UK bee breeding programme

[drstitson]

was just wondering whether, in the absence of an alternative, whether the BKF would be a good basis upon which to start a "formal" UK bee breeding programme such as in place in denmark or germany?

someone must be able to produce a simple database including fields such as beebase reg number, hive number, strain, source, mating site, colony characteristics etc.

there must also be people willing to accept mating nucs for a brief holiday.

 

[Poly Hive]

Not being funny but talk about putting the cart before the horse.

What type of bee is to be bred?

I sit back and watch that argument begin.

And that is just for starters.

PH

 

[drstitson]

surely the beauty of the european (german) system is that individual beeks can choose what characteristics they are after and search for suitable matches within the scheme.

of course the danish system relies more upon a commitee deciding what the goal is each year.

 

[Finman]

.
What other breeding programes you have for domestic animals? Dogs, cats, cows, horse...

http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_2209958_develop-horse-breeding-program.html

 

[drstitson]

the problem of course is that for a horse breeding programme you just choose a stallion to put with your mare - so long as he "performs" you know what "inputs" you have to your programme.

 

[Poly Hive]

LOL finman.

Typing off the memory banks here. The Germans had eugenics imposed on them in the 1930's. Beekeeping followed suit.

Were they lucky?

Bee wise possibly yes. As for the humans we know or should know the story which led to the camps and gas chambers if you don't know.

Bee wise what is the story? One bee was imposed. Carniolian.

Line breeding (and I am no expert) involves producing drones and putting the drone producing colonies on islands. To same islands come virgins to be mated via tiny drone free colonies. *Drones in same colonies mean they are sent home*

My understanding is that the beekeepers who want to improve their stocks study "stud books" for the traits they want and pick the island to send their virgins to.

Why can't we do the same?

You want the honest answer? Really?

Because we are bedevilled by inability to make decisions. That is the honest answer.

PH

 

[Finman]

Because we are bedevilled by inability to make decisions. That is the honest answer.

PH

As far as I know the British beeks, even if someone decides something, beeks make it controversy.

 

[drstitson]

Unfortunately in the UK today it is deemed inappropriate to express preferences (especially if you run a Cornish B&B!!!!).

"package" tours to Finland anyone?

 

[chycarne]

We would be happy to start a Chycarne set of strains, they would be used to wet, living at 190 metres and would love Gorse, Knapweed, Willow and a wide variety of pea and bean flowers as well as wild and tamed garden flowers... they will be evolutionary types what appears, well, appears, the only criteria at present is that they go and get nectar and they are handleable. Ideally they will be the product of a number of genetic lines, the nicest and harworking-ist will survive the others er well evolution would come into effect with some assistance. Ideally they will be bees that look after themselves, and keep a clean hive the forme rwith some help the later well, I dont know yet, I guess we will be helping there too but as little as possible. so a bee disease free, resistant to the bug and mites of the world, ah well its a target. but seriously isnt this what we all want? and so perhaps an internal market first approach would be good.
ok first hurdle, base price of 5 frame nucs... after all it would be a living so perhaps, oh I dunno £150 per nuc? bet this goes up and down like a yo yo, but ... if we are to do this, well I would be happy to help with a SW one perhaps 4 breeding centres all garaunteed a price and the centres exchange bess in the winter and keep a lines record? any takers? if not then things will stay as they are. Over to you...
this should be interesting,
oh and I would be happy to give it a go I think it could work the bees would be from a known range of stock and would be mutually maintained so I do mean it do you want a breeding group set up and run for the forum..?

 

[Finman]

.
If I order a queen, I make a such which pick bilberries from woods.
Now we get pickers from Thailand.

The bilberry is 0,5-1,0 g. It is a weight what a bee may carry.
The price of billberry is 8 euros per kilo, same as for honey.

Lets calculate: one hive has 3000 foragers. Bees make every 10 minute a flight to next door forest and bite off the berry and carry it to the hive.

