Natural England article on 'Non/Native' bees?

[Curly green finger's]

For what it's worth I'd agree with you on that. There's surely a lot of stuff still to be nailed down. An example would be thread on usurpation started by B+ back in the summer.

Hes souly missed many a question he could of answered on here.

Willie Robson is a great believer in this and talks convincingly of his own experience of it, rekons incomers are almost duty bound to swarm a lot at first so as to realign their genetics with what's about.
It's a bit of a stretch but I do believe there's a lot more going on between colonies within range of each other than we currently know about.

Willie Robson sounds like a guy I would like to talk to? The unknown is always very intreging, my comment about locals is an interesting thought.
Maybe certain species or sub species have stronger instincts to how they want to survive, no matter how we may try and introduce queen's.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Maybe certain species or sub species have stronger instincts to how they want to survive, no matter how we may try and introduce queen's.

My experience is that orange bees are good at accepting any queen
Orange queens are more difficult to introduce to black bees so I usually use push in cages.
None of my bees have liked Irish ones

 

[rolande]

I wonder if its as much to do with the queen's, how they were treated in their nucs, how the catching and marking was carried out and how they faired during shipment as much as it is to do with the accepting bees.

 

[rolande]

Willie Robson sounds like a guy I would like to talk to?

Email, phone, write a letter. He might not respond but you can but try. Most sound people will find a few minutes for a genuine person.

 

[Lislarybees]

I have no doubt that the local bee breeders in Ireland can produce good tempered bees. My point was that the source material is not genetically pure in the first place. it is not a true breed and hasn't been for many decades / centuries because of previous importation. Near native is not native, and i see no scientific evidence that a distinctive indigenous bee species survives in Ireland in a genetically pure form.
Protect the local bees by all means, but they are hybrids. Can you point me in the direction of data that defines and demonstrates what 100% Irish AMMs is?

This is a talk by a scientist at one of our largest Universities. The results are quite clear - not only does Ireland have a very pure population of Amm it also has a population that shows it has developed in isolation over time. Yes there have been imports of Dutch bees in the early part of the 20th Century but many colonies tested did not show this influence at all.

 

[Lislarybees]

I have no doubt that the local bee breeders in Ireland can produce good tempered bees. My point was that the source material is not genetically pure in the first place. it is not a true breed and hasn't been for many decades / centuries because of previous importation. Near native is not native, and i see no scientific evidence that a distinctive indigenous bee species survives in Ireland in a genetically pure form.
Protect the local bees by all means, but they are hybrids. Can you point me in the direction of data that defines and demonstrates what 100% Irish AMMs is?

And if you would like to take a look at current ongoing studies of Welsh Black bee genetics and another study of British Black Bee genetics then here are two more talks. Hopefully the links work - I had to pay to see them as part of the ongoing Sicamm conference but the videos are hosted on Youtube so fingers crossed

 

[Lislarybees]

Hes souly missed many a question he could of answered on here.

Willie Robson sounds like a guy I would like to talk to? The unknown is always very intreging, my comment about locals is an interesting thought.
Maybe certain species or sub species have stronger instincts to how they want to survive, no matter how we may try and introduce queen's.

Willie Robson has some great talks on the Barefoot Beekeeper podcast on Spotify.

 

[Erichalfbee]

This is a talk by a scientist at one of our largest Universities. The results are quite clear - not only does Ireland have a very pure population of Amm it also has a population that shows it has developed in isolation over time.

So this is despite imports and the presence of other bees?

 

[Curly green finger's]

Willie Robson has some great talks on the Barefoot Beekeeper podcast on Spotify.

I don't have Spotify, but I will look up the barefoot beekeeper?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Phil Chandler. Didn’t he once post here?

 

[Lislarybees]

So this is despite imports and the presence of other bees?

We have had tiny levels of imports in comparison to the UK. I think officially 300 queens last year. Which was a very worrying jump up on previous years. Of course there will have been more illegally imported. I think by comparison the UK saw 21,405 queens and 1,882 packages. And numbers like that for a very long time. That is a recipe for the hybridised mess you have in the UK now. 'Nasty black mongrels' seems to be the common name I see on this forum for them. Which in turn is used as justification for importing more.

There has been huge work put in on the ground in Ireland to be where we are now - and it is always under threat. Just two bee keepers importing bees into Co. Galway in the last number of years has undermined the work of decades and endangered some of the populations of Amm in the country that are most distinctly Irish - genetically speaking. As in there since the last ice age.

 

[Lislarybees]

Phil Chandler. Didn’t he once post here?

How was the response?

 

[Erichalfbee]

How was the response?

What you’d expect I guess

 

[NiallD]

There has been huge work put in on the ground in Ireland to be where we are now - and it is always under threat. Just two bee keepers importing bees into Co. Galway in the last number of years has undermined the work of decades and endangered some of the populations of Amm in the country that are most distinctly Irish - genetically speaking. As in there since the last ice age.

And where are we now??? Honey yields of 200-300 tons/annum........as compared to Denmark with 2000-2500 tons, a similar sized Northern European country. Lack of availability of mated queens is a huge problem. No Bee Inspectorate or any kind of disease control strategy. These are some of the real issues.
The research you rely on is from self selected, non random, samples and partially funded by the Native Irish Honey Bee Society ( NIHBS) . I not sure how robustly it would stand up as a basis for a scientific census of the irish bee population.

 

[madasafish]

AMM protagonists should put their money where their mouth is and jointly produce large numbers of AMM queens at reasonable prices.. so others could see first hand how good they are...

Would stop all this circuitous debate.

 

[Mint Bee]

AMM protagonists should put their money where their mouth is and jointly produce large numbers of AMM queens at reasonable prices.. so others could see first hand how good they are...

Would stop all this circuitous debate.

you mean like BIBBA have done here?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

the hybridised mess you have in the UK now.

Really? any evidence of this (and I mean empirical, not just cherrypicked random comments from posts on here.)

 

[Erichalfbee]

I’ve only ever had one mess in 12 years of keeping bees and that was from a black colony given to me by a friend. Nightmare! We are still friends though

 

[Apiarist]

AMM protagonists should put their money where their mouth is and jointly produce large numbers of AMM queens at reasonable prices.. so others could see first hand how good they are...

Would stop all this circuitous debate.

we should get ourselves organized and join BeeBreed.eu (or an Irish/British? equivalent)???
but that would mean characteristics would be able to be compared across bees, which I think would be a good thing overall.

But I think many Queen rearers (breeders) are more concerned with genetics and wing veins.

 

[Curly green finger's]

I’ve only ever had one mess in 12 years of keeping bees and that was from a black colony given to me by a friend. Nightmare! We are still friends though
View attachment 29464

Same here I had one this season they were vile, they are gone now thankfully.