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.

 

[Swarm]

A couple of grafted queens in their new colonies. These from a good calm second generation queen of local stock, with hopefully a bit of influence from John Geddes queens producing drones.

Very nice queens too, stunning in fact. How new are these?

 

[Polymorph]

They emerged 23 days ago and with the good weather are mated and laying. First check yesterday to see progress. Not all worked this well, one didn't emerge and one didn't return, but got 4 others. Learn a bit each time.

 

[mbc]

Thought I'd drop a few photos of summer on the bee farm here, all my bees are teifi valley natives

 

[Swarm]

You've got a crew Nice fat combs in that super, it looks like you had a bit more than a mediocre season?
Great stuff!!
I had to check for a laying queen today, a grand daughter of one of yours, I hadn't got round to it and then the flow started ..... They are on double brood with a few supers and paid no attention to me as I went through looking for brood. Some very full and capped frames before a wonderful pattern of sealed brood and the chamber below a mass of bees. All fine there then
Added another frame of brood to my wayward queen, better amount of bees in there now. Despite the sunshine, traffic has slowed to a steady stream of workers instead of the desperate rush.
My hands were screaming after pulling the last lot of honey, I've never had supers so heavy. Ain't complaining though.

 

[Big ears]

My AMM ladies enjoying autumn feed of figs that have gone over.

 

[Robinredcar]

Managed to get a picture of her majesty on the last inspection

 

[Polymorph]

Saw this old bee tree on a walk at the weekend. I'm told that there have been bees there for last 4-5 years. Unfortunately phone wasn't good enough to zoom in. Nice to see and hear them.

 

[Swarm]

What an iconic tree, is this far from your apiary? Definitely worth monitoring next year.

I've been so busy with honey that a day with the bees today felt like a day off. Fine and sunny was the forecast it was fine but windy and a bit cold at times, perhaps that was because twenty degrees feels cold after the summer temps.
There was plenty to do, putting clearer boards on the last couple of double broods, the ones that didn't clear last time. I considered the singles as well but on their own, minus the super most are feeling on the light side so they will come off when I have feed ready to go on. I began treatment with the other colonies and every one is bursting with bees and a very healthy weight in comparison with the singles.
Best performing colony is one of our 2021 farm queens, clearer board under the eighth and last super, they are on 183 lbs and pushing hard for a 200 lbs total. Today they had an extra brood box added, dummied to eight frames, six combs and two full honey frames.
Last time at the apiary and again today there is a distinct smell of heather. Last few extracted supers have rings of ling honey in the cells, like blobs of jellied Lucozade. Not enough to fuss over but a mystery as to where they are finding it as I've never seen it in all the years I've had the bees at the farm. I have a suspicion where there might be some but will have to get my friend to investigate with his drone
I got eighty super combs drawn which was nice as I previously lost a few frames to wax moth, now I have people clammering for cut comb There's never been much interest in the past.
My friend recently made some contacts and with a new location for next year is going to give queen rearing another bash.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Saw this old bee tree on a walk at the weekend. I'm told that there have been bees there for last 4-5 years. Unfortunately phone wasn't good enough to zoom in. Nice to see and hear them.

This colony in an old half fallen willow were busy too

 

[Mabee]

We have an established bee tree near us, it’s on a private part of an estate so not too easy to check each year, but took this last year!

 

[E&MBees]

Here’s a picture of my star queen, M. She’s incredibly elusive, haven’t seen her since May despite the 5 day inspections. Today she strolled across the frame. She is the granddaughter of one of Swarm’s queens. Raised and mated at one of my out apiaries. A real beauty!

 

[Swarm]

She is a beauty and did an incredible amount of work for you this year, I hope her daughter turns out the same.

Things are looking very good after a visit to change two dodgy feeders yesterday. A quick heft and I didn't bother topping them up, the hives are all nicely heavy and the bees were piling Balsam in. No pungent Ivy scent yet.

