Thanks Admin.

[Poly Hive]

This new part of the forum is some ironic really.

http://www.britishbee.org.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=2873

However moving on, many thanks Mark for setting this up and with luck in the not too distant future I will have some nice AMM to play with again.

I still have irons in the fire.

PH

 

[Roy S]

Yep many thanks admin, maybe people with Amm will now be able to exchange/sell queens and start the ball rolling with regard to expanding the amount of Amm colonies. Something Bibba should have done years ago!!!

I have just taken delivery of a Amm queen from Bickerstaffes, with a couple more on order later in the year. It is certainly a nice dark queen, and once I have enough of her daughters it will be interesting to see how the wing morphometry measures up to the BIBBA Amm discoidal shift and cubital index.

Would have been nice though as PH said, to be able to get hold of some local English reared Amm.

 

[Poly Hive]

I smile wryly.

I am a BIBBA member let me state firstly.

When I mentioned getting AMM from Scotland a vociferous BIBBA member tutted loudly and said it was as bad getting AMM from there as from abroad, as it was "not local"!

I am still a bit bemused by that one, and whilst that was possibly a bit silly I personally drew the line at AMM from Greece.

BIBBA are I am told looking to launch a forum to speed up internal comms but I think a mind enema is needed first to speed up the thought processes.

PH

 

[Roy S]

I must admit, I felt the same until I tried getting hold of Amm from breeders over here too. I now feel that any Amm is better than non at all though, time will tell.

I just wish Bibba would stop trying to find them in every possible location and start breeding and distributing them before they (Amm) and I am truly extinct

 

[Hivemaker.]

Well if they are no good from Greece,and no good from Scotland,where the hell are they any good from? where are they? have your neighbours got some Poly,looking at all the fuss one mister Rose is making.

 

[Crg]

it will be interesting to see how the wing morphometry measures up to the BIBBA Amm discoidal shift and cubital index.

I guess because it's relatively easy, and possibly fun thing to do, people seem to place a lot of emphasis on morphometry, but appearances aren't everything.

What would be interesting is to ask Bickerstaffes where they obtained their breeding stock from as obviously there is no "greek AMM" - just AMM bred in greece.

 

[Poly Hive]

Pete I wish I knew.

On the topic of AMM and I am going to sound superior here I had far purer AMM than any English BIBBA member dreamt of.

Fully two points off the left hand Discoidal scale.

On that basis you can understand I get a little peeved with the BIBBA attitude and I have another long story on that subject but not tonight as I have a very early start.

PH

 

[hedgerow pete]

i have always belived there are many hives with good breeding stock all over the uk and all bibba had to do was to have a phone around and start to collect a few queens all they need then is an apiary to play with them in. or is that me just stating the obvious!

 

[Crg]

i have always belived there are many hives with good breeding stock all over the uk and all bibba had to do was to have a phone around and start to collect a few queens all they need then is an apiary to play with them in. or is that me just stating the obvious!

Depends if you just want to breed a black bee that matches how someone said it should look, or if you're interested in it for conservation reasons.

Bee breeding, (especially if you wanted to keep a line as pure as possible), is quite tricky.

There has been genetic mixing from other subspecies of A. m. and it appears (from comparing some DNA samples) that the further north you go the less mixing there has been.

 

[jon]

Good point Hivemaker.
Polyhive. Are you a member of your local BKA? they might be able to point you towards an AMM type bee and Steve Rose seems to know quite a few in your area with a stable bee type they are breeding.
Surely the way to go.
Dromore BKA in NI is selling nucs requeened with an AMM queen for £60 as far as I know. I am not sure if you have to be a member. Norman Walsh or Mervyn Eddie would be the names to chase up.
I don't know the exact origin of the AMM but it will be somewhere in Ireland.
I always thought AMM was native to the UK and Ireland so I wouldn't have thought it mattered what part of these islands AMM is sourced from.
I posted about it in the BKA chat section on the BBKA site in April and it rapidly developed into the usual pro and anti import debate.

There has been genetic mixing from other subspecies of A. m. and it appears (from comparing some DNA samples) that the further north you go the less mixing there has been.

I suspect that is true. Most of the bees I see here are dark, especially the ones kept by more elderly beekeepers who never buy in queens and rear their own.

 

[Poly Hive]

Jon? I asked Mr Rose for some help some time ago and well... it was not forth coming.

I will find some good AMM yet niver fear.

PH

 

[Bcrazy]

I have read with great interest the comments regarding Queen rearing and bee breeding.

I get the feeling some who have commented are becoming a little mixed up with Bee breeding and Queen rearing as breeding is not merely a question of reproduction, as above all breeding implies improvement in the bee’s capability.

Breeding means the augmentation of the best, positive variants, and the elimination of the bad, the negative variants. In reality the aim is the attainment of an apiary which is uniform and has an above average performance.

I am not sure members realise the full implications of breeding as to me it means the selection of bees from the available colonies but also planned combinations with the aim by uniting genetic material from two different lines or strains.

These are my initial thoughts as I get the feeling not a lot of through thought has gone into this breeding and not queen rearing.

I will reply later as I need to get the facts right before I post.
I am not against bee breeding but I wonder how many members are fully capable to carry out such detailed bee keeping.

Regards;

 

[Crg]

I get the feeling some who have commented are becoming a little mixed up with Bee breeding and Queen rearing

A lot of hobbyist are.

These are my initial thoughts as I get the feeling not a lot of through thought has gone into this breeding and not queen rearing.

Do you mean not much thought has going into breeding by hobbyist/people who post on forums, or just generally?

I am not against bee breeding but I wonder how many members are fully capable to carry out such detailed bee keeping.

Very few.

 

[Bcrazy]

I seem to have stifled the process of this thread, it’s not intentional.

As yet no one has even mentioned anything about drones, which play a vital role in breeding bees.

However with all types of breeding there must be a very clear distinction between the economic value and the breeding value of the stock.
This would entail evaluation of performance, proof of pedigree, external physical characters, and finally which colonies are to be selected.

How many hobbyists can say they have carried out this in bee breeding?

If you can’t rear queens then please do not attempt to carry out bee breeding.

We need to take into consideration is the colony ready for breeding?
What of the Nursing stock, these should bee of at least 8 frames fully covered with bees.

I am going to stop here before I get carried away about breeding bees.

In my opinion there are only a small minority that have the knowledge for breeding a specific strain of bee.

Regads;

 

[mikethebee]

agreed WELL SAID that man!!!