps the local bee that have survived and adapted for millions of years may be able to be bred and selected for ideal traits of fecundity, temper, foraging, honey production and overwintering etc etc that we all want and need in a bee.

The generally accepted timescale is that honeybees have been in the UK since the last glaciers retreated about 10,000 years ago. At the time the existence of the land-bridge between the UK and Europe would mean that any and all races could have migrated with ease across what now is the channel. Whatever honeybees migrated into the UK must have been well-suited to the tundra-like conditions as frozen glaciation gave way to greenery - after all, no plants, no bees. I'd argue that any resemblance between that climate and the one we enjoy now would be very slight, so whatever bee first alighted here will have seen the environmental conditions change almost out of all recognition from what they first thrived in.

I wouldn't be so sure that there was just one race of bee in the UK before imports started, and that this is what is now labelled as Amm. Beowulf Cooper noted very distinct differences between supposed Amm in the north and the south of the UK. Did the Romans bring bees with them, and if so from where? Why do so many surviving "pure Amm" clusters bear such close genetic links to such clusters in the Nordic countries? Was Amm brought by Vikings to replace whatever persisted after the Channel flooded? How did Amm get to Ireland?

 

[DanBee]

The corollary of that is, of course, that the footprint of an imported stock can persist in an area for long time: think carefully before bringing something in to an area that you don't understand well. That would also apply to bringing in an Amm queen for propagation to an area where Amm has gone and some incompatible type - Buckfast for example - dominates, as well as the reverse.

Hello Gavin - here I think you hit the nail on the head, in that there seems to be bad to disrupt an Amm population whereas it is good to disrupt a mongrel population by introducing Amm. Surely if those mongrel populations are thriving it is because they have positive characteristics which persist? Is it really all just down to persistent re-importation?

Also, regards the reversion to type, is it not also fair to say that if any bees are not selectively bred then traits of docility and productivity often disappear, since these are traits appreciated by their human keepers rather than intrinsic to their survival? (Productivity in this sense meaning excess significantly above what is needed for colony survival.)

 

[The Cumbrian]

How did Amm get to Ireland?

Probably the same way as it got to the UK. Ireland was connected to mainland UK at the same time as UK was connected to the continent. At least that is how I understand things to have been.

 

[DanBee]

I do have a copy of Coopers book, and whilst it is an interesting read, it is also at times an example of opinion trumping fact, and he was such a heavy hitter that many of his opinions became accepted as facts, and remain so today. Still does not make it all true.

I would say that there is a worse problem: those who promote Amm have often not actually read and understood Cooper's definition of them. So often we are told that Amm "thrive" in a single National brood box, whereas Cooper stated that they would "survive" in a single National brood box, yet left to their own devices would occupy two National brood boxes, and this in the "poorer" areas of the UK. Thus the accepted pedigree standard morphs over time due to fashion/aspiration/chinese whispers and becomes progressively more extreme. Reminds me of the Kennel club!

 

[For want of a better word]

Postaphobic acquaintance said to me... there for AMMETURE BEEKEEPERERS !


seriously?

 

[DanBee]

our most prominent breeder ( himself from other shores ) scoured the world for improved stock rather than working with what we had already.

Er, no - he went out looking for desirable characteristics amongst the diverse populations he found, and on the way documented what he found. His intention was to try to breed/combine such characteristics into a bee that would be better suited to his local climate and forage.

If the local bee was so good, why did he bother? Buckfast is (and I have apologised to RT before for this!) a wet little town benefitting from much of the worst of Dartmoor's weather. The Abbey's best heather apiaries were of course up on the moors. To listen to those who speak nobly of "our maritime climate" you'd think Buckfast was somewhere near Monaco. It does beg the question of why Br. Adam went to all that effort if all he had to do was cull'n'breed from the local stock for ten years. Whilst there may have been some of the "grass is greener" aspect, I can't believe that that was all that drove him. Was it that he saw encouraging results early on that convinced him that it was worth all the effort of breeding, crossing, monitoring, and culling?

 

[For want of a better word]

The Abbey's best heather apiaries were of course up on the


moors.



alas no moor !

little heather now