Front Cover of Welsh Beekeeper

[beebopper]

Predominantly Jon Getty but I have a couple from France and have retained the best of the very dark amm lookalike local collected swarm queens.
I will be looking at getting some from other places to try out but it's no simple task!
I de-selected two of JG's queens due to not only yellow banded workers appeared but after test grafting from them they threw out yellow banded daughters too, I guess this is why native enthusiasts get upset by imports, not a problem if all you do is constantly re-queen with imported queens but if you are trying to keep them true and breed your own.
they are a delight though, they certainly changed the opinion of the SBI on black bees last year when he visited.
I made the mistake recently of buying a couple from a supplier in Scotland, while they make no claim to be producing native or near native queens the pictures on their website show very dark bees very much appearing to be such, when they arrived they are very yellow more like off the shelf Buckfast.
I'll be hopefully buying a couple of Welsh Blacks this year but I'd really like some Cornish ones, I suppose understandably priority is given to those in Cornwall first or you have to buy a complete Nuc.

I.I plans have been shelved for this year, I have the kit but not the time, weekend beekeeping with 30 colonies to look after and my Daughters wedding next month has meant the project taking a back seat for now.

Thanks for that. So if I want to keep ‘native’/black bees there are not many places to go that are good. The main problem would be, like any other type of bee, is that they will mate with others in local population. Solution either regularly Queen - but then there are not many available or go for II (not practical at present).

When push comes to shove I always end up with the dilemma (and going for locally adapted is no good where I am).

 

[SDM]

Thanks for that. So if I want to keep ‘native’/black bees there are not many places to go that are good. .

Don't forget they're still native wherever in Northern they come from.

 

[JonnyPicklechin]

They can be hard to find. There are several stack em high sell 'em cheap queen merchants. Their queens, from my own past experience, have ranged from poor to okay but never excellent.

You need to buy from a few and expect a few duffs, even from the best. It's a numbers game, out of 100 queens several will not be as good as their sisters.

Cheers...helpful as always.

Be great if there was a rating system on this board. How about that as an attempt to control and measure queen quality? You could have disease, behaviour, swarm tendency and honey output and put some meaningful empiricism behind the 'reputable' queen vendors...like a league table.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

 

[foghornleghorn]

Predominantly Jon Getty but I have a couple from France and have retained the best of the very dark amm lookalike local collected swarm queens.
I will be looking at getting some from other places to try out but it's no simple task!
I de-selected two of JG's queens due to not only yellow banded workers appeared but after test grafting from them they threw out yellow banded daughters too, I guess this is why native enthusiasts get upset by imports, not a problem if all you do is constantly re-queen with imported queens but if you are trying to keep them true and breed your own.
they are a delight though, they certainly changed the opinion of the SBI on black bees last year when he visited.
I made the mistake recently of buying a couple from a supplier in Scotland, while they make no claim to be producing native or near native queens the pictures on their website show very dark bees very much appearing to be such, when they arrived they are very yellow more like off the shelf Buckfast.
I'll be hopefully buying a couple of Welsh Blacks this year but I'd really like some Cornish ones, I suppose understandably priority is given to those in Cornwall first or you have to buy a complete Nuc.

I.I plans have been shelved for this year, I have the kit but not the time, weekend beekeeping with 30 colonies to look after and my Daughters wedding next month has meant the project taking a back seat for now.

Where did you get the French queens?

 

[Ian123]

Where did you get the French queens?

France

 

[citrus]

Cheers...helpful as always.

Be great if there was a rating system on this board. How about that as an attempt to control and measure queen quality? You could have disease, behaviour, swarm tendency and honey output and put some meaningful empiricism behind the 'reputable' queen vendors...like a league table.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

QUOFstead ?

 

[Millet]

France

I have some Danish F1 Queens but i did not get them from Denmark..

 

[JonnyPicklechin]

QUOFstead ?

 

[Finman]

I have some Danish F1 Queens but i did not get them from Denmark..

Immigrants

 

[For want of a better word]

Immigrants

Some of us rowed across the North sea a few centuries ago.....

Some say that the Irish are the Welsh who could swim!

Yeghes da

 

[madasafish]

Some of us rowed across the North sea a few centuries ago.....

Some say that the Irish are the Welsh who could swim!

Yeghes da

Some of us came over when the North Sea was tundra...

 

[Swarm]

I take it there will be a few names cancelling membership of WBKA then?

 

[For want of a better word]

Some of us came over when the North Sea was tundra...

Was that the first Neanderthal hominid migration, before the onset of the last glaciation?

It would answer a lot of questions..... Neanderthals were supposed to be thick and grumpy?

Chons da

 

[masterBK]

Neanderthals had larger brains than modern day humans (athough the proportions of the various components were different)

 

[pargyle]

Neanderthals had larger brains than modern day humans (athough the proportions of the various components were different)

I think I shall be using that as a personal excuse in the future .. might explain my hairy back as well as my sense of humour !!

 

[MartinL]

Neanderthals were supposed to be thick and grumpy?

Like some on here, where is Neandertal, south of Watford?

Neanderthals had larger brains than modern day humans (athough the proportions of the various components were different)

Do you mean like comparing the commodore 64 we had at college
to my daughters latest smart phone?

 

[mbc]

Like some on here, where is Neandertal, south of Watford?




Do you mean like comparing the commodore 64 we had at college
to my daughters latest smart phone?

I'm liking that analogy, good work!

 

[Ian123]

Ahh but how does the ZX Spectrum fit into that

 

[madasafish]

Ahh but how does the ZX Spectrum fit into that

homo horribilis?

 

[Dogged]

Also remember that body colour is not a guarantee of genetic AMM-ness. Wing morphology is an indicator, but only specialised DNA testing will tell you the racial lineage of your bees. I relay this information from various sources, but specifically Dorian Pritchard, geneticist, bee breeder, member of Hexham BKA. Don't shoot the messenger - my bees are a hybrid lot but I love em.