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.

 

[Big ears]

Thank you. Hoping to get my first colony in April. Will update when they arrive.

 

[Lislarybees]

Hi Big ears, good luck with your first step into keeping native black bees. Have you found it easy to source a colony?

 

[Big ears]

Hi Big ears, good luck with your first step into keeping native black bees. Have you found it easy to source a colony?

Took some searching but luckily I found the chairman of the Cornish black bee association

 

[Swarm]

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/british-black-bee.51904/I posted the link above as there were some interesting points brought up.

Start counting the weeks and use your time to prepare for their arrival. Do you have a good apiary site with room for expansion?

 

[Lislarybees]

Took some searching but luckily I found the chairman of the Cornish black bee association

Best of luck with them! Exciting season ahead

 

[Lislarybees]

I thought these videos might be interesting viewing for anyone interested in the most up to date genetic studies of Amm populations in the UK. Good news for Cornish beekeepers - concerted breeding efforts look to have made an impact on the level of purity there in just the three years from 2015 - 2018. Should be even better now.



For Wales specifically



And Ireland

 

[Big ears]

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/british-black-bee.51904/I posted the link above as there were some interesting points brought up.

Start counting the weeks and use your time to prepare for their arrival. Do you have a good apiary site with room for expansion?

Thanks. Yes can expand on the site to fur or five hives which would be my maximum

 

[Swarm]

Thanks for the links Lislarybees.
I had some long chats with Peter Little about the breeding program he was involved with, it sounded really interesting.

 

[Swarm]

Thanks. Yes can expand on the site to fur or five hives which would be my maximum

A good site is a premium, I've had some that proved to be poor and others that were not worth the hassle involved. Our best site by far is the farm and I consider myself truly blessed as the landowner is the kindest, most genuine man I've ever met.
The farm belonged to his Grandfather before he acquired it in 1978. There used to be a small colliery onsite that closed in 1905, the shaft and winding gear would have been about 200 yards from the farm house. Nowadays it's mainly pasture with countless hedges and wooded areas, early forage from the Willow and a 32 acre field of Dandelions on the hill behind. The outlook is beautiful.
The bees had always been on the farm but I wasn't aware. When I went to ask about an apiary site, he showed me the hives in his garden so I apologised and was ready to leave but he was having none of it. We found a great spot which has since grown and expanded, we also transferred the hives from his garden. He refuses to accept anything as rent and we split the bill for kit, so come the sales, I buy the stuff and forget to mention some of it
I Have some spare boxes but need a few more to finish replacing his ancient brood boxes. Left half the bottom rail behind when lifting one hive this year.
I would say the apiary is now a bit too big, albeit due to over Wintering nucs, we need to consider moving maybe half of the hives to a new site and free up some stand space but the farm will still be used for mating nucs.
Apart from two episodes over the years, the bees have remained (or reverted back to) a black bee. We had good results from the samples we had checked and I see the same behaviour/characteristics when compared with our Amm colonies but they consistently recorded lower varroa drops.
I'd be interested to hear how you get on. All our Amm queens produced quiet, productive bees.
Native queens from Ceri (mbc) produce some especially gentle bees. Far from runny, these little darlings need to be encouraged to move on the comb.
My friend tried a Cornish queen a few years ago but she was superseded.

 

[Lislarybees]

A good site is a premium, I've had some that proved to be poor and others that were not worth the hassle involved. Our best site by far is the farm and I consider myself truly blessed as the landowner is the kindest, most genuine man I've ever met.
The farm belonged to his Grandfather before he acquired it in 1978. There used to be a small colliery onsite that closed in 1905, the shaft and winding gear would have been about 200 yards from the farm house. Nowadays it's mainly pasture with countless hedges and wooded areas, early forage from the Willow and a 32 acre field of Dandelions on the hill behind. The outlook is beautiful.
The bees had always been on the farm but I wasn't aware. When I went to ask about an apiary site, he showed me the hives in his garden so I apologised and was ready to leave but he was having none of it. We found a great spot which has since grown and expanded, we also transferred the hives from his garden. He refuses to accept anything as rent and we split the bill for kit, so come the sales, I buy the stuff and forget to mention some of it
I Have some spare boxes but need a few more to finish replacing his ancient brood boxes. Left half the bottom rail behind when lifting one hive this year.
I would say the apiary is now a bit too big, albeit due to over Wintering nucs, we need to consider moving maybe half of the hives to a new site and free up some stand space but the farm will still be used for mating nucs.
Apart from two episodes over the years, the bees have remained (or reverted back to) a black bee. We had good results from the samples we had checked and I see the same behaviour/characteristics when compared with our Amm colonies but they consistently recorded lower varroa drops.
I'd be interested to hear how you get on. All our Amm queens produced quiet, productive bees.
Native queens from Ceri (mbc) produce some especially gentle bees. Far from runny, these little darlings need to be encouraged to move on the comb.
My friend tried a Cornish queen a few years ago but she was superseded.

