Bibba

[Poly Hive]

Any other BIBBA members using the forum?

PH

 

[daytonadean]

ME,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[Poly Hive]

Do you have any AMM?

PH

 

[BobsBees]

And Me.
and yes I have AMM.
Bob.

 

[Poly Hive]

What I am trying to do is to find out who has AMM so with a bit of luck we can kick off some sort of a breeding group.

It's a long story but you really dinna value what you have until you lose it. I had very pure AMM in Aberdeenshire then through a series of rather sad circumstances I lost it.

Having begun another life as it were I am finding it very difficult to source them again as I am now in the midlands. so I am this year requeening to AMM and hoping to maintain it so.

If a group of us can get together even if it is to share eggs or larvae we can make a reasonable impact though sharing Q cells/virgins/mated queens would be better/better than/best.

PH

 

[BobsBees]

Sounds like a good idea to me.
Bob

 

[hedgerow pete]

I have just emptied a dead nuc of my so called black bees into the postal sytem to get the wings morphed to see what they realy are and wheather they are black amm or not so i will let you know later when i find out, if you like i can ask wilderness when he is finished to publish his findings on the forum for every one to add there comments , I would be most greatfull if you did

 

[Poly Hive]

Information is power.

I laughed actually when the powers that bee finally came over the border to see if there were any AMM to be found and their socks were knocked off at the results from not only my bees but all the samples there that day.

Their theory? The further north you go the more the climate selects for the native bee: and so it proved. S

So what happened? they went south and not another peep out of them.

Talk about being disappointed.

PH

 

[daytonadean]

Hi Polyhive

I to had a nuc of AMM but they were small and didn't survive the winter.

Breeding group sound good to me.

Dean

 

[wilderness]

I have just emptied a dead nuc of my so called black bees into the postal sytem to get the wings morphed to see what they realy are and wheather they are black amm or not so i will let you know later when i find out, if you like i can ask wilderness when he is finished to publish his findings on the forum for every one to add there comments , I would be most greatfull if you did

Pete, I'll be happy to publish my findings here. Wing venation is just one parameter that might suggest a particular bee might be AMM. DNA testing is the only sure way of telling. I believe BIBBA offer a service of DNA testing if your bees look like they might be AMM.

 

[hedgerow pete]

this i have heard of but until we know what they are in any way shape or form i dont see the costs involve justified, as far as i am concerned they are dark european bees i would not evan go as far as calling them amm until after your hard work wilderness

polyhive as you spoke of bee types being a better bet the over side of the wall, what the chances of finding a scotish supplier of queens??

no i dont realy want to spend £80 on one amm queen a little out of ones pocket money range

 

[Poly Hive]

I am working on it.

PH

 

[Lozza]

I'm a new member of Bibba this year so still getting myself sorted.

 

[wilderness]

Morphometry preliminary results

Hi Hedgerow Pete,
I've looked at some of the wings you sent me and the bees seem to be a real mixture. I've not seen such a mix before. There are wings showing Mellifera traits which have a negative discoidal shift but the other parameters on those wings don't match with what I expected.

If I was forced to give an opinion I would say 20% Mellifera, 20% Carniolan, 20% Caucasian, 20% Ligustica and 20% which don't fit anywhere else!!

The bees are quite dark as you say but I can't look at any of the other parameters - hair length etc as the bees have started to go off a bit SWMBO banished me to the garage

I'll do another set of wings tomorrow and report back.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[johna]

I'm a renewing member.first was a member in the days of Beowulf ,now sadly departed.

 

[hedgerow pete]

thanks for the update wilderness, if needed i can send a couple more over but this time i will try first class post and less of.

as i have said they are dark but exactly what sort i never knew

 

[wilderness]

Hi Pete,

I have plenty left that I can take wings off. I'll plot the results onto a graph and compare with typical AMM.
Cheers
Dave

 

[wilderness]

Graphs

Hi Pete,
As promised some charts of your data. They need a bit of explanation so here goes ...

Pete1.pdf shows 7 of your wings plotted Discoidal Shift vs Cubital Index. The square shows where typical AMM should fall. 2 of the wings fall within the AMM parameters, 5 don't.

AMM.pdf shows typical AMM wings.

Pete2.pdf shows different 7 wings to those plotted in Pete1.pdf. 4 of the wings fall within AMM parameters, 3 don't.

Pete3.pdf shows the same 7 wings but with the parameters of Carnica shown as the square. 2 of the wings fall within Carnica parameters, 5 don't.

Pete4.pdf shows the same 7 wings but with the parameters of Ligustica shown as the square. Only 1 wing falls within the Ligustica parameters.

Pete5.pdf shows the same 7 wings but with the parameters of Caucasica shown as the square. Only 1 wing falls within the Caucasica parameters.

Pete6.pdf shows 7 of your wings which fell into the parameters of AMM when plotting Discoidal Shift vs Cubital Index (the top chart on the page) The other 2 charts show plots of other measurements, Discoidal Shift vs Hantel Index and Hantel Index vs Cubital Index. Many of the wings fall outside the parameters for AMM. Compare with AMM2.pdf.

AMM2.pdf shows AMM wings plotted the same way as Pete6.pdf. You can see that ALL wings fall within ALL the expected boxes.

I've plotted over 20 wings in total and my conclusions are that your bees were a mixture of all 4 subspecies of European bees. They don't match Buckfast either as these have a fair proportion of Ligustica. I don't have the wing morphometry for any other subspecies.

Best regards
Dave

 

[hedgerow pete]

what can i say . instead of amm i have c. r. a. p. mixed up , thank you for your hard work wilderness , the answers whether i wanted to here them or not are great at least i was right in not calling them amm !!!

the thing that does get my goat is the guy i got them from sells them as amm, which i think is wrong especial at £150 for the scabby nuc that he sells now. on the up side they are very easy and nice bees to work with , if you like the older sort or bee styles and there hang ups

 

[wilderness]

on the up side they are very easy and nice bees to work with , if you like the older sort or bee styles and there hang ups

Pete, if the bloke is selling as AMM then that is a rip off but nice to work with bees are nice to work with !

Can I send your queen to Bcrazy for his microscopy work?