They learn soon to take smaller berries, those 0,5 g.

0,5*3000*6= 9 kg/hour.
10 hours work day = 90 kg a day = 540 euros a day. Billberry season is 30 days and it makes about 16 000 euros a year.

2,7 ton berries per hive a year

Sorry, they do not work in rain....not suitable onto isles.

 

[drstitson]

chycarne

that's certainly part of the scheme - availaibility of nucs/queens from selected sources provided with standardised pedigrees.

however the other arm would be the provision of "vacations" for virgin queens. as demonstrated on other threads members of the forum are willing to drive the breadth of the country to either help others or get a bargain. dropping off and picking up mating nucs at selected mating apiaries or even organising a cross country mating nuc shuttle service. obviously host site would get a modest handling fee (or scheme credit?).

richard

 

[RoofTops]

There is a growing momentum to sort out queen rearing in the UK but with the best will I fear it is going to take time to improve things. Devon BKA are pushing hard to get local groups selecting and breeding good queens with the aim of improving the overall quality of the county stock. The most recent edition of the DBKA magazine came with an excellent supplement on queen rearing which will help but most beekeepers don't do much in the way of selection. Interestingly, there was no mention in the supplement of types of bee - the assumption was you simply started with your best local queens.

I'm doing my bit running a short course this year but it will take many years to change things and even then we will have no control over those who import large numbers of queens from overseas. There is a big element of chicken and egg in this - no queens available locally so people go elswhere but at least here in Devon we are making a start. It will be a long road I fear.

 

[roymichaeldean]

Breeding

Hi

I like the way it is now.............breeding usually ends in in-breeding

regards

roy

 

[drstitson]

"breeding usually ends in in-breeding"

the beauty of the german scheme is that the pedigree allows you to chose potential desirable mating sites that are unrelated to your stock.

 

[RoofTops]

Any decent queen rearing programe will do its best to avoid in-breeding.

My solution is to take my queens to our branch apiary for mating. Providing my queens never end up in any of the branch hives on a permanent basis, in-breeding should be avoided.

However, if you are surrounded by other beekeepers, and most of us are, open mating at home so to speak, is unlikely to cause in-breeding.

 

[chycarne]

Richard,
Yup I agree to both comments and as such is what we are doing our bee base is from Gower (Wales [i hope..]), Scotland and local. a broad base of maritime types... However yes we would be happy to host forum Nucs and would help with transport for example driving to Exeter to collect. We are looking at a broad brush approcah to traits becasue it will be a while before we have great bees but the bees we want to aim for are bees easy to handle and that work hard. (obvioulsy self preening and cleaning are high on the list but) I would be happy to do the line maintanence database and etc and we want to breed up bees as we enjoy this and also the honey for us is secondary at present. We grow a %age of our own food, have a good wild environment and actually believe in being able to make a difference. I think though it will need 4 centres (with 1 database) 1 for maritime, one for central, 1 for highlands but this would be split for north and norther still. We could then also exchange between centres as well as hosting. again I am happy to manage this. It is up to the forum to support by buying form the forum stock first and by supporting the database in the same way that Mark (admin) is supported. Both Suzanne and myself have useful degrees (Envrionmental [Suzanne] and Biochemistry [Andrew- me]) we would and can do it but it would be interesting to see what you all want. if we as a forum say yes then I will start planning, if no then we will carry on with our own plans.

 

[Busy Bee]

Finman I think you need more sleep....

Weird train of thought..

Busy Bee

 

[rix]

Why you don´t like and breed buckfast bees? They are very famous abroad and they are yours.

 

[Finman]

Finman I think you need more sleep....

Weird train of thought..

Busy Bee

You are right. It is better to stay in bed than read how backyard beeks breed bees.

Breeding is selection. How do you select from two?

 

[Hivemaker.]

Why you don´t like and breed buckfast bees? They are very famous abroad and they are yours.

Many of us do like them.