# General beekeeping > Native honeybees >  To check if honey bees are in an area ??

## Kate Atchley

Here in the Ardnamurchan we are keen to set up an Amm apiary. 

Our preferred site has no known managed honey bees within 5 miles or more. But how best to check if there are wild bees ... unless, that is, we see them foraging. That's a long shot as none of us local beekeepers live there.

If I put in mating hives surely the queens may simply fly their maximum (maybe 16 km or so) to find a mate and we are none the wiser about their immediate environment. But bait hives, yes certainly.

Any other suggestions?

Kate

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## The Drone Ranger

You could spread several margarine containers around the area with  a block of apifonda or similar in them.
Any foraging bees that find them tell their mates
If there are bees in the area they polish off the free food 
Usually there will be a feeding frenzy  :Smile: 
Almost certainly they leave some dead ones behind
So after a suitable period of weather when bees can fly have a check for dead bees in the containers 
If you find them cut their little carnie wings off and scan them

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## wee willy

Can't you encourage drone production in selected hives? This would increase the odds of the queens mating with the desired drones .
Drone foundation has uses other than for culling frames!
VM


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## Kate Atchley

> Can't you encourage drone production in selected hives? This would increase the odds of the queens mating with the desired drones .
> Drone foundation has uses other than for culling frames!
> VM
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Yes, we will be using drone mother hives but first we need to ensure that, if we put Amm hives in there, any queens from those, and others we take there for mating, are not going to cross-breed with feral bees of unknown genetics.

Kate

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## Kate Atchley

Thanks Drone Ranger. Good idea. I'll have a go at this but will need to find a way to protect the candy from the pinemartens (bolt it down?!).

Kate

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## Jimbo

I made honey traps by placing containers with some old honey in them to attract bees. At one of the sites there was some activity so I collected a sample and did wing morphometry. As it turned out the sample was a good Amm one and I later tracked down the beekeeper who had moved colonies within 2 miles of my proposed mating site. As suggested increase the drone population at your intended site.

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## Jon

Maximizing the number of drones in your own colonies is probably the best strategy as it is something you have direct control over.
A lot of beekeepers cull drone brood and the majority will have no drone foundation in their colonies.
If you get 10 colonies at a mating site it is possible that each could have several thousand drones so you will skew the odds of getting the matings you want in your favour.

Queens won't fly 16k although drones might. Queens don't fly more than a mile or two as far as I know.
I have found that a lot of my queens mate in the apiary itself which makes it even more important to pack it out with your own drones.

Are you in a varroa area? if so the number of feral colonies is likely to be limited.

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## Kate Atchley

Thanks Jon. 

Maximising of drone population may be what we'll find ourselves doing (anyway) but I hesitate to adopt that strategy alone, without first checking to see if we can be more certainty about what's there on the ground.

We have no varroa here. Some local feral colonies are known to have been around for years.

Kate

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## Jon

Unless you can find a truly isolated site the best thing to do is to take a long term view and if there are other colonies in the area they will change over time due to mating with the drones your colonies produce.
This assumes that noone is complicating matters by bringing queens from other sub species to the area.

The background bee population in my area is not great but there is nothing I can do about that other than produce as many queens and drones as possible.

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## Kate Atchley

I live in Lochaber and the site we are considering is the Arnamurchan Peninsula - the most westerly part of the mainland UK. It is remote, with sea to north and south and no known managed bees within 10 miles or so.

Kate

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## wee willy

The only guarantee is II but I have reservations . Main concern being that Queen bees are promiscuous as a survival strategy , the insemination by up to 15 drones ensures that a large gene pool is banked in the workers from whence the next queen is produced.
All these workers will have differing strengths and weaknesses, ensuring that in changing environmental conditions , the particular "strengths" at the time will be passed on to the following queens?
Attempting to maintain this wide pool whilst indulging in II may not be as simple as it would appear, as our idea of the ideal won't match natures ideal ,with the necessary varying of the genetic make up within individual colonies.
Homogeny isn't the intended(evolutionary) strategy of the honeybee.
To sum up , I think your idea of sussing out the population before hand and flooding the area with drones from within the AMM type bee strain is the way to go.
VM


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## Dark Bee

I wish you every success with your breeding project. Ardnamurchan Peninsula sounds as though it has a harsh climate, in which case it is worth remembering that only AMM bees or their near relatives are likely to survive there. This natural selection should ensure that any feral colonies (if they exist) are not too far removed genetically from what you want to breed. Remember that Micheal Mac Giolla coda of Galtee Bee breeding fame, humped colonies up Galteemore to have them breed in an environment where only AMM could prosper. I think it is also important that you flood the area with your own drones. I shall now look at the map to see where Ardnamurchan is situated!   :Smile:

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## The Drone Ranger

> Thanks Drone Ranger. Good idea. I'll have a go at this but will need to find a way to protect the candy from the pinemartens (bolt it down?!).
> 
> 
> 
> Kate


Wasn't that "Fat Boy Slim"  Norman Cook one of the Pinemartens  or was that housemartins ??.......

