'Bouncing off the veil'

[thurrock bees]

mine used to ping a fair bit, i then watched them and realised that when i were going tho them i were standing in their flight path, so i turned them around ( the hive) and all is well.
i have one hive that follow you so im going to requeen them, the rest hover around you and when u are say 5 foot away from the hive they return to their home.
so all is well.

 

[Poly Hive]

Brother Adam had an undue influence in this time Somorfield and of course he was breeding but he was attempting to create something new from a bunch of crosses. And there is the flaw I think.

Line breeding is one thing and crossing quite another, and although I am the first to admit to very limited genetic knowledge I believe it takes donkeys years of crossing known lines to create a new breed of dog say. And that with bhe benefit of known lines as I say before the new breed is stable.

In Germany they went for line breeding and the results are excellent.

We haven't even started in the UK to our disgrace.

PH

 

[Crg]

Brother Adam had an undue influence in this time Somorfield and of course he was breeding but he was attempting to create something new from a bunch of crosses. And there is the flaw I think.

Does it not ever seem a little strange to you that people who do know a lot about genetics, think Brother Adam created a breed, but you, who freely admits to "very limited genetic knowledge" keeps on going on about how he was wrong, or coming up with statements as the one quoted above or this one

He made progress in developing a mongerel Hivemaker and from mongrels you cannot line breed.

You've been corrected at least once by Norton, and if I haven't corrected you before on this, I've been remiss. Misinformation isn't helpful to anyone.

 

[Poly Hive]

Crg? I honestly do not believe the Buckfast is a line breeding strain.

I am entitled to my beliefs.

BA was continuously tweaking the Buckfast with a bit of this and a bit of that. A breed does not need additions.

We will have to disagree on this. I stick to my contention that the Buckfast is not a line breeding strain and that BA whilst a genius had an undue influence on the UK situation to our detriment overall.

There was recently a long article in the BBQ to the same effect so I am not alone in my thinking.

PH

 

[Norton]

Hello,
If you take a look through the breeding pedigrees available in the following link you will see that there are many serious breeders of Buckfast bees. There are good reasons for them not using AMM or Carnica type bees. We have gone over it all many times in the past........
http://perso.fundp.ac.be/~jvandyck/homage/elver/archiv.html
Best regards
Norton.

 

[Onge]

Thats a fine frame

 

[gavin]

Hello,
If you take a look through the breeding pedigrees available in the following link you will see that there are many serious breeders of Buckfast bees. There are good reasons for them not using AMM or Carnica type bees. We have gone over it all many times in the past........
http://perso.fundp.ac.be/~jvandyck/homage/elver/archiv.html
Best regards
Norton.

Hi Roger

Yes, an impressive list of breeders, and I agree that although BA tinkered with the Buckfast line, it is a recognised and fairly stable strain - certainly not a mongrel.

The picture you show is an impressive frame of brood, but it is also also clear that Buckfast bees require significantly greater feeding in years like this. Here is one study:

http://www.gbbg.net/nativeversusbuckfast.html

I also hear (anecdote, I know) that in commercial operations here suffering EFB the Buckfast colonies in an apiary are often the quickest or the only ones to come down with it. I also chanced upon this paper this morning, which suggests that the AFB tolerance of some Danish stocks of Buckfast isn't particularly good:

http://www.planteinfo.dk/bier/tolerance.pdf

I'd be happy to be corrected if you know more - but it seems that the hygienic behaviour of Buckfast types is not enough on its own.

all the best

Gavin

 

[Norton]

