BIBBA Regional meeting In February

[Bob Bee]

http://bipco.co.uk/events.html



4th Annual Bee Improvement Day
To be held at Dobwalls Memorial Hall, Higher Meadow, Dobwalls,
near Liskeard, Cornwall PL14 6LS
on Saturday 7th February 2015
at 9.00am for 9.30 start
until 4.00pm
Guest Speaker: Harry Owens from The Isle of Man
plus local speakers

A BIBBA Southwest Event
Entrance is £15 on the door or £10 if you register your interest prior to the event by emailing: [email protected]
or notifying: J.Widdicombe, 4 West Street, Millbrook, TORPOINT, Cornwall. PL10 1AA
Register now but 'pay on the day'.

 

[Apple]

http://bipco.co.uk/events.html



4th Annual Bee Improvement Day
To be held at Dobwalls Memorial Hall, Higher Meadow, Dobwalls,
near Liskeard, Cornwall PL14 6LS
on Saturday 7th February 2015
at 9.00am for 9.30 start
until 4.00pm
Guest Speaker: Harry Owens from The Isle of Man
plus local speakers

A BIBBA Southwest Event
Entrance is £15 on the door or £10 if you register your interest prior to the event by emailing: [email protected]
or notifying: J.Widdicombe, 4 West Street, Millbrook, TORPOINT, Cornwall. PL10 1AA
Register now but 'pay on the day'.

Will be worth the drive to catch up with Harry and his Varroa free Native bees!

 

[Stiffy]

Are they having anyone talking about 'improving' other strains or is it just a BB Taliban meeting ;-) ?
S

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Apple]

Are they having anyone talking about 'improving' other strains or is it just a BB Taliban meeting ;-) ?
S

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

I think it is all about Native honeybees

I did not think the other strains as you put it needed improving?

Nothing to get too sniffy about I guess!



James

 

[Stiffy]

Not getting sniffy, just thought bee improvement might include ' other' strains of our native bee? After all they are all Apis Meliifera.
S

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Apple]

Not getting sniffy, just thought bee improvement might include ' other' strains of our native bee? After all they are all Apis Meliifera.
S

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Apis mellifera mellifera the only native honeybees that were extant after the end of the last ice age.

Presumably not one of the many other subspecies of honeybee, "rare breed" or not, that have their own happy little niches in the rest of Europe.

I expect their are Carniolian and Ligurian, etc, "bee fanciers groups" as well, dotted around the regions who hold meetings that you could attend if you are not keen on the native sub species.




James

 

[Hivemaker.]

Apis mellifera mellifera the only native honeybees that were extant after the end of the last ice age.

And imported here from the southern hemisphere by Piltdown man.

 

[BeeJayBee]

And imported here from the southern hemisphere by Piltdown man.

... at around the time of the first spaghetti harvest!

 

[Thymallus]

[ if you are not keen on the native sub species.
James

Don't wish to tread on anyone's bees, but I'm not quite sure how you are defining our current native sub-species or what the ultimate aim of BIBBA is. What little I understand about our current native bees are that they are total mess genetically, with a bit of everything in them, a real hodgepodge with a bit of the old extant English Amm, Linguista and others within their gene pool.. ...basically a mongrel. If the aim is to bring back a pure strain of Amm's then they will have to be imported and protected from breeding with the local Tom's; same as any other exotic sub species. If they are trying to breed improvement using the current mongrels then err I'll be polite and say perhaps if I'm not quite understanding the question here.

 

[Stiffy]

Apis mellifera mellifera the only native honeybees that were extant after the end of the last ice age.

Presumably not one of the many other subspecies of honeybee, "rare breed" or not, that have their own happy little niches in the rest of Europe.

I expect their are Carniolian and Ligurian, etc, "bee fanciers groups" as well, dotted around the regions who hold meetings that you could attend if you are not keen on the native sub species.




James

No worries, as I thought its a meeting for the BB brigade and not really about 'improving' bees, hope it goes well.
S

 

[Apple]

Don't wish to tread on anyone's bees, but I'm not quite sure how you are defining our current native sub-species or what the ultimate aim of BIBBA is. What little I understand about our current native bees are that they are total mess genetically, with a bit of everything in them, a real hodgepodge with a bit of the old extant English Amm, Linguista and others within their gene pool.. ...basically a mongrel. If the aim is to bring back a pure strain of Amm's then they will have to be imported and protected from breeding with the local Tom's; same as any other exotic sub species. If they are trying to breed improvement using the current mongrels then err I'll be polite and say perhaps if I'm not quite understanding the question here.

