Superseding strains vs swarmy strains.

[Curly green finger's]

Morning I've a few questions and I just wanted to talk about the above title.

1. Those of you that are in a breeding program do you think superseded strains (queen's) live a longer life?

2. Rearing queen's in my locality am I going to find my Amm stock have more tendancys to be of superseding stock?

Thanks
Mark

 

[Swarm]

Where I've had a few queens supersede, I can't say the resulting queen lives any longer than her mother or other queens in the apiary or that she will continue to another supersedure rather than swarming. I think there are many factors to take into account and seasons bring with them various trials and opportunities for the bees. Most of my supersedure queens will go on to swarm mode at some point even if a couple of years on. Likewise, a queen that swarms could make no attempt to repeat and eventually be superseded.
I've not had queens show a marked tendency to supersede but I've had more than one queen in the hive on quite a few occasions and apiary vicinity matings also.

 

[B+.]

Morning I've a few questions and I just wanted to talk about the above title.

1. Those of you that are in a breeding program do you think superseded strains (queen's) live a longer life?

2. Rearing queen's in my locality am I going to find my Amm stock have more tendancys to be of superseding stock?

Thanks
Mark

One of the traits we select for in Beebreed is swarming preparations (see table 6 below).
Over many generations, it is possible to select for low/non-swarming lines within a defined population. It is difficult to do this as an individual beekeeper as you don't have the amount of data necessary to examine variance.

The amount of sperm the queen has in her spermatheca determines her useful life. So, the health and number of drones available to mate with your queens is important. Particularly, drones that inherit desirable traits from their mother - so, the way to ensure good drones is to test the queens colony. This filters through the drones to your workers (and potential queens raised from diploid larvae).

Your Amm are, largely, unimproved so a lot of work would need to be done to make them useful in a breeding programme.

 

[mbc]

Morning I've a few questions and I just wanted to talk about the above title.

1. Those of you that are in a breeding program do you think superseded strains (queen's) live a longer life?

2. Rearing queen's in my locality am I going to find my Amm stock have more tendancys to be of superseding stock?

Thanks
Mark

I've always searched in vain for a superseding strain within my bees.
Anybody reading "The honeybees of the British isles" by Beo Cooper has probably spent fruitless time looking for this holy grail (or otherwise has been extremely lucky to discover the golden goose!) within their bees. I don't know of anyone who has.

 

[masterBK]

If the colony is thriving and producing lots of honey and doesn't attempt to swarm or is easily put off swarming and supersedes the queen in her third year then I am happy to go along with it.
However be careful in selecting for supersedure. I knew a BIBBA member (now long time deceased) who bred a strain that superseded almost every year , never needed more than single brood, never got strong enough to swarm and produced very little honey (luckily he didn't like honey) He had inadvertently been breeding (by inbreeding?) a gentle black bee strain thaty was also susceptible to both Nosema and sac brood ( I did the microscopy on his samples for Nosema and noticed the sac brood when I was helping him). The bees were superseding the presumably infected queens in spring. Knowing he had a Nosema susceptibility he then fed Fumadil in the syrup to his mating nuclei to try and solve the problem . I am thus very wary of spring supersedures. Late supersedures can be also a problem if they don't get mated properly and I end up with a couple of drone layers most years.

Having said that I have a few colonies that tend to replace their queens by supersedure and don't get many colonies that try to swarm (mainly due to demareeing all my double brood colonies every year). One of them is sited in my garden and has only swarmed once in 10 years and tends to supersede its queen in early august (never more than two S cells each time) every two or three years. It tends to fill four supers each year which are taken off at the beginning of august and has never ever needed feeding for winter as gathers enough honey during the rest of august topping up with Ivy honey in October.

 

[Curly green finger's]

I've always searched in vain for a superseding strain within my bees.
Anybody reading "The honeybees of the British isles" by Beo Cooper has probably spent fruitless time looking for this holy grail (or otherwise has been extremely lucky to discover the golden goose!) within their bees. I don't know of anyone who has.

Im on page 67.
Have you got a copy.

 

[B+.]

View attachment 24619
Im on page 67.
Have you got a copy.

OMG. That must be old. He died in 1982. Is it even in print anymore?

 

[pargyle]

OMG. That must be old. He died in 1982. Is it even in print anymore?

It's been reprinted ...

https://www.northernbeebooks.co.uk/products/the-honeybees-of-the-british-isles-cooper/

 

[B+.]

It's been reprinted ...

https://www.northernbeebooks.co.uk/products/the-honeybees-of-the-british-isles-cooper/

Thank you.
I have lots of the original editions from the early 80's but I never got that one for some reason.

 

[pargyle]

Thank you.
I have lots of the original editions from the early 80's but I never got that one for some reason.

It's now a paper back ... I picked a hardback copy up at the Oxfam bookshop a year or two back for £2.50 - bargain but I've never got round to really reading it .... bee books are a bit of a compulsion when I see them in SH bookshops I usually feel inclined to rescue them ...

 

[B+.]

It's now a paper back ... I picked a hardback copy up at the Oxfam bookshop a year or two back for £2.50 - bargain but I've never got round to really reading it .... bee books are a bit of a compulsion when I see them in SH bookshops I usually feel inclined to rescue them ...

