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.

 

[user 20297]

A very interesting presentation by Colm O'Neill

I watched that a few weeks ago. Colm seems very experienced and knowledgeable (if not a little smug).
His basic approach is quite simple but clever, but taken altogether, he's a bit too interventionist for me.

 

[drex]

Surprised he has time for all those manipulations, after all he is not a hobbyist, but i will try his idea on a couple of double BB 's

 

[deemann1]

I know colm . he can be a little blunt and gets to the point but he knows his bees .. he has a good queen rearing operation with great genetics nice gentle bees .

 

[user 20297]

Surprised he has time for all those manipulations, after all he is not a hobbyist, but i will try his idea on a couple of double BB 's

Same here....

 

[Swarm]

I know colm . he can be a little blunt and gets to the point but he knows his bees .. he has a good queen rearing operation with great genetics nice gentle bees .

As in 'no beekeeper should be complaining about the weight of boxes, he should be bragging'

 

[Polymorph]

The National Honey Show have also just published Grace McCormack and 'What we can learn from wild living bees'. Interesting video and well worth a look. She also covers the Blenheim bees and the results of both genetic and morphometrics. It does show that the bees are heavily hybridised from the limited sample taken and mostly Carnica, which seems a disppointing outcome for Phillipe. Anyway far more information in the video which will no doubt please and offend, depending on viewpoint.

 

[Swarm]

Surprised he has time for all those manipulations, after all he is not a hobbyist, but i will try his idea on a couple of double BB 's

I was interested in his findings with the brood nests being 16 - 18 brooded combs which is very similar to what I'm seeing, though mine are configured differently. I liked the logic behind his comb rotation as a means to filter out the old stuff, most of mine are doubles but I've never contained the queen in the lower box.

 

[buffon]

It does show that the bees are heavily hybridised from the limited sample taken and mostly Carnica

From the videos I've seen (e.g. ) I'd have guessed Carnica. I'm by no means an expert, but I think the bands are too white/light in colour for AMM. It's something I struggle to judge as they do seem to change colour with the ambient light. The closeup photos I took that are on the previous page seem to have enhanced the tan/brown colour.

 

[Swarm]

Lighting is an issue, I agree and close ups even more so.
Let's be honest, expecting those bees to be anything other than a mixture was wishful thinking at best.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Let's be honest, expecting those bees to be anything other than a mixture was wishful thinking at best.

but hey, to be honest telling us any other story was not going to rake in any funding money. anything else was but dwelling in fantasy land

 

[user 20297]

A very interesting presentation by Colm O'Neill

Many folk would consider her to be very partisan considering that she regularly uses scientific studies to illustrate or substantiate her point of view. Whilst I like to hear her positive opinions and upbeat prognoses for the existence and perpetuation of native or near-native bees, I'm sure that many beekeepers would consider her to be a bit "gung-ho" in her lack of fear, for instance, that swarms bring diseases. She claims that kept bees rely on the influx of feral bees for their own resilience and plays down the claims or intentional hints that were around that the Blenheim bees were of native stock.

For me, it's great to hear such positivity and encouragement for amateur beekeepers to be aware that they have different priorities from the commercial beekeepers and that that needn't be negative for anyone. She's a very good speaker and this is well worth watching.

 

[pevanstone]

but hey, to be honest telling us any other story was not going to rake in any funding money. anything else was but dwelling in fantasy land

I do like your little chap,he cheers me up after Christmas

 

[Erichalfbee]

I do like your little chap,he cheers me up after Christmas

I hope you mean the
There's plenty more in the menu

 

[Ian123]

Many folk would consider her to be very partisan considering that she regularly uses scientific studies to illustrate or substantiate her point of view. Whilst I like to hear her positive opinions and upbeat prognoses for the existence and perpetuation of native or near-native bees, I'm sure that many beekeepers would consider her to be a bit "gung-ho" in her lack of fear, for instance, that swarms bring diseases. She claims that kept bees rely on the influx of feral bees for their own resilience and plays down the claims or intentional hints that were around that the Blenheim bees were of native stock.

For me, it's great to hear such positivity and encouragement for amateur beekeepers to be aware that they have different priorities from the commercial beekeepers and that that needn't be negative for anyone. She's a very good speaker and this is well worth watching.

She did appear to suggest the press got a little excited.. I’m not sure I’d go with that, there were many quotes from Phil I don’t think any got denied, and I suppose you don’t have to give them any storey if you don’t want to. I also doubt the press got an anonymous tip regarding these “separate eco type bees” Someone obviously went to them with the fairy tale………sorry I mean storey in the first place.

I wonder if she’s also open to the idea of kept hives topping up feral populations. In particular with all these VSH queens commercially available/imported.…..ok I’m teasing.

 

[Beesnaturally]

Many folk would consider her to be very partisan considering that she regularly uses scientific studies to illustrate or substantiate her point of view.

I've never heard it put quite like that before, and find it somewhat alarming! The postmodern approach to knowledge?

""She claims that kept bees rely on the influx of feral bees for their own resilience."

That's both scientific and standard traditional evidence-based (time tested) husbandry wisdom. Strains that have risen through natural selection to dominate a locality will thrash feeble imported bees as soon as you take the medicine and mollycoddling away.

