Apis mellifera mellifera

[mbc]

"he London dark bees on a certain online auction site"

the seller of said item claims provenance based on the fact the parent colonies were sold by the proprietor of said auction site.

anyone know anything about B4B BBBs/AMM???? (i note that there is now a listing for some more of them direct from the bossman).

Thats no provenance at all, surely even the morph doubters on this thread realise that the imperfect science of morphometry used to establish the origin of bees is much stronger as a technique than someone saying " the guy I bought them from said they were...."

FWIW I dont think the borders by Shropshire are a particular AMM stronghold. For a start there are many commercial outfits operating in the area flooding the air with Cypriot/Hawaian/Slovenian drones.
But I may be wrong and there could be pockets

 

[susbees]

Thats no provenance at all, surely even the morph doubters on this thread realise that the imperfect science of morphometry used to establish the origin of bees is much stronger as a technique than someone saying " the guy I bought them from said they were...."

Quite so.

FWIW I dont think the borders by Shropshire are a particular AMM stronghold. For a start there are many commercial outfits operating in the area flooding the air with Cypriot/Hawaian/Slovenian drones.
But I may be wrong and there could be pockets

Not around here they're not. Our BKA breeding programme is sourcing as close as we can get to Amm on behaviour and morph and will use II for all breeding from next Spring. So yes you're right in a way...too many Carnies south of us and too many violent bees. Logistical nightmare and getting enough starter stock grafted has not and is not easy, but better than suck it and see requeening giving iffy hybrids. And no imported stock.

 

[mbc]

Da iawn susbees, if you need some help sourcing more amm to avoid any inbreeding then pm me.
Good luck with the II its abloody fiddle

 

[susbees]

Diolch mbc. I'll drop you a line.

 

[Blodwen Price]

I couldn't help noticing that a bee based auction site has Welsh queens for sale, are these near you susbees?

 

[oliver90owner]

Welsh queens for sale

Would they be native or naturalised?

Or do they hum/buzz in Welsh?

RAB

 

[Crg]

That's simply not the case.

Which bit are you disagreeing with?

 

[Crg]

It would appear that BIBBA still have faith in wing measurements as per their DL page.

http://www.bibba.com/downloads.php

As has been pointed out many times before it's unreliable. There are many papers, I've sent you links to them many times before.
A few seconds on google pulls up this one for example - and a quick look at page five shows Longford's morphology matches AMM, but if you look further, it has a lot of ligustica mitocondria.

If you had bees from Queenstown and you wanted to breed pure AMM, and sourced more bees from Longford because you'd measured them and they looked right - you'd actually be diluting the purity of AMM in the bees you had.

Not rocket science.

It's clear that if you are only selecting on measurements and swapping queens between supposedly AMM populations, you could be diluting some populations and making them less pure.

If people just want bees that look right, they should just stop pretending they're preserving AMM and breed the look into a strain of Buckfast bees.
At least they'll be nicer to work with, and ultimately probably just as pure as what people will end up with if they don't DNA test their breeding populations.

 

[Poly Hive]

Try and get your head round this.

I fully agree that DNA is the way to go.

If I were a very rich person I would peruse that route happily.

However I am not. And so I use the tools I can afford. also the tools that the "governing body" recommend. More than that I really cannot do so please?

Give the DNA rabbit a rest. Especially as it seems you have in reality no interest in AMM as a bee at all and most likely have never even met one.

PH

 

[Crg]

Give the DNA rabbit a rest.

As soon as you give the measuring nonsense a rest I will.

Especially as it seems you have in reality no interest in AMM as a bee at all and most likely have never even met one.

You obviously have no interest in AMM either, just interested in a certain looking bee and pretending that it's AMM. Whether I've met an AMM bee or not is irrelevant.

 

[Anteis]

To all those who might be interested into mellifera mellifera,
there are pure lines of our black bee.
They are located in Belgium and Sweden mainly. The results were not obtained by only looking at the wings, DNA tests testify that our black bees are .... black bees, that simple. So people wishing to breed amm can now do it easily.
If you want some from Belgium go to , if you want some from Sweden, get in touch with the Project Nordbi, or contact me in 2013 if you wish mated queens.
Best regards

 

[REDWOOD]

Is it possable that a few photos of bees showing the different types as I have a very dark bee almost all black and don't know what type they are.

 

[mbc]

To all those who might be interested into mellifera mellifera,
there are pure lines of our black bee.
They are located in Belgium and Sweden mainly. The results were not obtained by only looking at the wings, DNA tests testify that our black bees are .... black bees, that simple. So people wishing to breed amm can now do it easily.
If you want some from Belgium go to , if you want some from Sweden, get in touch with the Project Nordbi, or contact me in 2013 if you wish mated queens.
Best regards

FWIW I dont think importing AMM from Belgium or Sweden is any better than importing buckfasts or Italians or carniolans from NZ or Cyprus etc.
The relevant point being imports present a disease introduction risk and the genes these bees carry are not indigenous

 

[Poly Hive]

mbc?

There were huge imports in the 50's of packges from France and the Low countries.


PH

 

[mbc]

mbc?

There were huge imports in the 50's of packges from France and the Low countries.


PH

Poly Hive?
I know.
Point being ?

 

[For want of a better word]

For an island we seem to have an incredible mix of bee genes
But surely the fittest for a given area / environment / ecosystem will survive ?
That is why the Neanderthals died out.... or did they?

Is there a "Neanderthal Bee" surviving in Cornwall ??

 

[keith pierce]

Is it possable that a few photos of bees showing the different types as I have a very dark bee almost all black and don't know what type they are.

My apis meliffera meliffera




Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[For want of a better word]

Look just like our "local bees" !!

 

[REDWOOD]

Thanks Keith looks exactly like a swarm I picked up this year with a virgin queen, after 4 weeks they swarmed and look like they have settled down, great honey producers fast build up quiet bees, see what happens next year!!!

 

[REDWOOD]

Hi, posting some pics, What do you think, could they be the same?