What's wrong with local bees? :)

[Murox]

The bees from the original Buckfast Qs are wonderful to work with, calm on the comb, non aggressive...But for some reason they are "swarmy" in this area...and if I raise a Q from them they are not nice..Most of my problem with the local bees has been caused by a local "beekeeper" who has delibretly chosen to keep very deffensive bees because he has had a lot of vandalism problems with his hives....When I started to keep bees I visited his apiary, and he boasted that nobody could get within 10 mtrs of his hives without being stung. He never inspects them.. Hard to believe...but sadly true..

Seems to me that the word "buckfast" has been/is used as an inaccurate descriptor. Local bees, whatever they are, can't really be Buckfast can they?

 

[elainemary]

I ask this with a smile and I hope it can be answered the same way. I admit that I have almost zero experience and that I'm therefore, largely a theoretical beekeeper.

Some of my "hero","celebrity" bee-gurus advocate using queens raised from your own stock and say that if we allow the bees to choose when to raise their own new queens and allow a healthy population of drones to exist we will be rewarded by having the best colonies we could hope for.
Whilst this idyllic philosophy appeals to me and is one that I presently hope to be able to put to the test, having read some previous threads in which strong opinion in favour of bought-in queens was expressed, I suspect that majority opinion is against these ideas.

I accept that beekeepers may have reasons such as wanting to try new or favoured strains, seeking to have more productive bees or even to have bees less prone to swarming.
But really, my question is, if I repeatedly allow my bees to do as I describe and presumably to get increasingly varied genes, including from the drones of neighbouring beekeepers who possibly do buy-in their queens, will I end up with a pathetic, unproductive bunch of bees rather than the thriving colonies of my dreams?

I like to rear my own queens that are 'locally adapted' and occasionally bring in new genetics in the form of queen cells, virgin queens donated by like-minded beekeeping friends & mentors, who keep good bees. Tend to have dark bees & I try to keep to this i.e. select from these rather than keep yellow queens that emerge.

I'm fairly early on in my queen raising experience but have learnt the following points over the last 3 seasons:
-Raising your own is challenging but interesting & exciting & you learn a lot along the way about bee behaviour, makes it very rewarding to do
-Need a place to rear queens where mating success is good (I live at 1000ft in Yorkshire but my 'mating' site is now down in the valley at 300ft. Good diversity and good mating success)
-Avoid areas (if you can) where fellow beekeepers have completely different philosophies (eg at home my first black queen, turned to yellow within 2 generations & became more susceptible to sac brood (my nearest neighbour buys in Buckfast from Devon!)
-Decide on what's important to you & rate your colonies on these attributes. Mine are good temper & calm on comb; reasonably productive (good honey, frugal on stores), relatively free of disease, e.g. chalk brood, sac brood, lower end of varroa numbers, come out of winter on a relatively clean floor ie show some form of hygienic behaviour
-Keep good records & divide your colonies into groups based on the criteria that are important to you & based on analysis of your records at the end of the season . My groups are A) Your best that you want to rear from (2 out of my 12 colonies). I put extra drone comb in these colonies & make nucs from these. I keep the original queen for as long as possible if her daughter queens show similar traits; B) Ok but not sure, need more time to assess. I keep as these production colonies. Don't queen rear from these but I might let them re-queen if still assessing, I also use these to help other colonies out e.g. share brood when needed or use to draw comb if they're a good comb builder (7 out of my 12 colonies); C) Ditch, re-queen (3 of my 12 colonies next year) - usually due to poorer temper or pest/disease weakness e.g. chalbrood, sac brood, high varroa

I am definitely leaning to keeping locally adapted bees & don't think I would buy in from overseas. This is driven by where I live but also I think it's better for biosecurity and the health of our bees in the long run. Raising your own is more challenging but also if you've got 'bee fever' like me, it's very rewarding

 

[Curly green finger's]

Hi Mr fiat, here's my take on your thread title.
Local bees vary it seems so differently all over the country all depending on what they have been ( mongrelized) with how much of a percentage of one bee type they are.
Certian traits from one type vary from others as we know, and having a larger number of colonys to select from to me is key, I read just recently from what our friend finman said, that to select good stock from local bees you need a minimum of 20 colonys to select from to get the variation of traits that you desire locally, I can see his logic. Because the queen's mate with up to x amount of drones you would have such a diverse range of lots of traits to select from.

