Amm / Native Black Bee Discussion

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
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.
 
Last edited:
What are the origins of your yellow line queens?
Basically from the bees that were always on the farm, we had two queens who shone so began raising queens from these two, yellow and green. The queens have ID's but I found the colour is an instant sign of lineage without having to refer to notes.
Yellow started with Blod.
 

Attachments

  • Blod.jpg
    Blod.jpg
    246 KB · Views: 27
Basically from the bees that were always on the farm, we had two queens who shone so began raising queens from these two, yellow and green. The queens have ID's but I found the colour is an instant sign of lineage without having to refer to notes.
Yellow started with Blod.
Would you call her a tan queen Steve in colour, most of mine are like that.
 
A lot is in the way the light catches them and replication of true colour, some queens that look really dark have pronounced lighter areas around the tomenta, especially when the picture is enlarged. She wasn't the darkest but not tan.
This photo is an example of the queens produced by the farm stock, most of them look like this one from last year.
 

Attachments

  • nq03.jpg
    nq03.jpg
    108.3 KB · Views: 27
A lot is in the way the light catches them and replication of true colour, some queens that look really dark have pronounced lighter areas around the tomenta, especially when the picture is enlarged. She wasn't the darkest but not tan.
This photo is an example of the queens produced by the farm stock, most of them look like this one from last year.
She’s beautiful
 
It's ok Beesnaturally it's aimed at those interested in Amm/native bees. Wild colonies are something I remember finding as a young boy, were these escapees from an apiary? Who knows, we found them living in trees or other cavities, they were wild bees to us.
I think quite a few beekeepers would agree that bees are essentially still wild I don't know any who look upon their charges as domesticated. If they are wild creatures, they are wild IMO, to me feral means domesticated now living in the wild.
Free spirits is probably a better description, IMO. They do what they want and the best we can do is work with it.
Thank you Swarm. I think our interest overlap a lot.

However while your focus is Amm/native bees, mine is the conditions whereby health is maintained. That is, in many ways, the same conversation as one concerning 'survivor' bees, the, (probably) US coinage for bee populations that not only have not been wiped out by varroa, but who have, through natural selection for the fittest strains, attained a deep measure of tolerance and/or resistance, and are thus healthy.

These populations might be mongrel, they might mostly Amm/native, they might be pretty much entirely Amm/native. What matters to me is that they are given space to thrive - for a wild, naturally-selecting population is the greatest - indeed the essential - guarantor of future of bees.

So I'm interested in the ways beekeepers affect those existing, or emerging, or just potential populations. For example: my bees seem to me to fail too often to supersede in good time. I have too many colonies that would clearly benefit from a new queen, but hang on an aging one - too often with fatal results. I suspect this to be a trait born of the widespread practice of beekeepers to simply replace failing queens. This prevents the character of attention to aging queens from remaining at a healthy level.

That is of course, just a theory. But its one firmly rooted in an understanding of the way populations respond to their environment. If essential choices are being made for them, they tend to lose the ability to make them.

This is where a wild/feral populations performs essential work. Those individuals that don't perform essential tasks well tend to lose out in the reproductive strakes to those who do: and so health is restored.

This is, if you like, the deep, foundational layer that we should be aware of when we make choices for bees. A healthy wild population helps us and future beekeepers. Not to mention the local ecology, of which they are key players. Fewer bees = fewer seeds = a diminishing soil seed bank. That's not a direction we should be going in.
 
My dream as a beekeeper is to be able to set swarm traps in my local woods and replenish or increase hive numbers from free living colonies of Amm bees. Currently where I live this is not possible due to others keeping invasives but this model where you are interacting regularly with free living bees is sustainable beekeeping as it has been practised since humans first started keeping bees. Luckily I know people who are in this fortunate position and I can source queens from them and swarms I catch at my Mums place (about 50km away) are also most likely free living and Amm.

There is no doubt in my mind that free living colonies of Amm bees here in Ireland have helped drive the adaptation of bees here to living with varroa but there are also a lot of beekeepers who have been treatment free for a long time or indeed have never treated for varroa and their colonies are thriving and that has to have had an impact too.