Interestingly, I have 2 copies (I forgot I had it and bought another copy) of "Pedigree Bee Breeding in Western Europe" (1982). It has a photo on the front of Bernard Mobus, Beowulf Cooper, Prof Freidrich Ruttner and Dr Jacob van Praagh - taken at IB Celle in 1981. Some of these names are very well known to the serious breeder - he kept good company.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Interestingly, I have 2 copies (I forgot I had it and bought another copy) of "Pedigree Bee Breeding in Western Europe" (1982). It has a photo on the front of Bernard Mobus, Beowulf Cooper, Prof Freidrich Ruttner and Dr Jacob van Praagh - taken at IB Celle in 1981. Some of these names are very well known to the serious breeder - he kept good company.

Where could I get a copy?

 

[Curly green finger's]

Where I've had a few queens supersede, I can't say the resulting queen lives any longer than her mother or other queens in the apiary or that she will continue to another supersedure rather than swarming. I think there are many factors to take into account and seasons bring with them various trials and opportunities for the bees. Most of my supersedure queens will go on to swarm mode at some point even if a couple of years on. Likewise, a queen that swarms could make no attempt to repeat and eventually be superseded.
I've not had queens show a marked tendency to supersede but I've had more than one queen in the hive on quite a few occasions and apiary vicinity matings also.

Do you think then because you are using demaree that the method is away of rearing supersed stock or be more inclined to inbreed.
One of our oldest colonys from 2016 superseded in there first year of being moved up here swarmed year before last and superseded this last August.
Over this time the Queen has changed colour from red to browny black.
This colony has been in the vacinity of purer amms since 2017.
Last year was really there best honey production year so far.
Paul I never really want to be part of a breeding program but I would like to get to the point where I can rear 30 - 50 queen's every season, as you were saying our stocks up here are none improved and a little gleam in my eye.

Ref to the book I'm reading it's a cracker really enjoying reading it and it makes you want to ask questions and perhaps challenge some of the claims, truths of what some beekeepers are telling you via a book
Cheers

 

[B+.]

Where could I get a copy?

It's actually a BIBBA publication. Quite a small publication (only 72 pages). It is a report of their visit to Celle to attend a number of lectures and demonstrations in 1981. A bit old now but it covers drone congregation, queen rearing, controlled breeding on the islands, etc
It's quite clear that the purpose of the book is to convey what they learned in Germany to a wider audience in BIBBA.

 

[rolande]

Ref to the book I'm reading it's a cracker really enjoying reading it and it makes you want to ask questions and perhaps challenge some of the claims, truths of what some beekeepers are telling you via a book
Cheers

Seem to remember Jon Getty challenging a lot of Beo Cooper's claims!

 

[North End Bees]

It's now a paper back ... I picked a hardback copy up at the Oxfam bookshop a year or two back for £2.50 - bargain

Bibba members can download it for free from their website. Bargain+

https://bibba.com/the-honeybees-of-the-british-isles/

 

[B+.]

Bibba members can download it for free from their website. Bargain+

https://bibba.com/the-honeybees-of-the-british-isles/

What a sad trend this is...how many people even read proper books now? Everything is being scanned and put behind paywalls. I'd much rather hold a proper book in my hands. I suppose I'm showing my age there.

 

[North End Bees]

What a sad trend this is...how many people even read proper books now? Everything is being scanned and put behind paywalls. I'd much rather hold a proper book in my hands. I suppose I'm showing my age there.

Most people read 'proper' books still. But paper copies and e-books each have their place. It's not an age thing.

Sitting in an armchair for a read, I'd be most likely to choose a physical book. But reading in bed late, I can read e-books without disturbing the other half.

Re paywalls, don't you have to pay for 'real' books? And lots of books are available in e-form for free. E.g you can buy Wally Shaw's paperback books for £8.95 on Am*zon, or he's made them available for free download on the WBKA website.

 

[Nige.Coll]

Somehow I have ended up with three hardback copies of the Bees Of The British Isles.
Also have BIBBA booklets: pedigree bee breeding in western europe, guidelines for bee breeding, queen raising the jenkins way, better beginnings for beekeepers, make your own glass quilt, beekeeping in britain the way ahead, hive record cards, bee breeding and queen rearing as well as pages from the BIBBA magazine that make up Queen rearing as a group activity and raising, mating and use of queens by friedrich-karl tiesler and eva englert translated by bernhard mobus.

 

[B+.]

Most people read 'proper' books still. But paper copies and e-books each have their place. It's not an age thing.

Sitting in an armchair for a read, I'd be most likely to choose a physical book. But reading in bed late, I can read e-books without disturbing the other half.

Re paywalls, don't you have to pay for 'real' books? And lots of books are available in e-form for free. E.g you can buy Wally Shaw's paperback books for £8.95 on Am*zon, or he's made them available for free download on the WBKA website.

I suppose your right. My wife and sons use electronic forms (kindle/etc) but I prefer to read a physical copy. I have a mountain of bee books but, since my interest is breeding, I've "acquired" a few genetics books too. You're quite right about the cost. I just feel I actually own it when I have a physical, rather than a licence to a soft copy that can be rescinded at any time.