Jbm also hits the nail on the head about bringing in queen's from other sources of known stock. And how your neighbours look after there bees, health plays a big part of how a colony will react and perform.
when we talk about this, in different parts of the country we have more of a percentage of near native bees than we think.
To me it seems that the purer my stock (less mongrelized) become the better they perform. In most traits I desire.
My mentor has mated some of my queen's this year over on the Clun Hills and our treasurer of our association has had this colony among 8 at his home not to far away from me.

His findings are that they are near natives in the way they are performing/temper/honey production and other tests that he has done.
The other 7 colonys are very mongrelized and aggressive in comparison and not performing in the way that our local near native bees should act.

I plan to try Carnica bees and maybe Italians that are pure.. But these will be at a site 85 miles away.
My reasons if your a beekeeper that wants to be a BF you need to have your doors wide open and to try different types of be as long as they are controlled (swarm prevention) and healthy..
Im also thinking of controlling the drones at this new site as not to upset the local population of bee's.
My thoughts
Cheers.

 

[fiat500bee]

I like to rear my own queens that are 'locally adapted' and occasionally bring in new genetics in the form of queen cells, virgin queens donated by like-minded beekeeping friends & mentors, who keep good bees. Tend to have dark bees & I try to keep to this i.e. select from these rather than keep yellow queens that emerge.

I'm fairly early on in my queen raising experience but have learnt the following points over the last 3 seasons:
-Raising your own is challenging but interesting & exciting & you learn a lot along the way about bee behaviour, makes it very rewarding to do
-Need a place to rear queens where mating success is good (I live at 1000ft in Yorkshire but my 'mating' site is now down in the valley at 300ft. Good diversity and good mating success)
-Avoid areas (if you can) where fellow beekeepers have completely different philosophies (eg at home my first black queen, turned to yellow within 2 generations & became more susceptible to sac brood (my nearest neighbour buys in Buckfast from Devon!)
-Decide on what's important to you & rate your colonies on these attributes. Mine are good temper & calm on comb; reasonably productive (good honey, frugal on stores), relatively free of disease, e.g. chalk brood, sac brood, lower end of varroa numbers, come out of winter on a relatively clean floor ie show some form of hygienic behaviour
-Keep good records & divide your colonies into groups based on the criteria that are important to you & based on analysis of your records at the end of the season . My groups are A) Your best that you want to rear from (2 out of my 12 colonies). I put extra drone comb in these colonies & make nucs from these. I keep the original queen for as long as possible if her daughter queens show similar traits; B) Ok but not sure, need more time to assess. I keep as these production colonies. Don't queen rear from these but I might let them re-queen if still assessing, I also use these to help other colonies out e.g. share brood when needed or use to draw comb if they're a good comb builder (7 out of my 12 colonies); C) Ditch, re-queen (3 of my 12 colonies next year) - usually due to poorer temper or pest/disease weakness e.g. chalbrood, sac brood, high varroa

I am definitely leaning to keeping locally adapted bees & don't think I would buy in from overseas. This is driven by where I live but also I think it's better for biosecurity and the health of our bees in the long run. Raising your own is more challenging but also if you've got 'bee fever' like me, it's very rewarding

Thanks Elaine, I'm copy and pasting this to Word document for future reference.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Thanks Elaine, I'm copy and pasting this to Word document for future reference.

Nice Post here.. I do love the term ' bee fever'.

 

[Apple]

A tonic wine, an abbey and a monk

Indeed.....
I would like to think that to some extent I select and improve my bees in the way of Brother Adam...
Selecting the best and using isolated mating aparies ( have even use one of BA's... sure he was watching me!!!)
Are my Cornish Amm black Buckfast Bees then???