I get the sense that you think hybridised bees are going to give you a better stab at varroa resistance but I would say keeping good quality Amm will get you there just as fast if not faster - just source them from someone that is already treatment free. Your forum name talks about keeping bees naturally but I don't see how there is anything natural in keeping or working with hybridised bees in a country where there is a native subspecies.
I think the science indicates (I take this from Marla Spivak) that any strain or mix of bees can be bred to, or will naturally select to, resistance and tolerance of varroa. But some have a head start.
 
Yes Steve there are beekeepers in a four mile radius one is commercial and has a number of apiaries but the nearest one about half a mile is a leave alone who just produces swarms. They are all stripy mongrels which doesn't help my darkies.
Sorry been out of this thread. The experience from the Cornish AMM is that they tend to mate with their own and not as readily with mongrels. I have no first hand experience but the team down here are producing very good purity with open mating. They do allow drone comb to develop in all the hives which will why increase probability of “home” mating. Maybe this is a trait only if the Cornish AMM.
 
Sorry been out of this thread. The experience from the Cornish AMM is that they tend to mate with their own and not as readily with mongrels. I have no first hand experience but the team down here are producing very good purity with open mating. They do allow drone comb to develop in all the hives which will why increase probability of “home” mating. Maybe this is a trait only if the Cornish AMM.
Hi Big Ears, it seems to be a trait of Amm across its range. This is a study from Poland on that very subject Partial reproductive isolation between European subspecies of honey bees - Apidologie
Unfortunately the mechanisms at play are nowhere near 100% effective so the conservation of Amm is still an uphill struggle in many areas
 
Hi Big Ears, it seems to be a trait of Amm across its range. This is a study from Poland on that very subject Partial reproductive isolation between European subspecies of honey bees - Apidologie
Unfortunately the mechanisms at play are nowhere near 100% effective so the conservation of Amm is still an uphill struggle in many areas
Thank you that’s very interesting. I know one of the beekeepers down here is getting 99% purity is some of his colonies which is encouraging. As you say I don’t think it is easy, but then the most rewarding things often aren’t 😁
 
Hi Big Ears, it seems to be a trait of Amm across its range. This is a study from Poland on that very subject Partial reproductive isolation between European subspecies of honey bees - Apidologie
Unfortunately the mechanisms at play are nowhere near 100% effective so the conservation of Amm is still an uphill struggle in many areas
I don't understand why you say this?
Here is a direct quote from the research paper that you linked to, "The progeny of AMM queens was fathered almost exclusively by AMM drones", this means that the "conservation of Amm is" a downhill stroll, not "an uphill struggle"; those beeks that want to keep Amm's just need to queen their hives initially with Amm Queens, and their Virgins (according to the Research you have referred to) will essentially only mate with Amm Drones, there was Research done in Ireland in 2017 (made public in 2020/21) that has confirmed this, only with Buckfasts and carnica drones.
 
...there are lots of beekeepers in Ireland that treat and it has not stopped wild colonies surviving in the face of varroa or beekeepers being able to keep their bees treatment free
How do you know that the outside apiary bee colonies are "wild"? The research from Ireland (you have given a link to a lecture which summarizes the Research) shows that their annual average death rate is close to 55% (you need to get a calculator and number crunch the Supplementary Stats.).
Surely a 55% death rate per year means that there are only bees outside apiaries because of escapees from apiaries, if there were no escaped swarms from apiaries then this "wild" population would die out! Which means they're not wild only feral.

Also you said "beekeepers being able to keep their bees treatment free", how do you know that isn't just luck? I've spoken to beeks from Co. Donegal that tell me it took over 20 years for Varroa to arrive with them. I also know of other beeks that are in very isolated places in Scotland, meaning that there is no way for Varroa to migrate towards them, meaning after a treatment several years ago they haven't needed to treat again .... NOT because their bees are Varroa Resistant but because they haven't been re-infested with the mites!

I'm not trying to annoy you in any way, I just want to understand what you are saying.

Have you seen research that isn't yet published, or have these beeks that don't treat had their bees tested to see if they are Varroa Resistant instead of just lucky?