That of course is assuming such strains have been allowed space to adapt to present predators.

I would be (am) very uncomfortable with the idea that such thinking is 'partisan'.

 

[user 20297]

I've never heard it put quite like that before, and find it somewhat alarming! The postmodern approach to knowledge?

""She claims that kept bees rely on the influx of feral bees for their own resilience."

That's both scientific and standard traditional evidence-based (time tested) husbandry wisdom. Strains that have risen through natural selection to dominate a locality will thrash feeble imported bees as soon as you take the medicine and mollycoddling away.

That of course is assuming such strains have been allowed space to adapt to present predators.

I would be (am) very uncomfortable with the idea that such thinking is 'partisan'.

My summary was written in a form that was intended to be non-partisan in itself. By blindly applauding and echoing what came out of her talk I didn't want to provide kindling for the subsequent, raging wildfire of argument that often follows on this forum.

What I think that I accurately observed is that Grace operates on the assumption that the existence of truly wild honeybees in the UK is a fact, that this population is healthy and that it presents no threat to managed bees and that rather, it is to their benefit. She sems to be of the view that maintenance of the "purity" of "black" bees is very important and that imported, managed bees are a threat to that purity. You and I and many other beekeepers may agree with some or all of that, but I think it is fair to say that by examining facts and collating her own anecdotally derived data, she appears to want to prove these things to be true; I'm not sure that is a a properly scientific approach.

I would be equally cautious in my appraisal of a scientist who approached the same subject and whose background indicated that they wanted to prove all this adapted, native bee stuff to be a load of nonsense.

As far as I can make out, every beekeeper comes with a load of "baggage"; my own weighs heavy with a wish to lets bees be. But I won't ever get so stuck on one set of viewpoints that I become polarised and confrontational on the matter of how people must keep their bees or what bees they must keep or not keep.

 

[fian]

The question is that we understand by native, or in generational terms, how long does it take (successive queen generations) for a race to adapt to a local environment? And especially taking into account that this local area may undergo modifications?
Now we analyze the implications that the introduction of another race would have. The % of hybridization and the adaptation of the new race against the existing one?
Finally, there is the fact of associating a phenotype (external color) with a breed without including or understanding the effects of genetic dominance.
The AMM was the last evolutionary wave to establish itself in Europe (without human intervention) and therefore the most homogeneous in temporal terms. This also makes it the most modular since it is less set at the regional/local level.
Related to this is the fact that buckfast (hydrid of mellifica and ligustica) poses a greater risk to maintain stable populations of AMM genetics.
The first thing that the various associations should establish is the expansion of the buckfast from the abbey to the rest of the island.

 

[Beesnaturally]

The National Honey Show have also just published Grace McCormack and 'What we can learn from wild living bees'. Interesting video and well worth a look. She also covers the Blenheim bees and the results of both genetic and morphometrics. It does show that the bees are heavily hybridised from the limited sample taken and mostly Carnica, which seems a disppointing outcome for Phillipe. Anyway far more information in the video which will no doubt please and offend, depending on viewpoint.

Brilliant, very heartening indeed. Yes Beebe , she is emotionally attached to the project - but most scientists are driven by a love of their topic. She absolutely knows and carefully distinguished between evidenced features and theories. I'm going to try to get some of my bees to her for dna analysis. Thank you for posting.

 

[Beesnaturally]

Lighting is an issue, I agree and close ups even more so.
Let's be honest, expecting those bees to be anything other than a mixture was wishful thinking at best.

Yes, and yet... given time an adapting isolated population will become more and more uniform, taking those alleles most helpful and slowing dropping out those not. It will be the local conditions that govern that process, the local environments. It is not implausible at all to think that strong remnants of native Amm have remained in the feral populations all over the uk, and that a great deal of their dna has played a strong role in the growth of resistance leading to the return of 'ferals' - in reality for a long time a mix of Amm and imports. In most places no pure Amms have been seen for a long time - but that doesn't mean the much of their dna hasn't been preserved in the free-living populations. As Grace says: most free-living populations seem to be darkening - and I would say that is a strong sign of the Amm component re-asserting itself.

 

[Ian123]

The first thing that the various associations should establish is the expansion of the buckfast from the abbey to the rest of the island.

Hi Fian there is no expansion from the Abbey, the Abbey itself stopped producing Buckfasts many years ago. Nor even at that time were they widely available. After brother Adam’s death there was a number of beekeepers who took over but none appeared to have the skill to continue his work. After time the Abbey cut its losses and sold on the Buckfast brand/materials/rights to various breeders mainly in Europe. I’m pretty sure Pete Little said he had some of the original lines?….There is a registered breeding group for Buckfasts breeders who breed along the buckfast line or ideals and obviously share and pass breeders/ lines. There are very few actual breeders in the UK, and even fewer proper Buckfast breeders. Most UK Buckfasts commercially available are simply F1 queens reared from buckfast breeder Queens supplied by European breeders.

Buckfasts are very popular with commercial and hobby beeks in the UK and in recent years account for a fair number of imports. The fact that Good breeder queens are also available to anyone means that they are widely used by smaller scale breeders.
Much the same can also be said about the various Carnica groups.