There might be fantastic drones there already certainly seems isolated enough
Could just stick an empty hive with some drawn comb up there and have look see who is visiting/ nosing around on a warmish day.

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## Kate Atchley

Sorry ... The Housemartins ... about as cute but nothing like as vicious as pinemartens! 
Yer ... was thinking of some bait hives with an old brood frame + a little stores ... to see what can be seen.
Kate

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## Pete L

> All these workers will have differing strengths and weaknesses, ensuring that in changing environmental conditions , the particular "strengths" at the time will be passed on to the following queens?
> Attempting to maintain this wide pool whilst indulging in II may not be as simple as it would appear, as our idea of the ideal won't match natures ideal ,with the necessary varying of the genetic make up within individual colonies.


 I agree with you that it is not easy John, but an even greater mix can be achieved with II, as semen from lots of drones can be mixed (homogenized) from hundreds or even thousands of drones if desired, but much more than any queen would come across in any natural mating situation.

This an interesting little article.

Genetic ‘remix’ key to evolution of bee behaviour: York University research

The honey bee has the highest rates of recombination in animals – ten times higher than humans.  Our study shows that this high degree of genetic shuffling has turned on the evolutionary faucet in parts of the bee genome responsible for orchestrating worker behaviour,” says Kent.  “This can allow natural selection to increase the fitness of honey bee colonies, which live or die based on how well their workers ‘behave’.

http://news.yorku.ca/about-york-media-relations/

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## wee willy

Thanx for the link Pete. I'll give it a coat of looking at  :Smile: 

John


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## Hors

> Here in the Ardnamurchan we are keen to set up an Amm apiary. 
> 
> Our preferred site has no known managed honey bees within 5 miles or more. But how best to check if there are wild bees ... unless, that is, we see them foraging. That's a long shot as none of us local beekeepers live there.
> 
> If I put in mating hives surely the queens may simply fly their maximum (maybe 16 km or so) to find a mate and we are none the wiser about their immediate environment. But bait hives, yes certainly.
> 
> Any other suggestions?
> 
> Kate


Hi Kate,
Some young queens up to mate and get to know which drones have paired the virgins. Important phenotypically pure Amm.
Greetings from North Rhine Westphalia, Horst

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## The Drone Ranger

> Sorry ... The Housemartins ... about as cute but nothing like as vicious as pinemartens! 
> Yer ... was thinking of some bait hives with an old brood frame + a little stores ... to see what can be seen.
> Kate



There is a possibility that you might find some real AMM will turn up in your bait hive and they might be better breeding material than you have at the moment.
I agree wholeheartedly with your cautious approach and not flooding the area with outsider drones etc
Probably don't need stores in the bait hives I think the smell of used brood comb would be enough draw them in

Plan 2 could be just take a couple of apideas with unmated queens up there and see if they get mated or not

I hope the Pinemartens don't attack the bait hives next 
I've always fancied a Davy Crockett hat if they do.

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## Kate Atchley

Just set up 2 pairs of Apideas in the area in question. We've identified wild honey bees so we're now seeking confirmation! I will test the bees from which the mating hives came and, if successful, the progeny of the mated queens. The wild bees would have been resident for at least 15 years, we think, so they may well have reverted from a broad hybrid mix to more nearly pure Amm in response to the climate.

Will let you know!

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## Trog

There are feral colonies which are not AMM in two places within 5 miles of Ardnamurchan.  Whether or not the drones from there would bother crossing the Sound is anyone's guess! However they are fit and healthy, due to lack of varroa, and might fancy a change of scenery!

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## Kate Atchley

> There are feral colonies which are not AMM in two places within 5 miles of Ardnamurchan.  Whether or not the drones from there would bother crossing the Sound is anyone's guess! However they are fit and healthy, due to lack of varroa, and might fancy a change of scenery!


Good to hear from you Trog. Yes, I'm aware Mull bees may play a part in this project (and also no Varroa here to date). The apiary site is about half way down the peninsular opposite a wild part of Morvern so there's a little more distance. As far as we are aware, there are no honey bees across in that part of Morvern.

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## Trog

Aye, you should be fine there; I've not heard of any managed bees there either.

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