B4 is raising £800 by crowdfunding.

[For want of a better word]

What ratio of drone colonies to virgins do you consider necessary ?

Just about as many as you can get!

Have 50+ full colonies within our open mating area ( a deep isolated valley)

Stripey queens are removed and drone comb culled if a colony should present as such.... and requeened withe possibly better stock
Early days as my own Amm efforts have only been over the past five seasons... however the localised mating ( even apiary vicinity mating) are proving promising... with the DNA tests that I have managed to get done showing very small levels of introgression ( Full Nuclear DNA)

About 20 miles north of Rame so NOT Mt Edgecumbe as depicted in the Contryfile epic!!

Recent paper shows that this methodology has been successful in Switzerland and France
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/age.12599/full

Yeghes da

 

[B+.]

Just about as many as you can get!

Have 50+ full colonies within our open mating area ( a deep isolated valley)

are the drone mothers related?

 

[yeogi75]

where do you get your fresh lines from for breeding ,or is it from the lines you already have, and what about inbreeding how do you stop that I have amms and have to bring in fresh lines other wise they would slowly diminish in breeding stock, shame the project manager couldn't have more input to remove mistakes, im sure if they had more input we would not have seen what we did, orange in the stock photos , and when was they put into the hives they looked quite fresh to me, a lack of proper reporting throws up threads like this still good luck to them.

 

[For want of a better word]

are the drone mothers related?

I try to maintain different lines without bringing in Amm bees from outside of Cornwall. Our initial DNA studies showed a ( Microsatellite) difference within the community in Cornwall with a distinct North West to South East divide, but also to be different from Colonsay, N Irish/Eire, Manx and Finnistere bees, but closer to those in Northumberland. Statistical analysis of patrilines?

Drone mothers and possibly even Grandfathers a probably distantly related... no signs of inbreeding, I do not know the number of sex alleles involved within the population... will ask the University of Plymouth bee research PhD student to put it on her list of questions to be answered!

Yeghes da