I want to believe...
that there are Wild Colonies and therefore Varroa Resistant (or at the very least Tolerant) Bees in Ireland, BUT every time I hear someone or some-group make these claims, I read the Research (being cited) or contact the individual(s) to ask for additional information (like I am now doing with you - I do this with everyone) and to date not one person has been able to substantiate their claims. :(

https://hdwallsbox.com/wallpapers/l...xt-bees-i-want-to-believe-1920x1080-73373.jpg
 
Surely a 55% death rate per year means that there are only bees outside apiaries because of escapees from apiaries, if there were no escaped swarms from apiaries then this "wild" population would die out!

If wild colonies swarm at least once per year (which seems an underestimate, if anything), then a 55% death rate would imply more like a stable population, than a collapsing population, wouldn't it?

Indeed, anything less than a 50% death rate would lead to there being wall to wall honeybees quite quickly, no?

We know from Seeley's work, and others, that the life of honeybees in wild settings (whether they are escapees from managed hives or not) is characterised by small nests (dictated by small cavities), thus high swarming rates, and thus high mortality rates.
 
Any bee with high swarming rates,small nests and high mortality is surely unsuited to human adoption as keeping it must be unrewarding. Unless you think catching your own swarms is rewarding?
 
Any bee with high swarming rates,small nests and high mortality is surely unsuited to human adoption as keeping it must be unrewarding. Unless you think catching your own swarms is rewarding?

I think you've misunderstood me.

Bee nests in the wild are smaller than managed hives because that's what's available. Not many tree cavities are the size of a triple national deep, and nor can tree hollows be magically expanded by the addition of supers.

The smallness of the available cavities naturally means they swarm more. Not because they are "swarmy", just because they have to.

Swarms have a high mortality rate, especially in the wild (where they don't have a nice beekeeper to feed them and treat them), so naturally the net result of all this is that "wild bees" appear to be swarmy, with a high mortality rate. But that argument confuses cause and effect.
 
Last edited:
I think you've misunderstood me.

Bee nests in the wild are smaller than managed hives because that's what's available. Not many tree cavities are the size of a triple national deep, and nor can tree hollows be magically expanded by the addition of supers.

The smallness of the available cavities naturally means they swarm more. Not because they are "swarmy", just because they have to.

Swarms have a high mortality rate, especially in the wild (where they don't have a nice beekeeper to feed them and treat them), so naturally the net result of all this is that "wild bees" appear to be swarmy, with a high mortality rate. But that argument confuses cause and effect.
Cause: need to swarm. Effect: bees swarm
Therefore breeding bees to be swarmy.


I'll take my coat :cool:
Of course if you disagree, then ignore all theories of evolution.
 
Cause: need to swarm. Effect: bees swarm
Therefore breeding bees to be swarmy.


I'll take my coat :cool:
Of course if you disagree, then ignore all theories of evolution.

Are people who live in tiny flats, and may therefore have to move when their family grows, genetically different to people who are lucky enough to live in houses, and thus can stay where they are?

Does evolution make the former more fecund over time?
 
Cause: need to swarm. Effect: bees swarm
Therefore breeding bees to be swarmy.


I'll take my coat :cool:
Of course if you disagree, then ignore all theories of evolution.

Let me put it another way.

This season you will no doubt lose a swarm, like we all do. Your (presumably) non-swarmy bees will move into a tree cavity or suchlike. Because the cavity is smaller than the hive you provided, they will be more likely to swarm in future. Have they now become "swarmy" bees?
 
Let me put it another way.

This season you will no doubt lose a swarm, like we all do. Your (presumably) non-swarmy bees will move into a tree cavity or suchlike. Because the cavity is smaller than the hive you provided, they will be more likely to swarm in future. Have they now become "swarmy" bees?


On average one out of my six main colonies swarm every year. That by my standards is not swarmy. My bees measure cavities as bees do - and tend to end up in the roofspace of a local large building - like a church or school..- I don't know and would deny it anyway:mad:
 
I'm not sure how to respond to that, except mathematics isn't your thing is it?

It's very simple (at least when you read my whole post rather than just quoting part of a sentence out of context).

10 colonies are observed in August
50% death rate over winter
5 colonies remain
All 5 swarm successfully once during summer (an underestimate, but anyway)
Now you have 10 colonies again the next August
Repeat

All clear?
 

Latest posts

Back
Top