Amm / Native Black Bee Discussion

Hello,
For those interested in Amm / Native Black Bees. Tell us about your bees, queen rearing groups, successes and failures.
Please feel free to post your experiences, observations, or questions regarding the above.

 

[Apiarist]

You are wrong. Iberiensis is M lineage. This misidentification of iberiensis has been spotted by the researchers and will be (I think) discussed in the new paper.

Can you give us all a link or some more info. on this NEW discovery by researchers?
Here is the link to the paper I based my statement on, that A. m. iberiensis is not in the M lineage.
"...A. m. iberiensis from Spain and Portugal (Fig. 1). The Iberian honey bee was nested within the A lineage in our analyses regardless of the dataset analysed. While it has been placed into the M lineage based on morphological characters..."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71393-0

I have not said they are 99.999% pure. In fact I specifically noted that the percentage does not represent purity.

sorry I should have been more precise, you said "Quite a few of my bees gave incredibly high readings, like 99.999% mellifera," which I understood meant that the bees were 99.999% mellifera; my reply should have been "Also I would maybe question the accuracy of those results if they are giving you 99.999% probability?"

 

[Beesnaturally]

I think it might help, if we are all going to discuss Amm bees, is for us to define the word "Conservation", as it invariably will be brought up - as it has.

A good plan imo

* there is no need for the truly Conservation Area to be designated for a particular subspecie, because if the A. m. mellifera is the native bee, and has been here for thousands of years, then to paraphrase Beowulf Cooper's reasoning - it will have the best genetics for surviving here and will out-compete other subspecies, with it's genetics becoming increasingly dominant over time..

Only to the extent that natural selection can play out.

 

[buffon]

Can you give us all a link or some more info. on this NEW discovery by researchers?

The lineage of iberiensis has no relevance to this thread, so if you want to discuss it I suggest you start a new thread. Maybe you will attract some other trolls to play with. When I wrote the "misidentification of iberiensis has been spotted by the researchers" I was talking about the misidentification of iberiensis by DeepWings. As I said in my opening post there is a follow up paper to be published on it (DeepWings).

Also I would maybe question the accuracy of those results if they are giving you 99.999% probability?

There is nothing inherently wrong with a high probability. What I was concerned about (and what I was seeing) was a high probability in combination with a positive Discoidal Shift Angle. I have fed this back to the reasearchers. Clearly then you have a situation where either DeepWings is giving the wrong info, or the old morphometric thresholds are wrong.

DeepWings gives you the DsA, Cubital Index etc so you can just cut and paste these into the MorphPlot spreadsheet as used by BIBBA. It also gives you the marker coordinates to be put into Adam Tofilski's programmes (I've not done this).

 

[Apiarist]

The lineage of iberiensis has no relevance to this thread, so if you want to discuss it I suggest you start a new thread. Maybe you will attract some other trolls to play with.

Troll! Excuse me ! What?!?! Do you have a short term, or selective memory problem or something???

YOU brought up the subject of A. m. iberiensis, and it's relationship to A. m. mellifera, YOU said "...and the close relationship between mellifera and iberiensis..." I merely pointed out there was no "close relationship"...

anyway thank you for clarifying your point(s), and confirming to us that the methodology used to get 99.999% and your "...very high readings for iberiensis..." are in fact questionable, I refer you to my original post made in response to YOU raising iberiensis in this discussion; "maybe question the accuracy of those results if they are giving you 99.999% purity" - ref: Post #359.

 

[buffon]

YOU said "...and the close relationship between mellifera and iberiensis..." I merely pointed out there was no "close relationship"...

I used the same phrasing as was said to me by one of the leading experts on iberiensis and bee genetics. I think they know more about it than you or your fanboy.

 

[Apiarist]

I used the same phrasing as was said to me by one of the leading experts on iberiensis and bee genetics. I think they know more about it than you or your fanboy.

So you clarified in Posting #363, that your claims were based on wing morphometrics, fair enough I can see from where the misunderstandings ocurred; but now you are saying the claims (in part) are what was said to you by an expert on bee genetics and iberiensis (did he also tell you the iberiensis and mellifera are the same lineage = closely related?), confusion reigns - any way this is not helpful for this thread and you may be better to stop throwing insults at members entering into a adult discussion.

