is the wait finally over?

[biglongdarren]

hopefully spring in the mournes has arrived!
Darren.

 

[busybee53]

After my last post your pic has cheered me up a lot. Thanks.

 

[For want of a better word]

Nice and black them bees !
AMMs?

 

[itma]

Sadly it is absolutely nothing like that here.
Yet.


/ Does that mean that the Chinooks have migrated home after the snow completely disappeared?

 

[biglongdarren]

Nice and black them bees !
AMMs?

all my bees are that colour i have never seen any different in my hives.
thanks.

 

[biglongdarren]

i often wondered about swapping a nuc or two with somebody a good distance away to mix up the gene pool,would it be worth it folks?
Darren

 

[For want of a better word]

i often wondered about swapping a nuc or two with somebody a good distance away to mix up the gene pool,would it be worth it folks?
Darren

TOTALLY AND ABSOLUTELY NOT...... I would donate my brain to science if I could have the surety of such bountiful bees here in the SW Peninsular, without all the retrogressive genes from imported hybrids!


Unless you could be assured the introduced colony was of equally good AMM stock, keep going with what you have!

 

[biglongdarren]

Sadly it is absolutely nothing like that here.
Yet.


/ Does that mean that the Chinooks have migrated home after the snow completely disappeared?

all we had here was rain and wind,any snow that fell this side of the mountains low down didnt lay,its only when you head 10 minutes up into and through the mountains do i you see snow.
Darren.

 

[Chris B]

i often wondered about swapping a nuc or two with somebody a good distance away to mix up the gene pool,would it be worth it folks?
Darren

The gene pool is mixing all the time anyway via drones mating with your virgins. So if you've got good bees I wouldn't bother swapping queens, which is essentially what you are proposing.

 

[beeno]

Hi biglongdarren,
Can we have a close-up of your black bees pls. How black is black.

 

[For want of a better word]

Send me about 30 bees and I will look at the wing morphometry and hair length for you to ascertain Ammishnishness !
( well my beekeepering buddy will... he likes that sort of thing !!!)

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Nice photo, but not here, it has snowed all day...

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

sunny and a (little) less cold here in Plymouth today, but the forecast is for more crap coming in by Monday

 

[Finman]

.
http://www.foreca.com/United_Kingdom/London

.

 

[biglongdarren]

Send me about 30 bees and I will look at the wing morphometry and hair length for you to ascertain Ammishnishness !
( well my beekeepering buddy will... he likes that sort of thing !!!)

pm me your address and i will get some till you next week if that suits,
be interesting to hear back about them.
Darren

 

[For want of a better word]

sunny and a (little) less cold here in Plymouth today, but the forecast is for more crap coming in by Monday

and a Strong Breeze... force 5 ~ 6

I should wander up to the Boringdon Arms for a real Ale !!!

 

[Polyanwood]

East winds and north winds are always cold. Mostly the wind comes from the west. Not sure why the wind is blowing the wrong way at the moment.

 

[biglongdarren]

this was my only hive that i had on the heather last year and they seem to be the strongest,would that have anything to do with it? i left plenty of bell heather honey in with them till over winter on,they were fed only a tiny amount of syrup with thymol in to treat.
Darren.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

and a Strong Breeze... force 5 ~ 6

I should wander up to the Boringdon Arms for a real Ale !!!

That's why we're strapped alongside (because of the wind, not the fact that the Borry's got a real ale festival on the go )

 

[keith pierce]

I also found that any hives / nucs that I brought to the heather last year are now certainly my best hives in the spring