BIBBA Regional meeting In February

[Thymallus]

You are either ignorant of the facts or a flaming troll.
Were you aware that the carnica bees bred for decades on isolated islands in Germany have some amm mitochondrial dna?

Thank you for your kind words, personally I prefer reasoned debate.
Last time I looked I seemed quite human, not a trace of troll.....and as for ignorance, well I worked in a mainstream molecular genetics research lab at UCL for over 30 years, I'll let you decide if that makes me ignorant of the facts or not.
I think you have me wrong if you think I'm knocking bee breeding and improvement, but speaking genetically mongrels are not the best material to start breeding from. Hence my fascination to this apparent obsession of using our current mongrels. Silk purse and sows' ear would be a good analogy here. There is so little control over the patrilineages that establishing and stabilising any decent traits is a lottery (in most cases) and I see few attempts to try and provide isolated mating sites where any good traits might be stabilised.....Even if you did, the lottery begins again as soon as they are allowed to breed again with the local toms. ROI has both of these areas for their native Amms and also for Buckfast bees. I also never see people selecting drones lines for breeding purposes, all the efforts are concentrated on the ladies.....
Overall I think all these efforts are a little amateurish but well intentioned. A bit more thought and less aggression directed against those who don't quite agree with your ideas might help.

You do realise that mtDNA is passed along the maternal lineage ad infinitum (although recent work has shown that occasionally paternal mtDNA can be transmitted, but rarely) So not really a surprising finding if you think about it. You can find linguista mDNA in all our current mongrels as well as Amm etc etc. There is also always going to be doubts over studies like this due to the choosing of which regions to amplify with PCR as being totally species specific. Point me in the direction of the paper concerned and I'll have a look at it.

 

[Apple]

"I'll let you decide if that makes me ignorant of the facts or not"

Molecular biology is one science that is moving forward as rapidly as computer science, I was astounded by the advances being made by Dr Maria Pilar De la Rua Mercia University and others that were presented at the BIBBA conference in Llangothlan. (http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=zi3Cb8gAAAAJ&hl=en)
Work specific to honeybee sub species. SNPs seem to have overtaken the somewhat old fashioned mtDNA analyses.
Not having the resource of a molecular biology laboratory I have to rely on the morphological and behavioral characteristics of my honeybees, and it would appear that they are near native.

I daresay my English Springer Spaniel has a bit of Yorkshire Terrier in his genetics somewhere, he was extremely difficult to house train!

James

 

[Apple]

Perhaps Buckfasts are the answer then, and Bro Adam will come to be regarded as a pioneer in breeding "locally adapted" bees...?

I'm always puzzled when people appear to consider that Buckfasts were not bred for UK conditions. It's a small village on the edge of Dartmoor, not Hawaii

Current weather looks typical.

My sister finds them just so!!!!
However I would not wish to open a debate in this thread on the genetic continuum of the honeybee hybrids that BA attempted to perfect, as I dare day the molecular biologist would have a field day!


James

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

my English Springer Spaniel was extremely difficult to house train!

Seems to be a common trait of the English

 

[bontbee]

Current weather looks typical.

Good grief, is Spotlight still going? I remember the days when Angela Rippon was a journo there!

 

[Thymallus]

I was astounded by the advances being made by Dr Maria Pilar De la Rua Mercia University and others that were presented at the BIBBA conference in Llangothlan. (http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=zi3Cb8gAAAAJ&hl=en)
Work specific to honeybee sub species. SNPs seem to have overtaken the somewhat old fashioned mtDNA analyses.
Not having the resource of a molecular biology laboratory I have to rely on the morphological and behavioral characteristics of my honeybees, and it would appear that they are near native.

I daresay my English Springer Spaniel has a bit of Yorkshire Terrier in his genetics somewhere, he was extremely difficult to house train!

James

Thanks for that link, a quick read suggest very interesting and also confirms that the experts are still debating about various lineages. Having been to many conferences where these "debates" go on....it can make beekeepers defending their opinions look like pussy cats.
If I recall you said earlier that you had isolated (or near enough) mating facilities, which is excellent. No such luck in my area at the moment. I did consider moving next door to the NBU at Sand Hutton which only keep Buckfast bees, which would have ensured the lines integrity with minimal cost.
Now as for your Spaniel, I think if a true pedigree dog then his/her breeding records would show if their was any Yorkshire terrier in there ..

 

[Thymallus]

My sister finds them just so!!!!
However I would not wish to open a debate in this thread on the genetic continuum of the honeybee hybrids that BA attempted to perfect, as I dare day the molecular biologist would have a field day!
James

Dunno about field day, but it was one hell of an impressive breeding and selection programme done in the infancy of our understanding of genes. Like 'em or hate 'em you would have to be incredibly cynical to not admire what he achieved. Germanic yorkshire terrier blood me thinks

 

[Apple]

I did consider moving next door to the NBU at Sand Hutton which only keep Buckfast bees, which would have ensured the lines integrity with minimal cost.

Now I know you can not be taken seriously!

