# General beekeeping > Native honeybees >  Apis mellifera mellifera(AMM) honey bees

## Eric McArthur

Hi
Is it possible to breed pure race (genotype) Apis mellifera, mellifera (AMM) honey bees commercially in MAINLAND Scotland"?

Eric

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## gavin

You can find several people who do ....

http://www.sbai.org.uk/Breeding/

G.

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## Eric McArthur

Hi Gavin
Many thanks for the link. I am on a keen learning curve here and I am sure other non- AMM beekeepers, if they are honest will be also. I have studied the cubital index /discoidal shift diagrams and I am not surprised at the scale of divergence from the classic 1.8 cubital index considering the incursion of exotic bees from various different sources into Scotland over the years.  What is the accepted range of disparity between values which is the cut  off for an area designated as an isolated pure race breeding area?
I note that the cubital range on the Roseneath Peninsula is some 1.3 to 2.1, with a concentration of results around the 1.6 to  1.8 index.  Jims discoidal average is around (-)3.5
Margies readings range from 1 to 2.2 as you already know with a cluster of values around the 1.4 to 1.5 index. Margies discoidal average is around (-) 5.5.
I was extremely impressed with Margies entrepreneurial Sortie to get her disease free breeding material she will go far!  I am in awe!
From the information to hand  it would seem that a pure race breeding program is still some way off!  Or???
Regards 
Eric

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## Jon

Eric
Check out this thread
there are lots of examples of AMM type scattergrams

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## Jimbo

Hi Eric,

I will be discussing the Rosneath results in April at the Glasgow Beekeepers as part of my talk. I should warn you that using software like Drawwing is not the whole answer. You need to look at other Morphometric charateristics of Amm. A lot of people get hung up with the Cubital Index and Discodal shift results only but it is still a good tool that beekeepers can easily use to see the amount of hybridisation in their colonies and use it to select Amm when breeding. The Rosneath results you have quoted are last years results and by selective breeding the results have improved again this year with some colonies giving a result up to 95% for Amm

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## gavin

Guys

Almost worth coming through to Glasgow for that talk methinks!  Nice to see your lecturing career burgeoning Jimbo.

I propose moving this thread to 'Native bees' but I'll leave it here awhile yet to get everyone used to the idea.  Just being tidy.

G.

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## Jimbo

No its not! I don't know why Peter Stromberg asked me. Two months to go and already having panic attacks over the powerpoint

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## gavin

Your talk in Portmoak was grand, really.  Very accomplished.  A few panic attacks in advance are essential to make you care enough to do the talk well.  I'm having a few right now about Oban tomorrow night.

Mind you, that Glasgow audience can be hard on their visiting speakers .... (only kidding Jim!).

Eric - might this be a new crusade of yours?  If so, I might just join you.  I need something to take my mind off pesticides.

G.

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## EmsE

> Y
> 
> Mind you, that Glasgow audience can be hard on their visiting speakers .... 
> 
> G.


........we were very well behaved tonight and the speaker was still smiling at the end. Looking forward to hearing your talk Jim.

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## Alvearium

McArthur advert for bees.jpg
Hi Eric
I think you have been there before! See attachment from Scottish Beekeeper quite a long time ago. Yes, Eric Margie has done a great job and a couple of those queens will be trialled by another lady beekeeper this summer. Margie is the only one I know who can stick little numbered discs on her queens.
Alvearium

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## Jon

> Mind you, that Glasgow audience can be hard on their visiting speakers .... (only kidding Jim!).


The Blues brothers discuss queen rearing for Glasgow beekeepers.

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## Eric McArthur

HI All,
Jimbo wrote:
I will be discussing the Rosneath results in April at the Glasgow Beekeepers as part of my talk. I should warn you that using software like Drawwing is not the whole answer. You need to look at other Morphometric charateristics of Amm. A lot of people get hung up with the Cubital Index and Discodal shift results only but it is still a good tool that beekeepers can easily use to see the amount of hybridisation in their colonies and use it to select Amm when breeding. The Rosneath results you have quoted are last years results and by selective breeding the results have improved again this year with some colonies giving a result up to 95% for Amm
..................................................  .......
Looking forward to April already!
Eric
..................................................  .
Gavin wrote:
Almost worth coming through to Glasgow for that talk methinks! Nice to see your lecturing career burgeoning Jimbo.
..........................................
The more the merrier!
Eric
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Gavin wrote:;
Eric - might this be a new crusade of yours? If so, I might just join you. I need something to take my mind off pesticides.

Eric wrote
Pesticides! What are pesticides?  
My interest in A.m sp is fostering this wonderful little creature and if my “crusades” raise hackles – simultaneously they hopefully raise awareness of important issues affecting her existence!   I have no axe to grind with particular “hobby horses”.  I have been true to my beekeeping ideals all my life fearlessly fighting the honey bee’s corner against measures and actions which I considered to be detrimental.  Like importation, which I resisted ( sadly in vain!) with the help of Charlie Irwin, Gordon Stewart and John Morgan.  The anti Varroa Lobby petition set up in 1982 achieved 6000 signatures – but the apathy among the’ body of the kirk’  lost us that battle.  Including the whole membership of the BBKA, who refused to sign the petition on the advice of Tonsley and Karl Showler among others.  These people who numbered among the elite of the English bee scene at that time knew nothing about Varroa and sure as hell were not going to listen to some rebellious Scot – nothing changes!  Another issue was the beekeepers who brought bees from the South illegally before 1997 – when editor of the SB mag., I named and shamed such offenders and forced swift withdrawal, one exception was the Englishman who brought bees into the Helensburgh area and who was defended by a beekeeper of that area who shall remain nameless. I championed the organic acids in the late 1970s , and was crucified for it,  before most beekeepers even knew about these treatments.  Oxalic acid is now accepted as a ‘bulwark’ of anti Varroa measures.  I am not going to “rant on” but I will continue raising issues concerning the honey bee which I deem important regardless of any consequences for as long as I am able!  Hopefully with the backing of the apicultural fraternity.
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Hi Alevrius
Male female onother?  - I know not! No Brownie points either!
 I was corresponding with Beowulf Cooper about AMM and the  importation of exotic honey bee in the 1970s.  Did you know that he was an enthusiastic philatelist?
Eric

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## Jimbo

Hi Jon.

