welsh Black queen

[RJW]

I would like to establish a colony of Welsh Blacks...does anyone have a spare queen or know where I could get one? Has anyone any experience of them? I hear they are good tempered and productive...

 

[susbees]

Yes, queens that have the behaviour and morphometry of Amm do exist in Wales and are bred for "native" behaviours. They respond quickly to changes in weather by turning off egg laying - I grafted such hives recently and one had a three day gap in the brood - and live happily in one box. Temperament must be selected for and a big gene pool kept. Relatively to the size of the brood nest and feeding input they are quite productive.

There are also inbred awful black bees around and everyone's idea of awful behaviour differs.

But, unless you plan to buy all your queens or have a big breeding programme (such as our black bee queen rearing group embarked on a five year plan and using instrumental insemination) then you really are better to go for local mongrels and, if needed, buy a queen from local calm stock.

 

[mbc]

I would like to establish a colony of Welsh Blacks...does anyone have a spare queen or know where I could get one? Has anyone any experience of them? I hear they are good tempered and productive...

I may know of someone with lots of recently mated lovely welsh queens. Where abouts are you RJW ?

 

[RJW]

I'm in Essex, near Saffron Walden...it would be great if your contact could post me a queen!

 

[RJW]

Yes, queens that have the behaviour and morphometry of Amm do exist in Wales and are bred for "native" behaviours. They respond quickly to changes in weather by turning off egg laying - I grafted such hives recently and one had a three day gap in the brood - and live happily in one box. Temperament must be selected for and a big gene pool kept. Relatively to the size of the brood nest and feeding input they are quite productive.

There are also inbred awful black bees around and everyone's idea of awful behaviour differs.

But, unless you plan to buy all your queens or have a big breeding programme (such as our black bee queen rearing group embarked on a five year plan and using instrumental insemination) then you really are better to go for local mongrels and, if needed, buy a queen from local calm stock.

Thank you for the info. Of concern to me is their calmness as I have a year-old Buckfast hive where the new supercedure queen has mated with some agressive stock and the resulting hive is a real pain (literally!). But it would be fun to try a local breed rather than an import...