How many brooms did you get through in your time at UCL?

James

 

[Thymallus]

It was a serious thought.....for about 15 minutes....But seriously I know of one chap near there who tells me he has not had to buy in any new Buckfast queens for the last decade or so as the drone population is so predominantly Buckfast.

Brooms and newt eyes we left to the department of the paranormal (or physics dept as they called themselves).

 

[Apple]

It was a serious thought.....for about 15 minutes....But seriously I know of one chap near there who tells me he has not had to buy in any new Buckfast queens for the last decade or so as the drone population is so predominantly Buckfast.

Brooms and newt eyes we left to the department of the paranormal (or physics dept as they called themselves).

The drone population is predominantly Amm here, and it would seem to be so in all of the western reaches of the British Isles.

Did you experiment with Fly agaric or lick any cane toads, perchance in your time with UCL?

James

 

[Thymallus]

Nah, left all that sort of stuff to the students to deal with.... we had access to much better stuff straight from the Sigma Chemical catalogue, (6aR,9R)-N,N-diethyl-7-methyl-4,6,6a,7,8,9-hexahydroindolo-[4,3-fg]quinoline-9-carboxamide, N-methyl-1-phenylpropan-2-amine to name but a couple of the weird and wonderful chemicals they sold. http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[mbc]

, personally I prefer reasoned debate.

Difficult to have a reasoned debate with a determined troll, if you have doubts about why that accusation may have been thrown your way, look up "flaming" and "troll" on google, you'll find your initial posts in this thread fit the bill perfectly.

I'll let you decide if that makes me ignorant of the facts or not.

Thank you, I dont need to decide, the ignorance of facts is plain for all to see in your posts on this thread, to name one easily verifiable one, theres carniolan bees at Sand Hutton, (well at least there was last time I was there).

A bit more thought and less aggression directed against those who don't quite agree with your ideas might help.

I hope there's not a trace of aggression in my posts, apologies if they come across that way but I like to say it how I see it and believe clarity might help rather than any lickspittling.
I'm not sure there's a dedicated isolated mating site for buckies in ROI either.
Oh, and I'm not concerned where you may have been a lab tech in a previous life, I'm merely responding to your posts on here

 

[Apple]

Temperance MBC!

When are you going to reinstate your old avatar?
"Stig of the dump" was far preferable to the wiggly wormy thingies!

James

 

[Thymallus]

For your further education have a look at this link to 5 glens isolated mating station for Buckfast bees in Ireland where many Buckfast keeping beekeepers take their Nuc's for mating.
For your information the last title I held before retiring was Senior Research Fellow.

Also they are Buckfast at Sand Hutton, currently. Or at least they were the day before yesterday, could even tell you who supplies them and which Island off the coast of Denmark they are mated on.

Not your day for getting your facts right is it.

 

[Apple]

For your further education have a look at this link to 5 glens isolated mating station for Buckfast bees in Ireland where many Buckfast keeping beekeepers take their Nuc's for mating.
For your information the last title I held before retiring was Senior Research Fellow.

Also they are Buckfast at Sand Hutton, currently. Or at least they were the day before yesterday, could even tell you who supplies them and which Island off the coast of Denmark they are mated on.

Not your day for getting your facts right is it.

Molecular biology is one science that is moving forward as rapidly as...

How does importing hybrids help in improvement of the Native Black bee?


Perhaps the topic on imported hybrid bees should be discussed on a new thread/

James

 

[Thymallus]

How does importing hybrids help in improvement of the Native Black bee?

Playing devil's advocate here, it was importations of Apis mellifera ligustica and hybrid crosses with english Amms that allowed at least half the English Amm's genome to survive after acarine disease. So there were certainly some benefits to imports, at least historically.

Perhaps the topic on imported hybrid bees should be discussed on a new thread/

Yup, would agree on that.

 

[Moggett]

There's a thread similar to the way this one is going which has just fizzled out on the BBKA forum.

 

[mbc]

For your further education have a look at this link to 5 glens isolated mating station for Buckfast bees in Ireland where many Buckfast keeping beekeepers take their Nuc's for mating.
For your information the last title I held before retiring was Senior Research Fellow.

Also they are Buckfast at Sand Hutton, currently. Or at least they were the day before yesterday, could even tell you who supplies them and which Island off the coast of Denmark they are mated on.

Not your day for getting your facts right is it.

I've not denied there are buckfasts there, only stated that there were also carnies there, and I'm still not sure there is a genuine isolated mating site dedicated to buckfasts in ROI, but thanks for the link anyway, it seems whoever wrote that believed there is.
I expect Senior Research Fellow's who interpret what they read incorrectly and continue to put up strawman arguments get pensioned off pdq, but as I said, that doesnt concern me

 

[Thymallus]

Alternatively they may have enough intelligence to correctly interpret what they read and experience. Then they come up against people who call their arguments straw, dismiss what they say and never discuss the facts nor seem to let the facts get in the way of their own opinion.
I had hoped for better...

 

[mbc]

I had hoped for better...

Good luck with that