Made my laugh. Being a Glasgow boy myself brought up in one of the toughest housing schemes in Glasgow I don't think I will have any problems with the crowd. By the way I thought I saw Eric in the audience. The one with the cowboy hat!. 
What your you tube clip does remind me of was the night I went into a pub down by the docks while waiting for my ferry in Belfast

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## Jon

Definitely Eric in the cowboy hat but he will be saving the bottles for Gavin.
Probably The Rotterdam or Pat's if you were near the docks and both of them are decent enough bars with live music at times. Not Rawhide though.
Belfast bars are only a problem if you walk in with the wrong football shirt on.

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## Eric McArthur

Hi

The hat is actually an Oz Bushman's hat!  
Eric

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## Jimbo

Hi Eric,

Where are the corks then? Actually I have a similar hat that I might just wear to the meeting in April.
To go back to your original question I think it would be difficult to produce enough native bees to supply the commercial beekeepers as there is no commercial bee breeding setups , however I think there is a possibility,especially in the West, to strengthen the foothold the native Amm still have This could be done by local associations educating their membership about the dangers of importing bees and to set up breeding programs to supply and improve their local bees

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## Eric McArthur

Hi Jimbo
Its good to laugh! The midges can dodge the corks;  I wear a midge hood with the hat  total protection!!
I note that interest is being drummed up for the April show - Looking good!
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Jimbo wrote:
To go back to your original question I think it would be difficult to produce enough native bees to supply the commercial beekeepers as there is no commercial bee breeding setups , however I think there is a possibility,especially in the West, to strengthen the foothold the native Amm still have.
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Eric wrote:
I am pleased to see that party politics seems to have been laid aside here.   The question I posed was done to widen the AMM story and explore the present limitations.  
I actually participated in the original Stoakely Morphology Seminar , in Peebles at which Ian Craig was also present,  when Dr Eric Milner was in his hey day!  I still have the wing samples used then  somewhere - which were squirted up on a white wall using a 10 X 10 overhead projector and measuring each sample with a ruler  tedious work but that was a fun day!
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Jimbo wrote:
This could be done by local associations educating their membership about the dangers of importing bees and to set up breeding programs to supply and improve their local bees.

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Eric wrote:
I hate to say I told you so.  But if anyone cares to drop the party politic stand and refer to the May 2006,Scottish Beekeeper magazine and have a look at the Open Letter on page  125,  which I wrote to the SBA Executive 5 years ago on this very subject.  Dare I say that I was ahead of the game yet again.  By 26 years if you count the anti Varroa lobby as well!
I was impressed with your 95% AMM result.  My next questions were going to be  How many queen rearing colonies were involved and how many queens total,  were in the 95% success batch. You can probably see where I am going, but there are solutions available which could supply the need for more bees generally and also the facility to foster the AMM residue in the isolated area; even the Scottish islands with folk like Margie the project has no chance of failing! .  Especially if intelligent discussions were to take place without playing silly buggers (sorry  Popz!)

Eric

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## Jimbo

Hi Eric,

I can see where you are going so I will give you a wee sneak preview. The Queen used was a 75% Amm. Using the Cupkit system 8 Queen cells from 10 was produced. 7 of those were used in Mini nucs and taken to 3 apairy sites. One of which you kindly offered me which had 3 colonies which were also 60-70% Amm. So thanks for that. 3 mini nucs were left there. Two mini nucs were left at the original site with two colonies and two were taken to a site near the south end of the Rosneath Peninsula with 4 hives on it but also has about 15 -20 colonies in the close vicinity owned by other beekeepers. 5 of the 7 colonies mated successfully. 3 of the mininucs gave a 95% Amm result, 1 gave I think about 75%. the other one at the south end of the Penisula gave a rubbish result. This I think is due to all the new beekeepers getting hybrid colonies from the local association which had an effect on the Amm result. (I still built up the colony and sold it on to a new beekeeper who lives miles away from me). There are other beekeepers near some of my sites who still have Amm bees in the 70 - 85% and not related to mine but at some point I would need to bring in fresh blood so co-operation with other like minded people would be good thing. At present there are about 35 -40 colonies on the Peninsula and the long term aim is to get back to native Amm bees. As I said in an earlier post using Drawwing as a tool only assists you in your selection when breeding you also need to look at the other morphometric characteristics of Amm.

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## Eric McArthur

Jimbo wrote:
I can see where you are going so I will give you a wee sneak preview. The Queen used was a 75% Amm. Using the Cupkit system 8 Queen cells from 10 was produced. 7 of those were used in Mini nucs and taken to 3 apairy sites. One of which you kindly offered me which had 3 colonies which were also 60-70% Amm. So thanks for that. 3 mini nucs were left there. Two mini nucs were left at the original site with two colonies and two were taken to a site near the south end of the Rosneath Peninsula with 4 hives on it but also has about 15 -20 colonies in the close vicinity owned by other beekeepers. 5 of the 7 colonies mated successfully. 3 of the mininucs gave a 95% Amm result, 1 gave I think about 75%. the other one at the south end of the Penisula gave a rubbish result. This I think is due to all the new beekeepers getting hybrid colonies from the local association which had an effect on the Amm result. (I still built up the colony and sold it on to a new beekeeper who lives miles away from me). There are other beekeepers near some of my sites who still have Amm bees in the 70 - 85% and not related to mine but at some point I would need to bring in fresh blood so co-operation with other like minded people would be good thing. At present there are about 35 -40 colonies on the Peninsula and the long term aim is to get back to native Amm bees. As I said in an earlier post using Drawwing as a tool only assists you in your selection when breeding you also need to look at the other morphometric characteristics of Amm.
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Hi Jimbo
Many thanks for the objective information Jimbo. 
My question re the queen mother(s) would have probed the size of the gene pool, which you have conceded is painfully small, even considering any “potential“ lurking in the indigenous Peninsula colonies..  How many of these useful unrelated “sex determining alleles” do you reckon ‘from a past thread’ exist in your gene pool? Bearing in mind the Bienefeld work promulgated in the February Scottish Beekeeper magazine.  This is a purely objective line of thought  - with no intent to ‘score’ Brownie points.  Is it possible to expand on this without references to my Bushman hat?
What degree of AMM was indicated in the mother of the breeder queen?  Some degree of DNA sampling would be a boon – actually there is such a skill waiting in the wings for an opening in the Glasgow BKA, Simon I think is his name!   The lady curator of the Glasgow Art Galleries has an excellent source of pre 1910 AMM DNA as a Standard!
This “mother” queen if still “above ground” and in possession of a high level of AMM pedigree could be a marvellous tool to flood your ‘suspect’ beekeeper apiaries with her drones in this coming season.  Using the Pfefferle, ½ frame worker/drone device already mentioned in conversation with Calum in another thread and making up even 3 frame nucs using these 50/50 frames which could be transported to these out apiaries (do you have Varroa on the Penisula”?). You will have early drones which are replicates of your “batch” queens’ grandmother unless I miss my quess you have a hidden unrelated ½ generation of alleles to play with.  The mind boggles – No?  Non ‘party political’ critically constructive comments from Gavin/Jon would be great?  This genetic material could be useful in the next generation of the ‘suspect’ apiary colonies.
By similarly flooding the Peninsula with drones from the “batch” daughter queens a latent (slightly inbred) AMM gene pool could be created quite rapidly and new female blood would find a ready-made source of (good) AMM genetic material.
I was pleased to note that you did not discard your “unacceptable” results, but sold them on, unlike a would be AMM breeder who spoke to the Glasgow BKA some years ago informing that due to the proximity of an “exotic bee” importer, he was suffering many (too many!) failures.  He could still have sold these queens, which were probably perfectly good hybrids to a less discerning beekeeper and offset some of his heavy outlay!
Eric

