Black Cornish Native bees of Rame

[islayhawk]

Reading the Colonsay black bee website Mr Abraham states that the Black Bee on Colonsay is Apis MM the native British black bee. Nowhere does it mention a french connection. I would assume reading his description that they are as pure as the Cornish bees.

 

[Finman]

The ones up there originated in part, fairly recently, from France, the Cornish ones have been there since the last ice age and despite hundreds of years of imports of other sub species have managed to remain almost pure, probably because they refuse to mate with with them... also helped due to the isolation of Cornwall and low human population.

That family history should be fixed that there is no need to repeat it every week.


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[Stiffy]

Why oh why do people keep saying AMM are a separate 'species' , they are a sub species or strain of APIS Melifera.
Apis Melifera, despite the scare stories put about are NOT in imminent danger of extinction.
Morning rant over
S

 

[SDM]

Reading the Colonsay black bee website Mr Abraham states that the Black Bee on Colonsay is Apis MM the native British black bee. Nowhere does it mention a french connection. I would assume reading his description that they are as pure as the Cornish bees.

Unlikely as the area they came from was heavily restocked with French Amm

 

[Beefriendly]

The Colonsay Amm's show introgression from linguista and Carnica in their genome. Catherine Thompsons' PhD thesis.
But they are as good and as close as you can get today to the "Old English Bee".

 

[For want of a better word]

Are the bees I saw at the Eden project Cornish blacks?

Yes... from West Cornwall
Roger Dewhurst supplied them via B4 funding
The Painted Polly National hives are supplied by BeeHiveSupplies.
DNA studies funded via B4 show them to be Apis mellifera mellifera in nuclear and mitochondrial DNA... and not closely related to any other populations anywhere else on the planet* ( Including the bees on Tasmania.... think they are Irish/French)
* The bees on Rame ( the black ones!) are the nearest and also distinctively different from any others on the planet... but statistically closer to the ones in West Cornwall... interesting to molecular ecologists!

Due to Intellectual Property Right issues it seems that the results for the DNA analyses ( Here and in Ireland) can not be published as yet... some other studies are under going peer review.

Yeghes da

 

[Finman]

* The bees on Rame ( the black ones!) are the nearest and also distinctively different from any others on the planet. da

Reason must be the genital structure

 

[For want of a better word]

Reason must be the genital structure

Is that why Finnish has no closely relates languages?

Yeghes da

 

[Finman]

Is that why Finnish has no closely relates languages?

Yeghes da

Everyone has same genital language, if you know what it is.

 

[Quis Custodiet]

The Colonsay Amm's show introgression from linguista and Carnica in their genome. Catherine Thompsons' PhD thesis.
But they are as good and as close as you can get today to the "Old English Bee".

Irish AMM were also used, how curious their genes did not register as different to those of the English AMM.

 

[Finman]

.
If I take old native Finnish Black Bee 50 years ago, its maximum yield was 20 kg.

Modern Buckfast or Italian brings now
100-150 kg.

What values presents " old native"?

 

[Anduril]

.
If I take old native Finnish Black Bee 50 years ago, its maximum yield was 20 kg.

Modern Buckfast or Italian brings now
100-150 kg.

What values presents " old native"?

Nostalgia

 

[madasafish]

Nostalgia

So it's old ####s who support Bibba then?

 

[Swarm]

.
If I take old native Finnish Black Bee 50 years ago, its maximum yield was 20 kg.

Modern Buckfast or Italian brings now
100-150 kg.

What values presents " old native"?

Maybe you were doing something wrong.

 

[Into the lions den]

With 200000+ imported queens every year it would seem crass to expect that there would be no pressure on the indigenous native species.
The fact that the native black bee has survived is probably due to the simple fact that it has evolved to survive our Northern Temperate Maritime climate and is probably most fit for purpose!

Yeghes da

Where on earth did you come up with a number like that? From some current ongoing digging into the UK's REAL hive numbers as opposed to the rather 'optimistic' one used to claim the EU money it is quite likely that this represents at least one queen per colony for the whole UK every year. Could be twisted round to 'demonstrate' that 110% of the UK's beeks prefer imported. The true import figure for queens, both officially recorded and not, is probably in the region of 10 to 15% of your quoted number.

Plus...you confuse 'fit for purpose' with 'fit for unaided survival'....they are nothing like the same.

Unless you want the UK to become no more than a bee museum with little commercial activity, and a refuge of a bee no-one else outside these islands wants.

 

[Finman]

Maybe you were doing something wrong.

Yes I have always did whem I read Welsh comments. 50 y ago I used Caucasian queens from Canada and langstroth hives.
.
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[madasafish]

Where on earth did you come up with a number like that? From some current ongoing digging into the UK's REAL hive numbers as opposed to the rather 'optimistic' one used to claim the EU money it is quite likely that this represents at least one queen per colony for the whole UK every year. Could be twisted round to 'demonstrate' that 110% of the UK's beeks prefer imported. The true import figure for queens, both officially recorded and not, is probably in the region of 10 to 15% of your quoted number.

Plus...you confuse 'fit for purpose' with 'fit for unaided survival'....they are nothing like the same.

Unless you want the UK to become no more than a bee museum with little commercial activity, and a refuge of a bee no-one else outside these islands wants.

Bibba have been trying to convert beekeepers for 50 years. Their total and abject failure should tell us that they are either totally wrong or useless at getting their message across. Or both. Try buying a black bee queen ... and they are talking about banning imports! Risible. If they were serious, they would be giving away queens every year..

 

[Swarm]

Perhaps if it were to receive a similar amount of work as has gone into other subspecies/strains?
It's pointless posting anything about AMM here.

 

[Nige.Coll]

I think the number for imported queens is somewhere around 13800 in 2016. Not 100% sure on that though but it's not too far off.
Most came in from Greece.

I bought a pure bred AMM queen and to be honest it was crap. Worst bees I have ever owned, yes they were ok to handle gentle and not that runny but oh my, lazy as hell. Never made 1 bit of extra honey in 18 months. Biggest waste of £45 I have ever made in beekeeping.

I'm a BIBBA member.
The idea of bee improvement put forward by BIBBA is great and simple to implement and logical.
I have compared the bees at the BIBBA group apiary to my own mongrels and to be honest the mongrels are more reliable and predictable when open mated. It's great taking bees off to the mating site when you have retired but not so easy when your at work. All the prep work involved just takes too much time for me if I then have to transport them to the other side of the county.
I generally have bees on the OSR and from what I have seen most of the AMM's seem to miss this or collect very little from this crop. For me it's a good portion of my honey crop for the year.
AMM's are fine but keeping them pure is a lot of work and planning or a lot of money buying queens and the market seems full of substandard queens atm there seems to be an AMM money racket developing.

I would like to try a Cornish AMM queen though as I think that would be a different animal.

 

[SDM]

With 200000+ imported queens every year it would seem crass to expect that there would be no pressure on the indigenous native species.
The fact that the native black bee has survived is probably due to the simple fact that it has evolved to survive our Northern Temperate Maritime climate and is probably most fit for purpose!

Yeghes da

And yet virtually unaided it has survived this pressure for a century.
I've not seen a bee yet that can't "survive" our climate and to be fair yours is a good bit softer than most of the UK. Maybe THAT is why it survived in Cornwall.