Your apiary sounds wonderful! Great history to it too.

 

[Lislarybees]

Thanks. Yes can expand on the site to fur or five hives which would be my maximum

A quick and fun way to expand your colonies quickly if you find the right locations is to set swarm traps. If you follow the instructions in this link closely you have every chance of success

https://horizontalhive.com/honeybee-swarm-trap/bait-hive-how-to-catch.shtml
I caught ten swarms last year and didn't even try too hard - that was with two/three traps in two different locations. I then re-queen them with pure Amm a bit later in the season.

 

[mbc]

Enjoyable ramble by Joe Widdecombe about some of their process.

 

[Swarm]

Thanks Ceri.
I certainly think it's the most interesting and enjoyable route. The hardest part is getting people to give them a chance.
I've three other beekeepers practically on my doorstep, none of them are going to commit to the rinse and repeat cycle. Gift out some queens and suddenly there is a eureka moment. I'm really looking forward to this year, at the last meeting our association had, there was a lot of interest in raising our own queens.

 

[rolande]

Enjoyable ramble by Joe Widdecombe about some of their process.

Thanks for posting this, I did start to listen when it was released yesterday, but I stopped, and despite thinking that I'd give it another go over the weekend I doubt that I would have without your prompt.

One of the things he mentioned was his selection grading, 1 - 5, a commonly used method. We use a 0-2 format. I'm not saying this is better than1-5 but if does reduce blurred lines which I think can happen with additional incremental marks.

 

[rolande]

A couple of years ago I acquired a small sales pamphlet which while undated I estimate to have been published c1909, an estimation based on the dates of the testimonials from previous purchasers.

 

[mbc]

Thanks for posting this, I did start to listen when it was released yesterday, but I stopped, and despite thinking that I'd give it another go over the weekend I doubt that I would have without your prompt.

One of the things he mentioned was his selection grading, 1 - 5, a commonly used method. We use a 0-2 format. I'm not saying this is better than1-5 but if does reduce blurred lines which I think can happen with additional incremental marks.

Lots in his talk reminded me of how things developed with us, but as with a lot of black bee men, he's short on the details.
One of the selection procedures he doesn’t mention in this talk (unless it was where I drifted off, easy to do!) is that he hatches his virgins in the incubator and discards any that don't look pleasing ie. not the right colour.
Simple measures like this have allowed him to "purify " his stock to remarkable degrees.

Where he talks of running a breeding program concurrently with selling queens leading to anxiety you're letting some of your best stock leave the program is bang on, it's always a nagging worry.

 

[rolande]

One of the selection procedures he doesn’t mention in this talk (unless it was where I drifted off, easy to do!) is that he hatches his virgins in the incubator and discards any that don't look pleasing ie. not the right colour.
Simple measures like this have allowed him to "purify " his stock to remarkable degrees.

According to Lesley Bill's 'For the Love of Bees' Br. Adam was using the same method to standardise the colour of his strains.

 

[Jo Widdicombe]

Just to clarify. Yes I understand Br Adam did select his queen's by their appearance but I do not. I do not dispose of queens because of their colour. I assess them on the characteristics of their offspring. If offspring of uniform native appearance, I assume that the queen has mated within the strain. If offspring of mixed appearance I assume queen has mated with drones of various strains. Working within a strain is important to me as I believe that is the way to get consistency, that is the bees breed true, something that cannot be achieved from hybridised stock.
JW

 

[Curly green finger's]

Just to clarify. Yes I understand Br Adam did select his queen's by their appearance but I do not. I do not dispose of queens because of their colour. I assess them on the characteristics of their offspring. If offspring of uniform native appearance, I assume that the queen has mated within the strain. If offspring of mixed appearance I assume queen has mated with drones of various strains. Working within a strain is important to me as I believe that is the way to get consistency, that is the bees breed true, something that cannot be achieved from hybridised stock.
JW

Interesting you say that some of my hybrid stock have produced more honey than the purer stocks.
Do you consider this also keeping stocks for honey production and stocks to rear from?
Or are you just looking for stocks to rear from that are purer.
I wonder, the purer stocks get do you start to loose other traits like honey production?
What are your findings thanks
Mark.