Hello,
Gavin thanks for posting those two links. I have carefully read both of them. The first one is bit old, but anyway I have the following to say. They don't say where the Buckfast lines were imported from, but I guess either Israel or the USA. From the general description of the Buckfasts I would say that they seem to be more like Italians than the Buckfasts we know today. The use of all the stores for brood rearing and that they did not shutdown at the end of the season is indicative of Italian (USA) influence. Our own lines go into self-preservation mode if things take a turn for the worse at the end of the season. Lines with Anatolian in them even more so - these are very thrifty.
The Danish study is also very interesting. We have tried Danish Buckfast material in the past and could not get on with it at all. When it got hot in June they just stopped rearing brood and ran out of bees in October- obviously selected for a short rearing period in cool conditions. That some of the Danish colonies appear to have lost their resistance to AFB does not surprise me in the least. The way colonies are managed there with an annual renewal of all brood combs has removed the pressure for resistance. Any lines that are susceptible cannot be detected easily and deseeee are free to add their genes to the gene pool. Much better to not have such a sterile equipment program and operate a detect and burn policy.
The sterile equipment program also removes any pressure for Nosema resistance.
We export queens to Denmark every year - F1's for production and breeding material. Maybe they are trying to improve things with our lines. I have a meeting here tomorrow evening with a commercial beekeeper from Denmark.
I know before the meeting what the request will be.........
Probably the Buckfasts in Scotland are coming down with AFB because they are more efficient at robbing than other bees.
Best regards
Norton

 

[BKF Admin]

Probably the Buckfasts in Scotland are coming down with AFB because they are more efficient at robbing than other bees.

Norton why would this be ?
Would you not see a very high incidence of Italian strains in Scotland getting AFB over other types as they seem to be the worse robbers going.

 

[Norton]

Hello,
It is is just a thought that I had - don't you think that it is obvious that the most efficient robbers are the ones that are going to get infected from die-outs? Seems strange that in some apiaries that it is only Buckfast that are infected - if it is not from robbing, then we have to assume that the other colonies in the apiary are also exposed, are infected, but do not show any visible signs of the disease yet, or are the other colonies so resistant that they are able to thrive in an area with numerous cases of AFB? Interesting.
Best regards
Norton.

 

[gavin]

Thanks Guys

It was EFB rather than AFB being talked about - and I think that the operation(s) being discussed don't have an AFB problem so they wouldn't know the response to it.

Given that the local stock here probably hasn't had to deal with EFB at all until the last couple of years, if there was selection for resistance it may have been to a problem which has been around for a long time. AFB for example, which was regularly reported by bee inspectors decades ago. You could imagine that the very early detection of infected unsealed brood (a mechanism for AFB resistance) could be good for EFB too.

all the best

Gavin

 

[Norton]

Hello,
According to this they have a problem with both types of foulbrood:-
http://www.scottishbeekeepers.org.uk/services/html/diseases.html
I thought as you drew attention to the Danish study that you meant AFB.
Regards
Norton

 

[Crg]

Crg? I honestly do not believe the Buckfast is a line breeding strain.

"A breed is a group of domestic animals with a homogeneous appearance, behavior, and other characteristics that distinguish it from other animals of the same species. When bred together, animals of the same breed pass on these uniform traits to their offspring." - wikipedia

"a relatively homogenous group of animals within a species, developed and maintained by humans." - dictionary.com

If you breed Buckfast with Buckfast you get Buckfast. This has been pointed out before.

I am entitled to my beliefs.

It's not a belief, it's a definition.

BA was continuously tweaking the Buckfast with a bit of this and a bit of that. A breed does not need additions.

You can line breed and use crossings to bring in genetics to improve the line. Those two sets aren't mutually exclusive.
"Outcrossing is the practice of introducing unrelated genetic material into a breeding line." - wikipedia

Norton has posted a link to the lineage of the Buckfast - have a look through Brother Adam's entries and you can see he maintained a number of lines. He would have been looking for useful genes that he could then breed into his line.

Quite a few bee books will cover this, the one I happen to have within easy reach is John. H. Atkinson - Background to Bee Breeding. On page 19 (Genetics for Bee Breeders) covers a lot of this - pages 30 -32 (Adding one gene to a breed) being particularly relevant to why/how you can bring in new genes/allelles to a breed.

We will have to disagree on this. I stick to my contention that the Buckfast is not a line breeding strain

It's not an opinion - it conflicts with the recognised definitions.

that BA whilst a genius had an undue influence on the UK situation to our detriment overall.

Okay, saying Brother Adam was detrimental to the UK is an opinion, I disagree with it, but as you say you're entitled to your beliefs.

My opinion is that it's hard enough to find out the correct information at the best of times, and that we shouldn't make it worse by posting misinformation.