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## Jon

> My question re the queen mother(s) would have probed the size of the gene pool, which you have conceded is painfully small, even considering any “potential“ lurking in the indigenous Peninsula colonies..  How many of these useful unrelated “sex determining alleles” do you reckon ‘from a past thread’ exist in your gene pool?


Eric. Groundhog day was 2nd February.
A single queen can carry all or most of the sex alleles if she has mated with a good number or drones.

re number of queens, last year was the first year I grafted and I hatched about 120. I have some colonies showing 100% according to wing venation but as Jimbo says, there is more to it than that.
If you requeen all your colonies every year and graft from a new unrelated queen that is all you have to do to avoid a genetic bottleneck. I know a few people who do this with a new Galtee queen every year. You requeen all your colonies with the daughter queens of the queen you are grafting from which means that all your colonies produce pure AMM drones. The following year you graft from a new unrelated queen whose virgin daughters will mate with the drones from the daughters of the previous year's queen.

1 new unrelated queen per year which you graft from = no in breeding / no genetic bottleneck.

This is not the system I use but it works very well.

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## Eric McArthur

Jon wrote:
Eric. Groundhog day was 2nd February.
A single queen can carry all or most of the sex alleles if she has mated with a good number or drones. 
.........................................
 Eric wrote:
Hi Jon
I loved the simplicity of the Galtee annual requeen system.  Id be interested,  however to know what size of gene pool Michael works with and if he maintains breeder queens over more than two years.
If all annual queen needs are reared from a single queen mother by grafting   does this not imply that the resulting drones, albeit a generation out of step, would all be identical. Especially if all the mother queens are obtained from the same source year on year.  Thus virgins, all sisters, being mated by these drones could all carry  identical alleles.  the mind boggles!  I look forward to your correction of my postulation.
How many colonies do you work with in your grafting system?

Jimbo
What do you think of blanketing the suspect apiaries on the Peninsula using near AMM drone nucs as suggested (with of course the other beekeepers 0K!)?

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## Jon

> Hi Jon
> I loved the simplicity of the Galtee annual requeen system.  I’d be interested,  however to know what size of gene pool Michael works with and if he maintains breeder queens over more than two years.


Hi Eric.
I don't know exactly what way Micheál Mac Giolla Coda works but there are hundreds of colonies and dozens of individual beekeepers involved in the Galtee valley.
He has an AI setup and maintains several lines of bees from selected queens.
Open mating also takes place.
Check the website here.
He also uses breeder queens into the 3rd year if they have proved their worth.

I am talking about people I know in the north who buy one new queen per year for grafting.




> If all annual queen needs are reared from a single queen mother by grafting – does this not imply that the resulting drones, albeit a generation out of step, would all be identical.


Fortunately this is not the case.

Imagine the queen you are grafting from has mated with 15 drones each one of which has a different sex allele.
The diploid queen has two sex alleles of her own, A and B, plus 15 more in her spermatheca which can be demoted  C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T

Her daughters will carry one of her own sex alleles, either A or B plus any one of the other 15 at random.
This means that she can produce 30 different combinations of sex alleles in her Virgin daughters ie,

AC,AD,AE,AF,AG etc, 
BC,BD,BE,BF,BG etc.

These virgins mate and carry sperm from different drones in their spermathecas but this is irrelvant to the drones they produce themselves from an unfertilized egg.
daughter queens are never raised from these as a new queen for grafting is brought in from outside each year.

Each daughter queen you requeen with, and there are 30 different combinations in this example, can make two types of drone. These will have either sex allele A or B plus the other sex allele carried by the queen which could be anything between C and T in this example.
A and B will occur the most frequently but if you requeen a dozen colonies you will probably get a good number of the other sex alleles as well.
requeening again in 12 months with daughters of a new queen brought in from outside mixes the combinations up again.

Gavin,  if you have got over that 1:3 scoreline please correct any of that if I have got the wrong end of the stick.

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## gavin

:Stick Out Tongue:   3-1 flattered them.  A couple of deflected shots that confused the keeper.  They were the better team though - as they ought to be with the money they have to spend!

Your genetics is good.  Each of the drones *might* carry a different allele, but in reality there will be many duplicates most of the time, so 15 is just a hypothetical figure.

In reality too there will be multi-year queens around in the apiary and in the vicinity, so mixing should be even better.

The Galtee importer knows exactly what he is doing, and the plan is good.  In the process he is flooding his area with native stock from not so far away.  For most of us though, we ought to be breeding our own local bees, don't you think?

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## Jon

> For most of us though, we ought to be breeding our own local bees, don't you think?


I agree as it would be a shame to lose good local genetics.
I don't have a Galtee Queen myself although I was tempted to get one in September as everyone else seemed to be stocking up after the Bibba conference in Tipperary. One guy bought 20 or so to distribute to members of his BKA.
I have a daughter of a Galtee queen and a few of my own which mated with mainly Galtee drones so I have a bit of the genetics in the mix.

The trick is to get enough local beekeepers singing from the same hymnsheet. Jimbo's project on Rosneath seems to be headed the right way.
I was only giving the example to show that a limited number of colonies does not inevitably lead to inbreeding as long as you know what you are doing re. the queen you graft from.

The Galtee valley is several miles wide and is flanked by two mountain ridges and all the beekeepers in the valley are committed to the Galtee ideal

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## Eric McArthur

Hi Gavin/Jon
I have read all that you both have written  - posts 22 and 23.
You have both strayed off piste and even kicked your football into touch.
The thread posed the question: 
Is it possible to breed pure race (genotype) Apis mellifera, mellifera (AMM) honey bees commercially in MAINLAND Scotland"?

