For those interested in AMM

[Beefriendly]

and some people just don't seem to be able to stomach that without throwing their toys out of the pram.

Swarm called it right, if we ALL stopped adding inflammatory comments in our posts it would be a more productive debate.

My current reading is Amm was the indigenous bee for most of western Europe and we are now trying to save a few regional variants. Bit like preserving Yorkshire men and sod the Lancastrians....
In case anyone is unsure under this threads present volatile climate that was an attempt at humor. No Long necks were hurt in the process.

 

[For want of a better word]

Swarm called it right, if we ALL stopped adding inflammatory comments in our posts it would be a more productive debate.

My current reading is Amm was the indigenous bee for most of western Europe and we are now trying to save a few regional variants. Bit like preserving Yorkshire men and sod the Lancastrians....
In case anyone is unsure under this threads present volatile climate that was an attempt at humor. No Long necks were hurt in the process.

sod all the English

Nos da

 

[Brian Bush]

For our own Cornish sub species we are well under way on a programme of saving and improving on what we have.

Would be easy to "import" Amm species from elsewhere, but in the interest of conservation on something that could be very special to Cornwall we are not going to do that!!

Yeghes da

I understand and admire your aims. My only concern is the possible lack of genetic material and the danger that inbreeding may become to intense.I do wish you luck!!!

 

[For want of a better word]

I understand and admire your aims. My only concern is the possible lack of genetic material and the danger that inbreeding may become to intense.I do wish you luck!!!

Seems that the Cornish variant of Amm have a plethora of sex alleles so providing we do not keep breeding from one single line, there will not be a problem.... as the Cornish ( and other regional varieties) have been doing successfully for past 10.000 years at least!!

Possibly my mixing up of the Cornish varieties is producing some hybrid vigor?

I am amazed that the Buckie breeders do not have an inbreeding problem ( with their bees not themselves!) as it seems only a few lines are bred from?

Yeghes da

 

[Finman]

Seems that the Cornish variant of Amm have a plethora of sex alleles so providing we do not keep breeding from one single line, there will not be a problem.... as the Cornish ( and other regional varieties) have been doing successfully for past 10.000 years at least!!

Possibly my mixing up of the Cornish varieties is producing some hybrid vigor?

Yeghes da

Sex 10.000 years, like all bees. IT seems that mating weathers were good on Cornish tundra.
.

 

[bingevader]

Seems that the Cornish variant of Amm have a plethora of sex alleles so providing we do not keep breeding from one single line, there will not be a problem.... as the Cornish ( and other regional varieties) have been doing successfully for past 10.000 years at least!

It's amazing what can be achieved in a decade!

 

[Finman]

Ice Ace 10.000 y ago.

Vegetation 10 000 y ago. Almost whole France was tudra.

 

[Finman]

.
Pictures from AMM birth places.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?...08051922183588714&selectedIndex=34&ajaxhist=0

 

[B+.]

Ice Ace 10.000 y ago.

Vegetation 10 000 y ago. Almost whole France was tudra.

Yes. The environment has changed a lot in the last 10,000 years. I don´t think this is considered when people talk of Amm being the most suitable bee for this country. The environment has changed so much that we have to look at the situation as it is rather than as it was.

Interestingly, Bedfordshire would have been almost under ice in your map

 

[Swarm]

I don't consider the environmental change at all, that has little to do with it. Having been the only sub species to inhabit these islands is my point. Someone already said we don't have a climate, we get weather. Unpredictable, up one day down the next, experienced a ten degree drop from one day to next only this Summer. On the continent you can make plans, the weather is predictable.
Amm settled here and evolved with our grotty weather patterns, they are still doing the same.
We should treasure what we have is my opinion.

 

[Uncle Betty]

The process of adaptation by natural selection produced the differences in worker bee color, morphology, and behaviour that distinguish the 27 subspecies of Apis mellifera (e.g., A.m. mellifera, A.m. ligustica, and A.m. scutellata) that live with the species' original range of Europe, western Asia, and Africa (Ruttner 1988). The colonies in each of these subspecies are precisely adapted to the climate, flora, predators and disease agents in their parts of the world.

Moreover, within the geographical range of each subspecies natural selection produced even more fine-tuned, locally adapted populations called ''ecotypes''.

A recent large-scale experiment conducted in Europe found that colonies with queens of local origin lived longer than colonies with queens of non-local origin (Buchler et al. 2014)

- Thomas D. Seeley

 

[B+.]