The original Buckfast Bee was a hybrid of selected European stocks.... long long vanished, now seems to denote a cross generally between anything from the C group ( Do Dadant "own" the name????)
Chons da

 

[Curly green finger's]

Indeed.....
I would like to think that to some extent I select and improve my bees in the way of Brother Adam...
Selecting the best and using isolated mating aparies ( have even use one of BA's... sure he was watching me!!!)
Are my Cornish Amm black Buckfast Bees then???

The original Buckfast Bee was a hybrid of selected European stocks.... long long vanished, now seems to denote a cross generally between anything from the C group ( Do Dadant "own" the name????)
Chons da

How I would love to spend some time working down there, your a very lucky person apple.

Interestingly and I've said this before, that two beekeepers went to collect queen's from BA and the queen's were black, he neither spoke English to them or was polite either.. He sounds like he was a hard but humble man.

Ps these were two beekeepers from South Shropshire, and one who has retired lives a stones through away hence the story.
He has told me some mind, about things they would do to calm a colony down.
Or ways of introducing queen's, ways that would make your toes curl up.

 

[Murox]

Why some new Queens produce aggressive bees...

..... all honey bees (Apis mellifera) originated in Africa and over the ages gradually migrated into Europe by different routes....the bees adapted genetically over time to the geography in which they live and around 28 sub-species developed. For example, Apis mellifera:
Paul Loxley.

 

[Suzi]

How long from virgin do people generally see increased aggression in bees? is it straight away or does it take time?

 

[bingevader]

I think we need to be careful with the terminology that we are using.
Local bees, locally adapted bees and local mongrels are all quite different creatures, imho.

 

[madasafish]

I have only 7 main hives - and I find that is really not enough to raise queens from AND make up mating nucs AND produce a honey crop.The local climate - certainly this year - can often make Queen Rearing a real PIA. From late frosts killing Queens/bees in min nucs to rain/wind upsetting mating to wasps killing late mating nucs..

Nevertheless I raise about 15-20 Queens every year and get a honey crop. I have no lack of willing buyers as I ruthlessly requeen runny/swarmy/weak/prone to disease stock and my bees are well behaved and my yields per hive appear consistently better than other locals I know (I average 50-60 lbs per production hive). If I was 20 miles West in sunny Cheshire life would be even easier (!) except I believe there may be too many hives in some parts.

I know some people who have lovely quiet black bees - inherited from an elderly keeper. Most local bees are horrible, runny, aggressive and swarmy. Only an idiot with a few hives would attempt to breed from them. Lots of hives and years would maybe produce results.. I have neither.

I buy in queens every 2years- and raise Qs from the best. Approx 25% are useless and culled.

Just bought a Q raised by ITLD- will be interested to see how that goes... hive appears well behaved.

Trouble is: many new beekeepers don't have the time needed to devote to QR.. And as for learning to graft...!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Curly green finger's]

I have only 7 main hives - and I find that is really not enough to raise queens from AND make up mating nucs AND produce a honey crop.The local climate - certainly this year - can often make Queen Rearing a real PIA. From late frosts killing Queens/bees in min nucs to rain/wind upsetting mating to wasps killing late mating nucs..

Nevertheless I raise about 15-20 Queens every year and get a honey crop. I have no lack of willing buyers as I ruthlessly requeen runny/swarmy/weak/prone to disease stock and my bees are well behaved and my yields per hive appear consistently better than other locals I know (I average 50-60 lbs per production hive). If I was 20 miles West in sunny Cheshire life would be even easier (!) except I believe there may be too many hives in some parts.

I know some people who have lovely quiet black bees - inherited from an elderly keeper. Most local bees are horrible, runny, aggressive and swarmy. Only an idiot with a few hives would attempt to breed from them. Lots of hives and years would maybe produce results.. I have neither.

I buy in queens every 2years- and raise Qs from the best. Approx 25% are useless and culled.

Just bought a Q raised by ITLD- will be interested to see how that goes... hive appears well behaved.

Trouble is: many new beekeepers don't have the time needed to devote to QR.. And as for learning to graft...!!!!!!!!!!!!