The last two posts 22 and 23 actually discuss a “Dead End” scenario of re-queening colonies every year, which is a useful ploy to maintain vigorous queens and at the same time inhibit swarming.  The method does not particularly lend itself to breeding unrelated queens since the queens produced in the grafting process are all sisters, even super sisters since as Gavin so correctly implies (viz: Each of the drones *might* carry a different allele, but in reality there will be “many” duplicates most of the time).   I’d wager “most” rather than “many”. 
I actually pre-empted this re-queening procedure, but in much more practical terms than the method described by Jon, by some 13 years relative to the accepted wisdom of “queen residence” in productive colonies advised in the “Hive and the Honey Bee” up until 1997.  
My book on the subject, was written in 1984 and reviewed in “IBRAs "Apicultural Abstracts” at the time.  The book was also reviewed in An Beachaire.  It is in the Moir, the National Library in Edinburgh and also in the Bodliean.

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Gavin wrote:
The Galtee importer knows exactly what he is doing, and the plan is good. In the process he is flooding his area with native stock.
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Eric wrote:
Jimbo
What do you think of blanketing the suspect apiaries on the Peninsula using near AMM drone nucs as suggested (with of course the other beekeepers’ 0K!)?
..................................................  .....

I seem to be on the same wavelength with my “drone flooding” idea.
It might be worthwhile purchasing a few Galtee queens for any Scottish project – to accelerate the development of the AMM breeding project – Margie has already broken the psychological barrier with  the  ‘up the jooks’ beeless brood comb foray!

Eric

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## Jon

> Is it possible to breed pure race (genotype) Apis mellifera, mellifera (AMM) honey bees commercially in MAINLAND Scotland"?


Well if the Galtee group can do it on mainland Ireland I don't see why the same thing cannot be achieved in mainland Scotland. 




> The last two posts 22 and 23 actually discuss a “Dead End” scenario of re-queening colonies every year, which is a useful ploy to maintain vigorous queens and at the same time inhibit swarming.


Only if you are thinking just of yourself or your own local group as opposed to the wider beekeeping community in Scotland. If you have a few groups of beekeepers using AMM stock, and half decent records are kept, there is no reason why swapping queens between groups should not be a very effective strategy for mixing up the genetics within local AMM bees.




> I actually pre-empted this re-queening procedure, but in much more practical terms than the method described by Jon, by some 13 years relative to the accepted wisdom of “queen residence” in productive colonies advised in the “Hive and the Honey Bee” up until 1997.


Sorry Eric, you have lost me there and I own a copy of Dadant's 'Hive and the Honey Bee.'




> Each of the drones *might* carry a different allele, but in reality there will be “many” duplicates


But of course you will remember from the inbreeding thread that a closed population of bees only gets into difficulties re. pepperpot brood when the number of sex alleles falls to six or less - and this is not even a closed population as we are talking about mainlanland bee breeding whether Ireland or Scotland.
If you requeen a dozen colonies under this system you would be extremely unlikely to create a drone population with 6 or less alleles unless the queen you are grafting from mated with a very restricted number of drones. I mentioned that Micheál Mac Giolla Coda has an AI setup so I dare say this is all under control. Anyway there are hundreds of colonies in the Galtee project so open mating should be good enough.
Someone like Nellie can probably work out the statistical probability. Come to think of it Gavin should be a whizz at this sort of thing.

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## Eric McArthur

Hi Jon
Yes, I would say it is possible to breed pure race AMM in Scotland. 
The Roseneath Peninsula if secured would be a suitable candidate, as of course would many of the Western Isles.   However in my humble opinion from the ‘raging non interest’ in this AMM thread any such project would be pushing against a ‘closed door’ – I’ve witnessed apathy many times in my beekeeping career but the silence here is eerie. Who will buy these Scottish  AMM queens bred for their looks and wing venation with their practical attributes a poor second; not your commercial man fighting for an existence nor the cash strapped hobbyist.  Unless of course these hobbyists ruin a fragile gene pool in their area where there are few beekeepers by subscribing to the systematic reduction of heterozygosis in their area by the “Annual Graft” procedure, which even Gavin has acknowledged is fatally flawed – viz:  “as Gavin so correctly implies (viz: Each of the drones *might* carry a different allele, but in reality there will be “many” duplicates most of the time)”, and being forced to purchase new queens annually  – the ‘BuckfastTrap’ having been sprung!  
The procedure you have seemingly embarked upon – viz:  “last year was the first year I grafted and I hatched about 120. I have some colonies showing 100% according to wing venation”.  Lovely! These queens are all sisters of course but will their daughters be able to sustain a year on year homozygous reproductive cycle in the face of so many brothers of their successive mums?  I think your line of ‘logic’ here should be ‘opened out’ lest some newcomer or badly read experienced beekeeper follows your grafting procedure, without your experience to compensate. 
What you are actually simulating is the “gross error” of “breeding from the best”, which at a stroke could reduce a 20 colony ‘unrelated gene pool’ apiary  to 20 colonies with sister queens in each subsequent (de)generation.
The safest way to safeguard a gene pool –- is to breed  a daughter queen from each colony mother queen and replace her with her daughter each year.  In this manner although slight inbreeding may occur the original gene pool is safeguarded.  I think you will find that Andrew Abrahams practices a method similar to this, but  perhaps keeping his queens longer.
“Breeding from the Best” will result in massive genetic loss in that particular apiary within a couple of generations due to each subsequent generation’s queens and drones being related.
Regards “ losing you” with my requeening procedure, which was heavily criticised by Bernhard Mobus and others at the time.  I experimented  with queens no older than a year old starting in 1979 and quickly proved that a first year queen rarely swarmed in that year. If you go to page 373 of the 1975 edition  of “The Hive and the Honey Bee” – read from the top of the page and you will read that -  “it would be foolish to replace a queen each year”.
However if you go to page 349, of the 1992 edition you will read – “that it is very important to requeen colonies at least once a year”.
It took me a mere 10 years from scratch to discover this phenomenon and put it to work.  It took the specialist authors writing in “The Hive and the Honey Bee”  around 40 years.

Eric

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## Jon

> The Galtee importer knows exactly what he is doing, and the plan is good.  In the process he is flooding his area with native stock from not so far away.  For most of us though, we ought to be breeding our own local bees, don't you think?