It would seem that you do not quite understand that there are a number of areas of the British Isles that have genetically defined, relatively pure stocks of native bees. DNA microsatellite and Single nucleotide polymorphism studies, have recently revealed a lot of information, specifically to the level of introgression into the Amm genome by other sub species ( imported) of honeybee.

Possibly too much information for the average beekeeper, but quite exciting to any ecologists / molecular biologist, and of course keepers of Amms!

What seems to be of interest to perhaps the more serious beekeeper is the Amms claimed resistance to Varroa and associated viral disease that they transmit, although possibly it is due to the way Amms tent to be isolated from,and do not seek out the foreign toms as you so eloquently put it!



James

 

[Stiffy]

Very bold statements, wonder how many of them are factual or just a wish list to justify egos ?
S

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

 

[madasafish]

It would seem that you do not quite understand that there are a number of areas of the British Isles that have genetically defined, relatively pure stocks of native bees. DNA microsatellite and Single nucleotide polymorphism studies, have recently revealed a lot of information, specifically to the level of introgression into the Amm genome by other sub species ( imported) of honeybee.

Possibly too much information for the average beekeeper, but quite exciting to any ecologists / molecular biologist, and of course keepers of Amms!

What seems to be of interest to perhaps the more serious beekeeper is the Amms claimed resistance to Varroa and associated viral disease that they transmit, although possibly it is due to the way Amms tent to be isolated from,and do not seek out the foreign toms as you so eloquently put it!



James

James

I'm sorry but to me as a layperson, your first paragraph is as meaningful to me as if it were written in Flemish.

Ans the third includes the word "claimed" so it's as meaningful as the first.

 

[Stiffy]

I have an apiary site close to one of the 'chosen' ones and received a letter from FERA asking if one of the collective could come along to take away a few bees for analysis to establish the percentage of native bee genes in my stock.
I don't allow many beeks close to my bees as I am wary of infection spread so ignored the request, part of me wishes that I had accepted just to see what the results were from my Buckies.
I also wish the rampant AMM drones were also as selective when spreading their seed as the queens are claimed to be with local 'Toms'. I would then be able to use this site to produce some decent queens.
S

 

[madasafish]

As I have said before (perhaps but cannot recall) or certainly thought before, IF BIBBA were serious about spreading AMM stocks, they would provide queens FREE to all the local beekeepers to a radius of thirty miles to ensure less gene dilution. And to spread the word of how wonderful AMM are..

They don't as far as I know. So they can't be serious...

 

[mbc]

As I have said before (perhaps but cannot recall) or certainly thought before, IF BIBBA were serious about spreading AMM stocks, they would provide queens FREE to all the local beekeepers to a radius of thirty miles to ensure less gene dilution. And to spread the word of how wonderful AMM are..

They don't as far as I know. So they can't be serious...

I had my doubts about bibba too, but since attending the conference in llangollen last September, http://bibba.com/conference_2014.php , I realise it's about self empowerment rather than some measly sense of entitlement.
You're only knocking it because you're jealous, don't be, I'm sure you'd be welcome if you wanted to join in

 

[Thymallus]

Please correct me if I'm wrong ( I'm sure you will ) but didn't the UK microsatellite analysis show the the % of Amm genome in the "natives" to be very variable. If memory serves me it was between 30 -75% depending on where you were. This would still put these bees into the mongrel or hybrid category. ROI still has Amms (I don't the %) and I think there is a breeding programme for Amms with isolated mating sites in NI,...again from memory around the 90% mark with microsatellite analysis.

Are you saying we still have Amm's that are 100% Amms by microsatellite analysi?, rather than the now suspect morphometric data. Be grateful if you point me in the source of that information.

 

[mbc]

I'm not personally exercised by the 100% microsatellite idea, what do you gain?
I believe Andrew Abrahams bees on colonsay are the real deal if that floats your boat, the galtee bees in Ireland near enough too, and perhaps one or two other places in Scotland.

 

[Thymallus]

I think you plunge beekeeping back about a century instead of moving forward and enjoying using the products of some of the amazing breeding and improvement programmes that are going on world wide.
My opinion of course.