borderbeeman
House Bee
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2009
- Messages
- 123
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Coldstream, Scottish Borders
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- 10
There is a wonderful beekeeper in Belgium, called Hubert Guerriat, who has been running a private breeding-station for the native black bee (A.m.m.) - for more than 25 years.
His site is here:
http://www.mellifica.be/en/livre/
His important article THE BIOLOGY OF THE BLACK BEE is attached
below as a WORD file:
Some of his site is in English - some in French. However, the gist is that he breeds thousands of queens a year and distributes them to beekeepers all over his region of Belgium and France.
He runs practical training courses for anyone who wants to keep the Black Bee. He also provides queen cells - free of charge - to any beekeeper within a 20 mile radius - to try and preserve the native bee.
He has written a superb article about WHY the native black bee of Northern Europe is worth keeping; I have translated it, using my best schoolboy French, and I attach it as a WORD file. It is worth reading if you are interested in our native bee.
Finally, a party of beekeepers from the UK should go and visit Hubert Guerriat and see why he has been so successful in preserving the black bee of his region - and ask why we cannot do the same thing here? Before you ask - all his queens for the 2010, 2011, and 2012 seasons are already pre-ordered; also -when I asked him if he could sell me some of his superior black queens - he said he would not send queens to the UK 'on principle'. His view is that each strain of native black is genetically adapted by evolution to the specific locality in which it thrives. So his 'lesson for the day', to me, was - 'you must start with the bees you have in your local area and selectively breed them back towards the native black - over many years'.
His site is here:
http://www.mellifica.be/en/livre/
His important article THE BIOLOGY OF THE BLACK BEE is attached
below as a WORD file:
Some of his site is in English - some in French. However, the gist is that he breeds thousands of queens a year and distributes them to beekeepers all over his region of Belgium and France.
He runs practical training courses for anyone who wants to keep the Black Bee. He also provides queen cells - free of charge - to any beekeeper within a 20 mile radius - to try and preserve the native bee.
He has written a superb article about WHY the native black bee of Northern Europe is worth keeping; I have translated it, using my best schoolboy French, and I attach it as a WORD file. It is worth reading if you are interested in our native bee.
Finally, a party of beekeepers from the UK should go and visit Hubert Guerriat and see why he has been so successful in preserving the black bee of his region - and ask why we cannot do the same thing here? Before you ask - all his queens for the 2010, 2011, and 2012 seasons are already pre-ordered; also -when I asked him if he could sell me some of his superior black queens - he said he would not send queens to the UK 'on principle'. His view is that each strain of native black is genetically adapted by evolution to the specific locality in which it thrives. So his 'lesson for the day', to me, was - 'you must start with the bees you have in your local area and selectively breed them back towards the native black - over many years'.
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