ERIC



> the “Annual Graft” procedure, which even Gavin has acknowledged is fatally flawed


Hard to reconcile those two statements Eric and you have repeated most of your misconceptions about inbreeding and bee genetics in that single post above.

I actually grafted from a couple of my own queens and swapped some as well. You must be aware that Ireland is not a small island like colonsay with a single beekeeper so there are drones around from many different apairies to negate your unwarranted concerns about inbreeding.




> and being forced to purchase new queens annually - the ‘BuckfastTrap’ having been sprung!


Swap queens with another AMM enthusiast if necessary.




> These queens are all sisters of course


More likely half sisters.




> Who will buy these Scottish AMM queens bred for their looks and wing venation with their practical attributes a poor second


Who exactly is breeding bees bred for looks and wing venation? I don't know anyone who does this. The best use of morphometry is to detect a hybridised colony and reject it as a candidate for breeding.
PS groundhog day has passed.

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## Eric McArthur

Eric wrote:
Who will buy these Scottish AMM queens bred for their looks and wing venation with their practical attributes a poor second?
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Jon wrote;
Who exactly is breeding bees bred for looks and wing venation? I don't know anyone who does this. The best use of morphometry is to detect a hybridised colony and REJECT it as a candidate for breeding.
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Eric wrote:
Exactly my point  the hybrid is rejected out of hand, because it LOOKS wrong.  No mention of its qualities.
Gavin, Jimbo, Chris et al - Jon needs help here, he is out of his depth!
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Jon wrote:
PS groundhog day has passed.
..................................................
Yes, we are now getting to the nub of experience v male bovine excrement

Best regards

Eric!

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## Jon

> Exactly my point – the hybrid is rejected out of hand, because it LOOKS wrong.  No mention of its qualities.
> Gavin, Jimbo, Chris et al - Jon needs help here, he is out of his depth!


Eric.

If you want to breed hybrid bees, be my guest.
Jimbo, myself and others are interested in breeding AMM.

If you want to breed pure AMM you have to make sure there are no hybrids in the gene pool.
They are not rejected because they LOOK wrong. they often look RIGHT but the morphometric tools let you know that there has been intromission from other races.
Wing venation is a fairy good indicator, as are certain behaviours such as maintaining a smallish brood nest and frugal overwintering, pollen all around the brood area.
Jimbo did mention at the start of the thread that there is more to this than Drawwing plots.
Colour is known to be a poor indicator.
DNA analysis will be the best indicator of all.

I know you see yourself as a visionary, but it seems to me you are a little late to the party here with regard to morphometry and other indicators.

Hybrids between races often produce good strong honey producing colonies in the FI generation but all hell can break loose in the F2 due to the uncontrolled mix of the genetics.
Beowulf Cooper wrote a lot about this in his book 'Honey bees of the British Isles'
He decribed the situation where a pure AMM queen mates with exotic drones and what happens in subsequent generations.

Look up heterosis, also known as hybrid vigour.
The vigour/health is good but in the honey bee it is often expresses as increased aggression.
Ruttner wrote a lot about this in the chapter he edited in the book you mentioned above: Dadant: The Hive and the Honey Bee.

He mentioned that a cross between AMM and Carnica produced the most aggressive bees.
Are you still sure you want hybrids in the mix. I certainly don't.
Carnica is a black race of bee and crosses between AMM and Carnica are notoriously hard to spot based upon colour. the easiest way to detect these is when they meet you at the gate 100 yards before you reach your colonies.

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## Eric McArthur

Jon wrote;
Who exactly is breeding bees bred for looks and wing venation? I don't know anyone who does this. The best use of morphometry is to detect a hybridised colony and REJECT it as a candidate for breeding.
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Eric wrote:
Exactly my point  the hybrid is rejected out of hand, because it LOOKS wrong. No mention of its qualities.
..................................................  ..
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Jon wrote:
I know you see yourself as a visionary, but it seems to me you are a little late to the party here with regard to morphometry and other indicators. 
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;
Jon there is no way back for you from Post number 29.                             

How far back do you wish to go?  I was corresponding with Beowulf Cooper about AMM and the importation of exotic honey bee in the 1970s?  I actually participated in the original Stoakley Morphology Seminar, in Peebles at which Ian Craig was also present,  when Dr Eric Milner was in his hey day!  I still have the wing samples used then. 
I told Dr Milner at that event that it had been a fun day but that in my opinion breeding AMM in Scotland was fetish.  The environment and forage has changed quite dramatically since the 1920s (I assume you know of Dr Milners contribution to the science of Morphologie?)  
Tell me what you associate Ernst Haekel with and we can discuss the subject on equal terms. As I said there is no substitute for experience and education.

Eric

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## Jon

> How far back do you wish to go?  I was corresponding with Beowulf Cooper about AMM and the importation of exotic honey bee in the 1970s?


Eric. You could try and adopt a less agressive tone.
It is clear you go back a long way and nothing gives you more pleasure than name dropping - but since when did time spent on earth automatically translate into knowledge?
Some younger guys are very clever and a lot of older guys have baggage and are set in their ways.
You need to be asking questions about how bee genetics works in practice, as it is clear from this thread that there are very basic concepts which you have never understood. ie this sort of misconception:




> If all annual queen needs are reared from a single queen mother by grafting – does this not imply that the resulting drones, albeit a generation out of step, would all be identical. Especially if all the mother queens are obtained from the same source year on year. Thus virgins, all sisters, being mated by these drones could all carry identical alleles. – the mind boggles! I look forward to your correction of my postulation.





> Jon there is no way back for you from Post number 29.


Post number 29 is your post not mine Eric. Did you find something inaccurate in it!

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## gavin

> Gavin, Jimbo, Chris et al - Jon needs help here, he is out of his depth!
> 
> [snip]
> 
> Yes, we are now getting to the nub of experience v male bovine excrement


Cut it out Eric, please.

Share your vast experience of beekeeping with us in a helpful way and we will all welcome and appreciate that.

Share your views on the big beekeeping issues of the day - in the right place - and we'll debate them with you without rancour if at all possible.

Brag about the people you knew and the battles with them you think you won, and we'll quickly tire.

Insult people and you will be controlled.

So guys and gals, could we please keep this area for constructive discussion of native bees?