After a disappointing start, abandoning plans for one site and forced downscaling at another, it was a quiet year for queen rearing but a good opportunity to assess the ones raised last year. There were one or two on the mediocre side but on the whole, I am very pleased and I've had probably my easiest year of beekeeping. One colony had charged cells at the end of April and the queen was split, I did two more preemptive splits as we went into May and that was that. I carried on with the five day inspections and the queens sat tight, a mixture of both double and single brood set ups. I had two particular Amm colonies in single broods and they were crammed, the brood combs were thick with bees and I kept seeing good, healthy BIAS and both queens (on most occasions) happily walking around. I found an early stage cell in one, broke it down and added another brood box which they were happy with and no more cells. The other one went through the season in a single box with brood on every frame.
Four colonies drew single cells so I left them to it, they all carried out supersedure except for one that swarmed and landed a few yards behind their hive. A case of putting a nuc next to the little Willow they gathered on and scooping a few handfuls of bees into it, the rest soon followed. An inspection showed two more cells so three in total.
I generally don't take a Spring crop as we can never be sure what the weather will bring and this June was a stark reminder of how quickly fortunes can change. Interesting time to note colony temperament as some lambs turn to lions, yet others remain lambs. With the first few flowers on the Bramble there was almost a sigh of relief.
Then the flow began and what a flow!
I got eighty shallow frames and sixty deep frames drawn and filled which more than makes up for the frames I lost to wax moth.
The honey crop has been astounding, the average per hive is 85.6lbs.
Poorest = 34lbs
Best = Just under 207lbs.
To be fair, five colonies had the deep boxes left on them so a fair amount of honey unaccounted for but I think they will benefit.
After all, they gave me some delicious honey this year. The cut combs in packs are from the same super, it was on eleven frame spacing and the combs were huge.

 

[Nige.Coll]

Nice comb.
isn't one of the traits of AMM raised cappings?

 

[Swarm]

Thanks, yes so they say, something to do with an air gap, they don't do a bad job even on old combs. What struck me this year though was the way the supers were filled, almost like they were enveloping the frames, every one big and fat.
In the last super the honey changed from pale yellow to amber. I was getting five pieces per frame ranging from 8 to 9 ozs and a pound in run off and bits.

 

[Do224]

How do you know if your bees are AMM or not? Mine are pretty dark and the queens are also dark. I don’t know their provenance as they just arrived in my bait hive. Would it be fair to describe them as AMM or not?

 

[Erichalfbee]

DNA analysis.
As Swarm has said elsewhere. There are a lot of black bees.

 

[mbc]

How do you know if your bees are AMM or not? Mine are pretty dark and the queens are also dark. I don’t know their provenance as they just arrived in my bait hive. Would it be fair to describe them as AMM or not?

View attachment 33860

Difficult to say from a photo but my money would be on near native

 

[elainemary]

How do you know if your bees are AMM or not? Mine are pretty dark and the queens are also dark. I don’t know their provenance as they just arrived in my bait hive. Would it be fair to describe them as AMM or not?

View attachment 33860

From wing morphology (angles of the veins) different sub species have different angles
Here’s a u-tube video from one of the experts on the subject. He has software you can download, capture the wings (need about 20 bee samples) on camera and use the software. Gave a Bibba talk on the subject last year



Ruttner also created standard morphometry using 36 measurements of various body parts, wing length and width
There are 19 ‘landmarks’ on the forewing, can analyse this by translation, scaling and rotation.
Point 14 is said to be a key one.

 

[Do224]

From wing morphology (angles of the veins) different sub species have different angles
Here’s a u-tube video from one of the experts on the subject. He has software you can download, capture the wings (need about 20 bee samples) on camera and use the software. Gave a Bibba talk on the subject last year



Ruttner also created standard morphometry using 36 measurements of various body parts, wing length and width
There are 19 ‘landmarks’ on the forewing, can analyse this by translation, scaling and rotation.
Point 14 is said to be a key one.

View attachment 33877

Fascinating, thanks!

 

[Erichalfbee]

From wing morphology

Is that accurate enough these days?