I don't consider the environmental change at all, that has little to do with it. Having been the only sub species to inhabit these islands is my point. Someone already said we don't have a climate, we get weather. Unpredictable, up one day down the next, experienced a ten degree drop from one day to next only this Summer. On the continent you can make plans, the weather is predictable.
Amm settled here and evolved with our grotty weather patterns, they are still doing the same.
We should treasure what we have is my opinion.

You seem confused about weather and climate. This is taught at GCSE level in science and geography:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html

I´m not disputing that they evolved here but mutations occurs all of the time. Useful mutations give an advantage that works its way into the population over time.

 

[Swarm]

You seem confused about weather and climate. This is taught at GCSE level in science and geography:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html

This is precisely the sort of puerile reply that serves no purpose other than massaging your ego. It's a point scoring reply.
There is no confusion oh arrogant one, I am aware of climate and weather which is why I used that old gem about climate and weather. I guess you'll now try to suggest weather has no impact on things but I think you'll find it does, another reason I mentioned weather and not climate. Mull this one over for a little while longer before your next retort, there's a good lad.

 

[Beefriendly]

- Thomas D. Seeley

All true UB...but they were adapted to survive in the current climate they occupied. Survival doesn't necessarily equate to qualities a beekeeper may desire. That requires selective breeding for those heritable characteristics that are desired.
Which raises a philosophical question if native Amm's are bred and selected, say for non swarming and gentleness etc, are they truly representative of the original native Amm's? Which were descendants of the skep beekeeping era (well 400+ years or so) which selected for swarminess...so a selective breeding of sorts had already taken place.

 

[Uncle Betty]

All true UB...but they were adapted to survive in the current climate they occupied. Survival doesn't necessarily equate to qualities a beekeeper may desire. That requires selective breeding for those heritable characteristics that are desired.

I take your point, and thank you for it.

But I think we're getting to a kernel here.

What I have found by reading here and elsewhere (strictly my impression, now) is that there is a spectrum of attitudes towards the bees.

At one end there is a rapacious attitude towards the bees, at the other end is the sunhive.

We would all draw the line in different places and for different reasons.

I am not a commercial beekeeper, for one thing.

By temperament, I just don't have a lot of patience with the idea that bees, ideally, should never swarm, or never sting.

I understand it as a mark of decent beekeeping craft to control swarming, so I clip queens (again, other people draw the line elsewhere) but because I live in the country, with country people, a swarm would probably not be the end of the world here.

I take it as a decent indicator of my bee-handling skills that I very, very seldom have been stung by my bees. Veil and nitriles only. Usually, I know exactly what I have done wrong.

From a craft point of view, there is so much improvement of which the 'native' bee is capable. That seems to me, to be a worthy direction to take.

Some may think that 'loyalty' to the 'native' bee is sentimental. I suppose I'm partly conditioned in that by the general tone and tenor of beekeeping in Ireland, which takes the promotion of Amm to be a good thing. I'm very comfortable with that.

I'm not an avaricious person, nor stupid either. My yields shall be whatever they are, but I still think I will do ok.

That is the direction I am going to take.

 

[For want of a better word]

I don't consider the environmental change at all, that has little to do with it. Having been the only sub species to inhabit these islands is my point. Someone already said we don't have a climate, we get weather. Unpredictable, up one day down the next, experienced a ten degree drop from one day to next only this Summer. On the continent you can make plans, the weather is predictable.
Amm settled here and evolved with our grotty weather patterns, they are still doing the same.
We should treasure what we have is my opinion.

Yeghes da

 

[Beefriendly]

Yawn....you really give Amm enthusiasts a bad name.

 

[Beefriendly]

I take your point, and thank you for it.

But I think we're getting to a kernel here.

No kernel, let any beekeeper keep whatever bees they desire. Preservation of any strain/species is easy with II.

 

[Beefriendly]

I'm not an avaricious person, nor stupid either. My yields shall be whatever they are, but I still think I will do ok.

That is the direction I am going to take.

Exactly and well said...but if you are a commercial beekeeper making his/her living from the bees you keep things like yields pr hive become much more important. Us hobbyists can indulge our whims where we like and not worry an iota if we make any money..

 

[For want of a better word]

Yawn....you really give Amm enthusiasts a bad name.

Yawn....you really give Any enthusiasts a bad name.




Get back under the bridge!

Nos da