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## Eric McArthur

Hi Gavin

Gavin wrote:
Share your vast experience of beekeeping with us in a helpful way and we will all welcome and appreciate that.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;;;;;
I wish I could believe that.  Since I joined this Forum, which I enjoy, I have been subjected to constant reminders of how much you, Jon, Jimbo and Chris know and how much I am in need of remedial help!
..................................................  ...
Gavin wrote:
Share your views on the big beekeeping issues of the day - in the right place - and we'll debate them with you without rancour if at all possible.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;
The big issue on the table at present is AMM and its propagation in Scotland.

..................................................  ....
Gavin wrote:
Brag about the people you knew and the battles with them you think you won, and we'll quickly tire.
..................................................  ...................
Bragging is empty words!  I am not bragging.   I am merely stating my CV to a hostile audience, which seemingly when faced with the unpalatable truth that perhaps they have underestimated a contemporary, seeks to diminish the individuals ability to effectively dispute accepted wisdom.


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Jon wrote:
Eric. You could try and adopt a less aggressive tone.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::  :::::::
Well I never!  Have a look at the last post on the  10 isolated  colonies thread and then talk to me about aggression.  That is if you can find the thread!  Where did you put it Gavin?
..................................................  ...........................
Jon wrote:
It is clear you go back a long way and nothing gives you more pleasure than name dropping - but since when did time spent on earth automatically translate into knowledge.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;;;
This is a no win situation you are trying to foist on me.  I get hammered for pasting stuff. So I give you steps for a hint and that is name  dropping?   Give us a break and do your  homework!                                                                                                                                     
What have you been doing with YOUR time on Earth?  I personally have been studying the theory and practice of apiculture for some 40 years and I  have  learned a few things on the way and by no means automatically!                                                                                               You accuse me of being a Johnny come lately to morphology and then take offence when I tell you that my experience predates yours by probably zig years.?


........................................
Jon wrote:
You need to be asking questions about how bee genetics works in practice, as it is clear from this thread that there are very basic concepts which you have never understood.                                                                                                                          
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Grafting is usually done from a comb in which all the larvae to be grafted are in band relative to age in the same time scale.   The spermatozoa which fertilises the eggs on this comb will result primarily from the shoal of  sperm from a single drone  from the layered sperm in the spermatheca.  Thus all these larvae have the same mum and dad and therefore the daughters when  they mate with the drones produced by the previous generation (their mother!) will be mating with the related drones.  
Do you want to discuss the sub-family relationships: super sisters, full sisters and half sisters?  These relationships are the criticals in breeding and if these relationships had been looked at objectively the nonsense about bowls of fruit and coloured buts of cloth in the disappeared thread would never have arisen.
..................................................  .......................

Jon wrote:
Post number 29 is your post not mine Eric. Did you find something inaccurate in it!
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I did not say the post was yours  just reads the content which quotes you!

Eric

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## Rosie

> ...from a single drone  from the layered sperm in the spermatheca.


Hasn't that theory been debunked years ago?

Rosie

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## Jon

Yes, decades ago but the myth still persists with a lot of beekeepers.
I remember someone on another forum claiming that his bees changed colour from black to yellow and then back to black and that this was because the drone sperm was stored in the spermatheca in discrete packages.
Maybe needs to keep more of an eye on supersedure and swarming!!




> Bragging is empty words!  I am not bragging.   I am merely stating my CV to a hostile audience, which seemingly when faced with the unpalatable truth that perhaps they have underestimated a “contemporary”, seeks to diminish the individual’s ability to effectively dispute ‘accepted wisdom’.


Your audience is not hostile -  it is critical in the scientific sense. It is also educated.
You often post opinion and claim it as fact. Don't be surprised when it gets challenged or debunked.

An Internet Forum is a funny business Eric. It is  a debating chamber rather than a pulpit, with an immediate right to reply. Unlike, a magazine article for example.
Reputations mean nothing when inaccuracy and misunderstandings are there for all to see.

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## Eric McArthur

Hi Rosie /Jon

Rosie wrote:
Hasn't that theory been debunked years ago?
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Jon wrote:
Yes, decades ago but the myth still persists with a lot of beekeepers.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;
It  is easy for somebody who has never really observed the structure of the individual members of a honey bee colony closely or who is not widely read to discount the intelligent observations of more experienced beekeepers.  No offence meant here!  I am simply stating scientific fact.
I’d paste the relevant prose  - but considering  the antipathy to such procedures I will merely give you a critical reference, which confirms what I wrote to be true and contradicts the polemic: viz  – “The Hive and the Honey Bee”, 1993 edition, page 244, last paragraph before “SELECTIVE BREEDING”.  A taster quote! – “For instance individuals of a single SUBFAMILY may have a high genetic pre-disposition to defend the hive and as a consequence, make the colony very defensive while the 16 or so other SUB FAMILIES may be very non defensive.  
..................................................  ...............
Jon wrote:
I remember someone on another forum claiming that his bees changed colour from black to yellow and then back to black and that this was because the drone sperm was stored in the spermatheca in discrete packages.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;;;;;;
This beekeeper was correct.  Working with some 3000+ colonies of acclimatised hybrids over the years I have noticed this phenomenon many times.  Beware of false prophets!
..............................................                                                                                 

Jon wrote:      
Reputations mean nothing when inaccuracy and misunderstandings are there for all to see.
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Point made and hopefully taken!
Best regards 
Eric

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## Rosie

> The Hive and the Honey Bee, 1993 edition, page 244, last paragraph before SELECTIVE BREEDING.  A taster quote!  For instance individuals of a single SUBFAMILY may have a high genetic pre-disposition to defend the hive and as a consequence, make the colony very defensive while the 16 or so other SUB FAMILIES may be very non defensive.


Eric, have you got anything more up-to-date that describes scientific research into the sizes of the sperm packages in the spermatheca?

Rosie

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## Jon

> Jon wrote:
> I remember someone on another forum claiming that his bees changed colour from black to yellow and then back to black and that this was because the drone sperm was stored in the spermatheca in discrete packages.
> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;;
> This beekeeper was correct. Working with some 3000+ colonies of acclimatised hybrids over the years I have noticed this phenomenon many times.


Sounds like you need to keep a closer eye on supersedure and swarming leading to a replacement queen but don't let me stand in the way of your beliefs.




> It is easy for somebody who has never really observed the structure of the individual members of a honey bee colony closely or who is not widely read to discount the intelligent observations of more experienced beekeepers.


On what basis do you consider yourself to be (a) more observant or (b) more widely read than any other poster here?

Some more reading material re. haplodiploid genetics would do you no harm.