You do well madasafish to do what you do with the amount of hives you have.. That is very respectable and I take my hat of to you.
What type of new queen is she?

 

[pargyle]

The way I look at it is that, in bee husbandry, there is a sliding scale of practice in regard to sustainability/bee-friendliness. One end (typically) is inhabited by commercial bee-farmers - the other by people wearing jesus sandals. One end of this scale is pragmatic (i.e. bought in queens) - the other dogmatic (i.e. locally adapted). I generalise.

A GROSS generalisation ...

Most of us here are hobbyists, and, sitting somewhat in the middle of the spectrum, wring our hands about what is the "right" direction of travel.

Slightly redeemed with that comment ...

 

[Curly green finger's]

The way I look at it is that, in bee husbandry, there is a sliding scale of practice in regard to sustainability/bee-friendliness. One end (typically) is inhabited by commercial bee-farmers - the other by people wearing jesus sandals. One end of this scale is pragmatic (i.e. bought in queens) - the other dogmatic (i.e. locally adapted). I generalise.

A GROSS generalisation ...

Most of us here are hobbyists, and, sitting somewhat in the middle of the spectrum, wring our hands about what is the "right" direction of travel.

Slightly redeemed with that comment ...

 

[Nige.Coll]

I tried improving the local swarmy low producing mongrels for a while but got very bored with it's unreliable outcome.
Tried AMM from a well known breeder and bibba and wow they were crap. Lazy, sickly, aggressive things that produce beggar all and fall off the perch if they even sniff a farmer spraying. Pushed more queens into the apiary floor than I kept from those things because of aggression.
Mainly have buckfast now, I import breeder queens direct from Europe and raise my own from those, not the queens raised from f1's a lot of people sell under that name that aren't what your being sold.
Great bees, they fill supers, handle spraying well, low swarming, nice to handle and overwinter well. Their grand daughters are fine some are a little less predictable at f2 but not had any monsters yet.
I have 2018 queens still in boxes that made no effort to swarm this year and still going strong.

 

[fiat500bee]

I think we need to be careful with the terminology that we are using.
Local bees, locally adapted bees and local mongrels are all quite different creatures, imho.

I'm talking about the bees that any one person will have after a number of years if themselves they don't make any attempt to do anything other than accept supercedures, try to resecure swarms and always select from within their own stock the queens they think most likely to give them the characteristic that they prefer.

I'm not sure I agree with your fine distinctions; how would you define the difference between "local mongrel", (which sounds like a loaded term), and local "bees"?

 

[Finman]

What is wrong? You will see, when you have other queens and compare them to each other.

There are no common rules what is good.
Then, are you able to keep on those features?

First question is, what is local? To me it is reared in Finland several generations. 5 years is enough. I trust more on breeder's experience than "local".

We do not have Ice Age bee strains.

 

[Finman]

I'm talking about the bees that any one person will have after a number of years if themselves they don't make any attempt to do anything other than accept supercedures,

how would you define the difference between "local mongrel", (which sounds like a loaded term), and local "bees"?

That is right. Local mongrel is equal to local open mating. And they mate locally.

I do not accept supercedure queens, because they are not selected by me. My experience is that supercedure queens quality is under average. Daughters are not from best hives.

After number of years.... original genes have vanished. What you have is village genepool.

 

[madasafish]

You do well madasafish to do what you do with the amount of hives you have.. That is very respectable and I take my hat of to you.
What type of new queen is she?

Well it is raised by Jolanta - the queen rearer.. Apart from that, I neither know nor care

 

[Apple]

What is wrong? You will see, when you have other queens and compare them to each other.

There are no common rules what is good.
Then, are you able to keep on those features?

First question is, what is local? To me it is reared in Finland several generations. 5 years is enough. I trust more on breeder's experience than "local".

We do not have Ice Age bee strains.

You mean that they ice age bees have not evolved and adapted since 10000 odd years ago?
Do the Russians beekeepers still dress up like a bear and get an accomplice to open the hive and take the honey?