The black bee

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rourkie

New Bee
Joined
May 10, 2009
Messages
56
Reaction score
0
Location
dumfries and galloway
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
8
Hi I joined the forum this year and have been reading the threads regarding amm, I restarted bee keeping after a long break, in my younger days i kept upto 250 hives in kent, I now live in castle douglas scotland about forty miles from gretna green. I currently have eight hive all nationals and intend to expand to twenty next season. I have read of others interest on amm on the forum and wondered if perhaps a small group of us could cooperate in trying to expand the use and availabilty of this bee. For me i am not interested in finanacial gain from this exercise but the enjoment. I look forward too others thoughts and ideas on how this might work or not ,and achieve the aim of making amm available , I know of bibba and i dont want to get in their way, but just a group of six or eight committed beekeepers working together , regards jim
 
thanks admin for the link,very interesting and useful not sure about the motives when i saw the price of the queens, regards jim
 
The black bee site looks impressive but the first question I would be asking is how many colonies are involved in the breeding program. I would be worried about inbreeding.
I would also be interested to know how pure amm were obtained in the first place before II was available, as the author states that matings would otherwise be dominated by hybrid drones. The implication is his bees didn't originate from Sussex.
 
On some remote and lonely islands there are men that also keep goats to breed with also. Is it any wonder the moral cost is high! :) :) :( :)
 
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I know some beeks with the same mind set.................:ack2:

Frisbee
 
What type of Bee is the so calledr Russian Bee( varroa resistant) advertised on some USA web sites, is it a hairy black bee type like AMM or Norwegians is it more related to east european Carnies
 
I think the Russian bee is from an area in Russia,it is very simular to the Carny.

I may be wrong but I was told that the usa has not imported breeding queens from Russia for around 8 years,they are just using the Genepool they had imported before then.

They used to be collected from Primorsky,I think its near the Chinese/Korean border?
 
I have some very dark bees (much darker than those in the pictures on the website).

Is there anywhere I can send a few to get identified to check if they are black bees??
 
I have some very dark bees (much darker than those in the pictures on the website).

Is there anywhere I can send a few to get identified to check if they are black bees??

extract from Co-oP web site on black bees

Paul Monaghan, Head of Social Goals at The Co-operative said: “The hardy native black honeybee has had a bad press over the years but it may hold the key to reversing the decline in the UK’s honeybee population."

“There are isolated populations of the native black bee dotted around the country and we want to help BIBBA to confirm these and map these populations. We would also like to help to develop a breeding programme that would increase the number of native colonies and hopefully help reduce the losses experienced in recent years”

Beekeepers who think they have native or near native black honeybees will be asked to send samples to BIBBA who will carry out tests to determine their origins. Members of the public who think they may have seen a native black bee are asked to take a photograph and e-mail it to [email protected] stating when and where the picture was taken.

Dinah Sweet, Chairman of BIBBA said: “This is a much needed and long overdue research study which could possibly help unlock the answer to the potentially catastrophic decline in the UK honeybee population. However, we have to identify where they can be found so that we can use them in the BIBBA programme to expand the number of native black honeybee colonies and make them more available to beekeepers.”

so iwould contact them

More information about BIBBA can be found www.bibba.com
 
Are there any native stock left in the uk that have had wing morphology checked and recorded in the last few years?
 
Are there any native stock left in the uk that have had wing morphology checked and recorded in the last few years?

Morphology is a very blunt and inaccurate tool. I know of one place in the UK that has very pure stock (DNA tested), but he isn't the easiest person to get queens off.

If people were really serious about preserving the native bee they would probably be better off importing than trying to preserve random dark bees they find around the place.
 
Do you know where I can read the DNA results or know of anyone who has them?
 
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