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## AlexJ

Eric,
I havent read much on the topic and certainly cant speak from a great deal of personal observation on the matter, but I have read a couple of papers in light of previous discussions on this forum.  They indicated quite firmly that sperm usage is random and that clumps are not a factor in the spermatheca.  For info they are:

Sperm usage in honeybees, Micheal Halberl and Diethart Tautz, Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiolgy Vol 42 No 4 (1988)

Proteomic analyses of male contributions to honey bee sperm storage and mating, Collins et al. Insect Molecular Biology (2006)
15(5)

One study gives a 6% or less chance if any of sperm clumping which you may, or may not, find statistically meaningful.

I can email them to anyone who needs a non-chemical means of falling asleep.

Alex

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## Eric McArthur

Hi  Rosie
Drones average 1,156,850 spermatozoa of which only some 3-4% appears to be migrate to the spermatheca. This reduces the viable sperm to some 35  46000 sperm /drone packet. Queen mating with perhaps 17 drone accumulates circa 6 000 000 - 8 000 000 which tallies quite well with Koeniger et al
As one would expect, the number of sperm in the spermatheca decreases significantly over time as the queen utilizes her stored semen to fertilize her eggs. Al-Lawati et al. (2009) found that, on average, one-year-old queens contained only 38%, and two-year-old queens only 21% of the sperm found in freshly mated queens.
The total number of spermatozoa extracted from the spermatheca of a freshly mated queen varies between one to eight million (Koeniger and Koeniger 2000, Cobey 2007).

But you knew this already!  
Eric

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## Eric McArthur

Hi Alexj
Many thanks for the references  the Collins one I found most interesting.   The in vitro findings appear conclusive  but so did the Glabal Warming work of Beddington till he shot himself in the foot and moved over to the more accurate Climate Change logo!  He is now the saviour of the world in food. The Prof in South Vietnam who cloned imaginary human embryos also springs to mind, as does Piltdown Man.  I have canvassed a number of experienced beekeepers in my ken and quizzed them on the Core Population vs the Random Harvest  postulations -  all insist that they  have noted core population characteristics  and peripheral differences in small numbers of colony members.
My question is - despite the seemingly conclusive finding of Collins in vitro research, did his team ever do DNA testing in the field on honey bee colonies by selecting significant numbers of adult bees from the colonies when all the flying bees were home to achieve a really representative sample?  Further did his team do DNA sampling on significant numbers of larvae developing on the same comb  to prove that his in vitro results were repeating in the larvae.  I am conceding nothing unless I can be shown hard copy proof positive of field test results. Learning lessons is not something I am afraid of!  By the way the Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiolgy Vol 42 No 4 (1988) reference gave me sperm storage in snails  viz:  Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiolgy Vol 42 No 4 (1988) Sperm allocation in the simultaneously hermaphroditic land snail Arianta arbustorum.

Eric

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## AlexJ

Eric,
Apologies for incorrect reference I was ten years out, it should be:

Sperm usage in honeybees, Micheal Halberl and Diethart Tautz, Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiolgy Vol 42 No 4 (*1998*).

The 12 month trial, if my memory serves me correctly used an observation hive and a matrix of the queen's laying routine to identify eggs/larvae for analysis, this may answer some of your questions regarding brood selection.

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## Eric McArthur

Hi Alex
Still no joy!  Do the unthinkable and paste the paper as a post. I'd like very much to see the spermatheca storage issue settled by a field trial paper  
I think Rosie's new thread could run and run. Looks interesting even now!

Eric

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## gavin

Folks (including Eric of course)

The cutting and pasting people were taking offense to was the habit of reproducing propaganda in quantity.  I don't think that anyone would object to snippets of proper science being presented here if it is simply to provide the detail for some discussion on a serious beekeeping topic.   For example:

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
Volume 42, Number 4, 247-255, DOI: 10.1007/s002650050436

Article
Sperm usage in honey bees

Michael Haberl and Diethard Tautz

Abstract
Sperm usage was investigated in a naturally mated honey bee queen. We collected worker progeny arising from eggs that were laid sequentially during three sampling periods. Paternity was determined by analysis of three polymorphic microsatellite loci, leading to the conclusion that the queen had mated with seven males. Direct analysis of the sperm from the spermatheca revealed no evidence that sperm from additional males was present inside the spermatheca. Frequencies of different subfamilies differed significantly and ranged from 3.8% to 27.3%. In the short term, the frequencies of subfamilies among the eggs laid did not change over time. The frequency of eggs of a particular subfamily was statistically independent of the previous egg's subfamily. Thus, there is no evidence for non-random fine-scale sperm usage, and we estimate the effect of sperm clumping to be less than 6%. We conclude that the sperm is mixed completely inside the queen's spermatheca. Our results suggest that taking brood samples from comb cells next to each other is a statistically correct way of independent sampling of subfamilies at a given time in honey bee colonies. Furthermore, any bias in subfamily frequencies in offspring queens due to sperm usage can be excluded. However, the analyses of progeny samples taken 12 months apart do not allow us to exclude moderate fluctuations of subfamily frequencies in the long-term.

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## Rosie

That seems pretty compelling to me.  It's as most of us thought - the sperm is well mixed in the spermatheca and at any given time there are plenty of sub-families in a hive simultaneously.  The thinking is that these sub-families have differing skills and the hive runs better if these various skills are present at all times.

Rosie

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## Jon

> Hi  Rosie
> Drones average 1,156,850 spermatozoa of which only some 3-4% appears to be migrate to the spermatheca. This reduces the viable sperm to some 35 – 46000 sperm /drone packet. Queen mating with perhaps 17 drone accumulates circa 6 000 000 - 8 000 000 which tallies quite well with Koeniger et al
> As one would expect, the number of sperm in the spermatheca decreases significantly over time as the queen utilizes her stored semen to fertilize her eggs. Al-Lawati et al. (2009) found that, on average, one-year-old queens contained only 38%, and two-year-old queens only 21% of the sperm found in freshly mated queens.
> The total number of spermatozoa extracted from the spermatheca of a freshly mated queen varies between one to eight million (Koeniger and Koeniger 2000, Cobey 2007).
> 
> But you knew this already!  
> Eric


None of this has anything at all to do with whether sperm is completely mixed in the spermatheca. It basically says that new queens usually have more stored sperm than older queens. Surely rather obvious.

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## Eric McArthur

Hi Gavin 
Thanks for that!  Pleased not to be “excluded”
Eric

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## Eric McArthur

Hi Rosie
Rosie wrote:
That seems pretty compelling to me. It's as most of us thought - the sperm is well mixed in the spermatheca and at any given time there are plenty of sub-families in a hive simultaneously. The thinking is that these sub-families have differing skills and the hive runs better if these various skills are present at all times.
..................................................  .............
I guess interpretation of data depends on a particular where one is coming from!
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Michael Haberl and Diethard Tautz wrote:
Frequencies of different subfamilies differed significantly and ranged from 3.8% to 27.3%.