Talking of discussion: You said in Post #360, "Iberiensis is M lineage. This misidentification of iberiensis has been spotted by the researchers and will be (I think) discussed in the new paper" can you provide more written (not verbal) information on this counter to the published research into the DNA of the iberiensis and therefore mellifera bees?

 

[buffon]

You have perfectly demonstrated what is wrong with this forum. Anybody posting anything innovative or interesting gets fed up and leaves. I only signed up to get rid of the appalling adverts that you are subjected to as a non-member. But I definitely won't be gift supporting, those that do must be mad.

 

[Erichalfbee]

You have perfectly demonstrated what is wrong with this forum. Anybody posting anything innovative or interesting gets fed up and leaves. I only signed up to get rid of the appalling adverts that you are subjected to as a non-member. But I definitely won't be gift supporting, those that do must be mad.

That’s a shame. This forum isn’t simply this thread. The “old lags” who have been here from the outset plus many others who have joined since spend time with beginners for example.
From the beginning there has been innovation in the face of BBKA forum censure. OAV springs to mind. It’s why the forum was started.
Although we are part of a group the forum tries to be self supporting so every support payment helps to keep us afloat.
Nobody is expecting you to gift membership to anybody else but maybe we expect new members to give us a chance?

 

[buffon]

Hi Dani, thank you for the reply. I understand the forum has bills to pay, and I would be happy to continue to read the forum as a non member, but the adverts make the website unreadable (links jump around while the adverts load). I'll not bother posting anymore it is not worth the hassle.

 

[Erichalfbee]

You can turn the adverts off. I’ll find you the link

 

[Erichalfbee]

Here you are
https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/how-to-disable-ads.47378/

 

[buffon]

I've turned the adverts off. You can't do this as a non-member I think?

 

[Apiarist]

You have perfectly demonstrated what is wrong with this forum. Anybody posting anything innovative or interesting gets fed up and leaves.

"innovative and interesting" I merely referenced newer DNA research, that has upturned previously thinking on Apis mellifera relatedness, if that's not "innovative and interesting" I don't know what is?

By the way, now that you have brought up the subject of "innovative and interesting", can you give us a link or some more info. on what you said in Post #360, "Iberiensis is M lineage. This misidentification of iberiensis has been spotted by the researchers and will be (I think) discussed in the new paper"

 

[Erichalfbee]

I've turned the adverts off. You can't do this as a non-member I think?

No but it’s less than £2 a week. You obviously have a lot to offer.

 

[Beesnaturally]

Please delete - wrong thread

 

[user 20297]

Some of my bees look quite black and they're definitely in their winter coats.

 

[Polymorph]

Thinking too negatively.
I wonder if there is any pure sub species these days? Probably near is about as good as you are going to get, with any of them, even island mating stations have hiccups.
I observed our bees over a number of years, they seemed to me, to resemble Amm in all aspects and I've done direct comparisons with colonies of Amm since then, they are practically identical, appearance, behaviour, characteristics. There are occasionally a few ginger bands here and there in some but most colonies are uniform, dark bees. I wouldn't pay for DNA testing, I just took advantage of an opportunity to get colonies tested, again out of curiosity to confirm or dismiss my suspicions.

At the farm apiary today with a visitor along to see the InstantVap in operation, he was quite surprised when I explained that none of them were Amm, all local queens raised at the farm. The sun came out towards the end of treating so I picked this colony at random as they were basking in the sunshine. One of our single brood queens, these produced six supers and the hive was rammed to the rafters. Uniform bees.
All colonies are still very populous, I didn't risk leaving the vaping ekes on, there were huge clumps of bees gathered in them as I went around taking them off. They'd be full of comb by next visit I reckon, I need to make shallower ones.
No Ivy scent and not a lot of Ivy pollen coming in despite a fair amount in flower but the hives are all nicely heavy at the moment. Almost all over again, time to plan for next year.

 

[madasafish]

I've turned the adverts off. You can't do this as a non-member I think?

Adblock works a treat

 

[buffon]

 

[Swarm]

A very interesting presentation by Colm O'Neill