Wing morphology

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mbc

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Is there anybody up for doing some wing morphometry on some bees of mine for a small fee ?
 
sure.

The fee is that you buy me a pint in the Beekeepers's arms. I'll PM my address.
 
Chears ! I pm'ed you back before reading this post. I'll see if I can get those samples in the post ASAP
 
Would you be happy for the results to be shown on the forum after you have seen them as I am sure members would be interested.
 
not a problem !
hopefully quickly followed by an advert for pure amm queens at £90 each!

only jesting honest
 
I know nothing of wing morphology other than you can sort of prove the breed of the given bee. I would be interested to read a little about it if some one would be kind enough to write a little about this subject.

What degree of accuracy would you expect or do the marker points vary for each bee which is claimed to be a pure breed.

cheers

Mike
 
can of worms
many people snort at the sceudo science-ness of wing morphometry while others value it as a guiding tool for choosing breeders
I dont know much about it myself but would be interested in the results, hence asking others to do it on some of my bees
Theres quite a bit written on morphometry in this part of the forum( or was it on the 'other site'?) and I've enjoyed reading the arguments for and against by people who know more about it than me
 
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I would be interested to read a little about it if some one would be kind enough to write a little about this subject.

Mike, use your favourite search engine and look for Discoidal Shift, Cubital Index and Hantel Index. I'll put something together as a .pdf as I did a talk to our local assoc on this topic last year.

What degree of accuracy would you expect or do the marker points vary for each bee which is claimed to be a pure breed.
Mike

Typical values taken from literature. Some authors have slightly different numbers for some of the values. The strong pointer to AMM is a negative DS. None of the other species go below zero.

Apis Mellifera Mellifera DS -10 to 0 degrees; CI 1 to 1.9; HI 0.6 to 0.923
AM Carniolan DS 0 to 10 degrees ; CI 2.1 to 6; HI 0.925 to 1.20
AM Caucasica DS -1 to 1 degrees ; CI 1.7 to 2.3; HI 0.6 to 1.2
AM Ligustica DS 0 to 5 degrees ; CI 2 to 2.7; HI 0.6 to 1.2
 
Thank you Wilderness
 
Hi mbc,
I managed to get some wings from the squished remains the postman delivered this morning. :cuss:
This colony has a high percentage of AM Mellifera with a bit of Caucasica.

The 2 attached files show the distribution of the measured parameters and how they fit into the AMM box. One file is a pure AMM wing I found in literature and measured it, the other is from your colony.

Looks like you will be able to sell some nice queens :biggrinjester:

Dave
 
Many thanks Dave,
She'l stay in the mating apiary as a drone mother
I take it that the tighter the group the less mixed the bees?
 
Can you tell any type of bee by this method ?
 
wightbees - I assume you mean bumblebees and solitary bees? I haven't looked for this sort of stuff for any other type of bee.

There is a fair amount of data published on Apis Mellifera Mellifera, A M Ligustica, A M Caucasica and A M Carniolan - the common types of honeybee found in UK. The data is for wing morphometry as well as other parameters eg tongue length, overhair length and tergite width. Most of the work has been done on worker bees but I've seen some work on drones too.

I haven't found any morphometry data on Apis Cerana - yet!

.
 
Would you mine having a look at one of mine ? I have'nt a clue what they are.
 
PM sent.

Where did these bees come from? Are you looking to breed from them?
 
The bees are local isle of wight bees and thats all i know.
I would like to know what type they are as they seem easy to work with. (to me)
pm sent
 
Typical values taken from literature. Some authors have slightly different numbers for some of the values. The strong pointer to AMM is a negative DS. None of the other species go below zero.

Apis Mellifera Mellifera DS -10 to 0 degrees; CI 1 to 1.9; HI 0.6 to 0.923
AM Carniolan DS 0 to 10 degrees ; CI 2.1 to 6; HI 0.925 to 1.20
AM Caucasica DS -1 to 1 degrees ; CI 1.7 to 2.3; HI 0.6 to 1.2
AM Ligustica DS 0 to 5 degrees ; CI 2 to 2.7; HI 0.6 to 1.2

Wilderness, I’ve visited this Forum to find information about ranges of indexes CI, DS and HI for definition of a breed accessory of bees according to morphological characters of a wing. The more complete information to the question has been presented by you in the message from 04.05.2010 . Would it be asking too much of you to specify a source of this information? Unfortunately, I cannot find such information in Russian sources.
Gratefully and best regards from the Russian colleagues,
Kart95
 
I'm fascinated. Unfortunately I have missed recent wing morphology sessions so my knowledge is very sketchy. All things considered, are there any other 'rough and ready' indicators, apart from temperament and behaviour? My bees are quite dark. The only certain reply that I can give to the question "What strain of bees are yours?" is "they're dark ones"!
 

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