However, the analyses of progeny samples taken 12 months apart do not allow us to exclude moderate fluctuations of subfamily frequencies in the long-term.

We estimate the effect of sperm clumping to be less than 6%.
..................................................  ...............
These statement imply that specific dominant characteristics can appear in specific  periods of time, if not continuously, which would confirm the validity of many observations of beekeepers over the years.   
How long is a piece of string? 
Best regards
Eric

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## Eric McArthur

Hi Jon
Jon wrote:
None of this has anything at all to do with whether sperm is completely mixed in the spermatheca. 
..................................................  ....................
It basically says that new queens usually have more stored sperm than older queens. Surely rather obvious.
..................................................  ........
It turns out to be quite useful information since in highlighting this fact you alluded to a phenomenon which I instinctively felt and put to work 40 years before the BIG BOYS in America realised its significance.

Eric

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## Jon

> Michael Haberl and Diethard Tautz wrote:
> Frequencies of different subfamilies differed significantly and ranged from 3.8% to 27.3%.
> 
> However, the analyses of progeny samples taken 12 months apart do not allow us to exclude moderate fluctuations of subfamily frequencies in the long-term.
> 
> We estimate the effect of sperm clumping to be less than 6%.





> These statement imply that specific dominant characteristics can appear in specific  periods of time, if not continuously, which would confirm the validity of many observations of beekeepers over the years.   
> How long is a piece of string? 
> Best regards
> Eric


I don't think Tautz's statement implies this at all. He uses the term 'moderate fluctuations' and does not imply at all that the percentages of the various worker sub families change drastically.

What he is mainly saying here is that if a queen mates with 10 drones, each one  contributes differing amounts of sperm, rather than a uniform 10% each. One drone might contribute 25% of the sperm ie. contribute genetic material to 25% of the workers in the colony whereas another drone might only contribute a couple of percent. I agree with Rosie that the study quoted above is pretty compelling with regard to disproving the myth of drone sperm being stored in discrete packages in the spermatheca.




> My question is - despite the seemingly conclusive finding of Collin’s in vitro research, did his team ever do DNA testing


Tautz



> Paternity was determined by analysis of three polymorphic microsatellite loci, leading to the conclusion that the queen had mated with seven males.


Tautz certainly used dna testing

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## Eric McArthur

Hi All
Eric wrote:
Many thanks for your references Alex. I am on a keen learning curve here.
 I am conceding nothing unless I can be shown hard copy proof positive of field test results. 
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Micheal Halberl and Diethart Tautz wrote:  (Thanks for that Gavin!)
Sperm usage was investigated in a naturally mated honey bee queen. We collected worker progeny arising from eggs that were laid sequentially during three sampling periods. Paternity was determined by analysis of three polymorphic microsatellite loci, leading to the conclusion that the queen had mated with seven males
..................................................  .........
Game Set and Match!   
I take the point that what Collins et al and  Micheal Halberl and Diethart Tautz  proved will be the general rule but by only checking the  progeny of one queen albeit over three sampling periods: the possibility of exceptions to the rule  over time (which always occur!) cannot be ruled out, which would substantiate the already mooted beekeeper observations over the years.  
 I am big enough to learn and concede.  It is a great  pity that  there are some who when confounded just walk away from an issue  - ignoring the fact that disinformation may have occurred on their part to the detriment of folk who have come to rely on them  this is a betrayal of trust and quite reprehensible!
Jon and Gavin both perpetrated this act when they abruptly walked off the field when confronted with their erroneous directions for calculating the oxalic acid solution and the trickle treatment dosage in the oxalic acid thread.  The information was wrong on all counts.  Try it with and without considering the water content of the oxalic acid dihydrate crystals,  weight for weight!
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Jon/ Gavin wrote:
This states that 3.2% is a good strength for your average colony which is what you get with the ratio I quoted in the post above, 7.5, 100g, 100g.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;;;;;;;
Jon wrote:
The standard treatment is 5ml per seam irrespective if it is a double or single brood colony.
It is not necessary to separate the two boxes in a double brood colony.
..................................................  ..
The 5 ml trickle has to be carried out for each occupied comb space in a double brood box situation. I quoted Ian Craigs wintering method of 8 frames/brood box.  Jons recommended procedure would have Ians bees underdosed by some 35mls: A potentially dangerous situation if all 14 bee spaces are occupied.  In Ians system this is a distinct possibility. 
Eric

..................................................  ........

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## Jon

> This states that 3.2% is a good strength for your average colony which is what you get with the ratio I quoted in the post above, 7.5, 100g, 100g.
> 
> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;  ;;;;;;;;;;
> Jon wrote:
> The standard treatment is 5ml per seam irrespective if it is a double or single brood colony.
> It is not necessary to separate the two boxes in a double brood colony.
> ..................................................  ..
> The 5 ml trickle has to be carried out for each occupied comb space in a double brood box situation. I quoted Ian Craig’s wintering method of 8 frames/brood box.  Jon’s recommended procedure would have Ian’s bees underdosed by some 35mls: A potentially dangerous situation if all 14 bee spaces are occupied.  In Ian’s system this is a distinct possibility. 
> Eric..


Eric.
If you want to follow your own calculations you are free to do so but don't encourage others to do this.

I quote here from the back of the box of 500g of Oxalic Acid Dihydrate supplied by Thorne who as you may know are a large beekeeping supply company in the UK.




> Preparation: Mix 1 litre water with 1k sugar. Add 75g oxalic acid dihydrate (which contains 71.4% oxalic acid). The resulting solution will provide 3.2% oxalic acid. This should be enough to treat 25 hives.


There are far too many beekeepers who either ignore, or are unaware of current best practice with regard to Oxalic acid strengths and dosages.
Most of my colonies need about 30ml based on the number of seams. I don't think this is unusual at all for AMM but if your experience is with more prolific or hybrid types of bee you may need the full 50ml. 50ml is the recommended maximum even for a double brood box colony.
My practice (and calculations) follow all the published guidelines for mixing and applying Oxalic acid.
I prefer published research to personal calculations as the dosages have been trialled for years over many colonies.
Do some wider reading if you don't believe me. It's all online.

Gav. Surely this should be moved to an Oxalic acid thread.

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