Apis mellifera mellifera

[Hivemaker.]

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

There is one quite large queen producer for sure, near Ludlow,mainly Carni and Buckfast mix.

 

[Finman]

.
Carni has its place but Italian is the best. It is good, but bad to swarm.
It collected the same yield because the yield comes from pastures.
It has early build up because it restore pollen over winter. With patty feeding Italian have exactly the same build up.

Carni strains are many. Some are really bad to handle.

yes, when we had AMMs 25 years ago, they were quick to mate. They were everywhere.

They we worse to handle than varroa. Thanks to heaven, varroa killed them all in few years.

 

[keith pierce]

This is what they should be looking like. No yellow bands on the workers and a darker looking queen

 

[Finman]

Their qualities are:

* significant winter hardiness
* low tendency to swarm
* some lines are very gentle
* defensive against invaders i.e. wasps
* careful, maritime brood cycle
* strong drive to collect pollen
* high longevity of the worker bees and queen
* excellent flight strength even in cold weather
* possibly hardiness against varroa.

Apis mellifera mellifera is no longer a significant commercial subspecies of the Western honey bee, but there are a number of dedicated hobbyist beekeepers that keep these bees in Europe).

That quality list is more hopes than facts.

The British moved Europen Black bees to every continent where they went. But now no one use that Black Beauty in commercial beekeeping on those continents.

It was most common bee in Finland but varroa killed that race in couple of years when mite arrived to the district.

I nursed 30 years MM crossings. I have nothing good to say about it.

But as far as I know, no one made selective breeding among Blacks. They lived quite succesfully in nature but vanished quickly with the help of varroa.

When that Black Devil vanished, some Finnish beekeepers founded mellifera mellifera society. But too late.

I have not seen that bug during last 24 years.

.

 

[victor meldrew]

That quality list is more hopes than facts.

The British moved Europen Black bees to every continent where they went. But now no one use that Black Beauty in commercial beekeeping on those continents.

It was most common bee in Finland but varroa killed that race in couple of years when mite arrived to the district.

I nursed 30 years MM crossings. I have nothing good to say about it.

But as far as I know, no one made selective breeding among Blacks. They lived quite succesfully in nature but vanished quickly with the help of varroa.

When that Black Devil vanished, some Finnish beekeepers founded mellifera mellifera society. But too late.

I have not seen that bug during last 24 years.

.

Brother Adam was no fan of AMM .
I have mongrel bees which are a pleasure to handle . The occasional stroppy colony is culled drones and all !
VM

 

[Robbie & Jans Bees]

Amm

I go back to an early thread its about the health of your bees not the type a good strong queen, plenty of eggs, not aggressive nice to work with? if my dark bees are like this then I should breed from them (Shouldn’t I )

 

[Bob Bee]

I go back to an early thread its about the health of your bees not the type a good strong queen, plenty of eggs, not aggressive nice to work with? if my dark bees are like this then I should breed from them (Shouldn’t I )

absolutely.

 

[Tdf]

dont want to start off the argument about amm again but came across this
http://www.gbbg.net/nativeversusbuckfast.html
semms to support amm is better where you have high rainfall like over here in ireland

 

[REDWOOD]

Do you know what size brood boxes where used

 

[PBee]

dont want to start off the argument about amm again but came across this
http://www.gbbg.net/nativeversusbuckfast.html
semms to support amm is better where you have high rainfall like over here in ireland

In my experience good Buckfast strains are easier to work in all weathers and productivity depends on the management system. Working with Amm is slow because of their defensiveness and lack of stability and its much more pleasant not to have to be encased in a veil etc for the majority of inspections.

 

[For want of a better word]

In my experience good ?????? strains are easier to work in all weathers and productivity depends on the management system.

much the same for any bee in reality... but then I have Two collie dogs !!!

 

[PBee]

In my experience good ?????? strains are easier to work in all weathers and productivity depends on the management system.

much the same for any bee in reality... but then I have Two collie dogs !!!

In my experience not the same for Amm as sold to me. Buckfast is obviously a hybrid so can depend on the breeder but temper and steadiness are usually in a different league to Amm as I have encountered them.

 

[Tdf]

Do you know what size brood boxes where used

commercials

 

[REDWOOD]

commercials

Someone told me you can tell if they are AMM by the wings but I don't know what to look for, anyone know ?

 

[drstitson]

look up wing morphometry.

 

[REDWOOD]

look up wing morphometry.

Thank you drstitson, I will read this paper the weekend;
http://www.cyf-kr.edu.pl/~rotofils/tofilski2008_apidologie.pdf
It looks very interesting

 

[dilys]

There's a bit about it on Dave Cushman's site:

http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/wingmeasurement.html

http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/morphometry.html

You will probably find a lot more stuff that is easier to follow than Tolfilski's report

Dilys

 

[REDWOOD]

There's a bit about it on Dave Cushman's site:

http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/wingmeasurement.html

http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/morphometry.html

You will probably find a lot more stuff that is easier to follow than Tolfilski's report

Dilys

Thanks dilys

 

[QueenMaster]

Hi,

There is a free webservice called "Apiclass" to recognize bee race and % of species according to wing morphometry.

It's a free service from French Natural History Museum, it's in french.
You can use Google Translate if necessary.

You have to scan a wing, post it and voilà !

apiclass.mnhn.fr

Cheers,

 

[thibault]

Bought a AMM queen last year from Jonathan Getty I think from Ireland for a split, I am very pleased with the offspring, not aggressive at all so far, they fly at low temperature and started to gather plenty of pollen quite early (February).

They overwintered perfectly in a 14x12 poly nuc, lot of stores left, I have added a deep on top last sunday as they were covering the 5 frames and starting to build burr comb under the top cover, I'll will see how they behave this season, but so far very happy with them.

The funny thing is that I have carnolians in a national hive and I found them quite aggressive, maybe a queen issue.

I made the nuc from 3 frames, 1 of brood, 2 of stores, and I did it in September, they did work hard (I helped them with syrup )