# More ... > Exchange and mart >  Amm queens

## Kate Atchley

In Ardnamurchan we'll be rearing Amm queens (Colonsay stock) this year, all being well. I've no idea of the demand for these and we'll probably have more than are needed for local beekeepers. If you are interested, please let me know, no promises. 

And what do folk regard as a reasonable price, marked and a wing clipped if wanted?

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## gavin

> In Ardnamurchan we'll be rearing Amm queens (Colonsay stock) this year, all being well. I've no idea of the demand for these and we'll probably have more than are needed for local beekeepers. If you are interested, please let me know, no promises. 
> 
> And what do folk regard as a reasonable price, marked and a wing clipped if wanted?


Huge amount of work, specialised product, reliable Scottish provenance .... don't undersell them!  

I seem to remember Amm queens going at £80 few years back.

Paynes are selling 'as near as we can Amm' for £40.

British raised Buckfast queens from breeders imported from Denmark are sold at £40.  But that is from someone in central southern England with a good climate for queen mating and the economies of the scale at which he works (1500 to 2000 pa).

There is a good source of Irish Amm  :Smile:  selling at £35-£40 depending on marking and clipping, but again he's selling too cheaply  :Wink: .

I don't know what Andrew charges but I would take that as a guide.

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## Black Comb

I remember someone asking a similar question on a Q rearing course I attended.
The answer was that if it is your first year then give them away as they may not be very good!

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## Jon

> I don't know what Andrew charges but I would take that as a guide.


Andrew supplies relative small numbers of queens per year. I doubt he sells more than 100, possibly a few more but certainly not hundreds more than that.
His bees have been sampled over and over as part of various projects so you know for sure you are getting Amm.

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## Kate Atchley

> I remember someone asking a similar question on a Q rearing course I attended.
> The answer was that if it is your first year then give them away as they may not be very good!


Not new to queen rearing but up till now been breeding with our local bees. Question was more about interest in and value of Amm queens.

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## Jon

There is huge demand Kate in spite of what some will tell you.
You will get plenty of takers at £35 + per queen.

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## mbc

At £45 this reluctant seller still gets inundated at certain times.

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## gavin

Excellent!  Now we're getting near what they're worth  :Smile: .  I'll be a reluctant seller too then.

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## The Drone Ranger

> Excellent!  Now we're getting near what they're worth .  I'll be a reluctant seller too then.


Hi Gavin 
You and Kate might be interested in this sales model
http://www.abelo.co.uk/product-categ...es-and-queens/
It might suit

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## Kate Atchley

> Hi Gavin 
> You and Kate might be interested in this sales model
> http://www.abelo.co.uk/product-categ...es-and-queens/
> It might suit


Hummm ... interesting model indeed ... but I guess most folk will want their queens mated as they don't have Amm drones to mate with them. Thinking of opting for £40.

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## The Drone Ranger

Well thats true Kate, but a year or so later their daughters will mate with the locals anyway, and as my friend said "you just have to hope they will meet a nice boy "  :Smile:

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## Jon

The thing is you can control the drone production up to a point if you requeen with daughters of your pure race queen.
They will produce Amm drones irrespective of the drones they have mated with.

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## busybeephilip

first queen cell for 2015 has hatched !

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## Jon

Grafted or swarming?
Won't be long till the first swarms are in the air.

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## busybeephilip

Went down to the bees last nite, it had been 16 degree C during the day and the bees were vigorously fanning at the entrances, the first thing to hit me was the smell of dandelion nectar, supers on most boxes now with the bees up in them  -  2015 here I come.

JON, Hope to join the swarm and settle at your talk this evening.

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## Jon

Still getting the powerpoint ready!

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## The Drone Ranger

> The thing is you can control the drone production up to a point if you requeen with daughters of your pure race queen.
> They will produce Amm drones irrespective of the drones they have mated with.


True but that also would be so if you just bought a virgin Amm queen in two consecutive years and thats easier to produce If you think about it

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## gwizzie

Hi Guys, a newbie question here what is a Amm queen ?? can someone please explain in simple terms.

Regards Graham

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## chris

The holy grail

Try this thread for starters

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...ing-bee-health

There are others, further back in the samr forum

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## drumgerry

I'd suggest reading the entire Native Honeybees section of the forum Graham for some insight!  Please bear in mind that for many of us the use of native or AMM bees is closely associated with an opposition to nuc/package/queen imports.

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## The Drone Ranger

> Hi Guys, a newbie question here what is a Amm queen ?? can someone please explain in simple terms.
> 
> Regards Graham


Hi Graham they are all basically just honeybees but there are quite a few races 
All the honeybees we keep are Apis Mellifera something
So Apis Mellifera Carnica or Apis Melifera Linguista etc etc
The Carnica or Linguista bit is a sub classification and sometimes people call those the races of honeybee (rather than sub type) 

Apis mellifera mellifera is usually shortened to AMM to save on typing

There are a few abbreviations for other stuff like "Brood in all stages" you might see posters say Bias instead

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## gwizzie

> Hi Graham they are all basically just honeybees but there are quite a few races 
> All the honeybees we keep are Apis Mellifera something
> So Apis Mellifera Carnica or Apis Melifera Linguista etc etc
> The Carnica or Linguista bit is a sub classification and sometimes people call those the races of honeybee (rather than sub type) 
> 
> Apis mellifera mellifera is usually shortened to AMM to save on typing
> 
> There are a few abbreviations for other stuff like "Brood in all stages" you might see posters say Bias instead


Thanks nice and simple expansion I understand now without reading  to technical stuff and getting bamboozled.  :Wink:

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## SDM

> All the honeybees we keep are Apis Mellifera something
> So Apis Mellifera Carnica or Apis Melifera Linguista etc etc
> The Carnica or Linguista bit is a sub classification and sometimes people call those the races of honeybee (rather than sub type) 
> 
> Apis mellifera mellifera is usually shortened to AMM to save on typing


Sorry to be pedantic with my first post but the abbreviation is Amm not AMM.

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## drumgerry

Seriously?  That's your first post?  I must say I might have tried to be a bit nicer to one of our most valued members rather than picking him up on his abbreviations

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## Kate Atchley

> Sorry to be pedantic with my first post but the abbreviation is Amm not AMM.


A touch of OCD or is it Ocd? This is a valuable resource. Enjoy!

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## gavin

There's no hope for this forum if the Administrator can't even capitalise his own name properly!  

C'mon folks, SDM did apologise in the very same post, so let's talk bees instead.

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## SDM

> A touch of OCD or is it Ocd? This is a valuable resource. Enjoy!


Absolutely, I'm afraid that's me on some things . Absolutely no offence meant though Kate.
Sometimes I just can't help myself.

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## Kate Atchley

> Absolutely, I'm afraid that's me on some things . Absolutely no offence meant though Kate ...


And absolutely none taken or given I trust. I do it sometimes too ... there's a place for it! 

In beekeeping it's sometimes good to be precise, exact, to take that little bit more trouble to manage/do something in the best way you know how, rather than more quickly, or good enough. Take grafting larvae into queen cups for instance. Graft larvae that look _about_ the right size, but not _the_ right size, and you'll rear dud queens. Graft larvae without any royal jelly beneath them and they probably won't do so well either.

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## prakel

> In beekeeping it's sometimes good to be precise, exact......
> .....Take grafting larvae into queen cups for instance


Sorry, but can't resist this one...




> When Dr. Phillips was head of the bee culture laboratory in Washington, he wrote me that the word "grafting" was an improper term and that they did not graft but transferred.
> 
> *Jay Smith 'Better Queens' 1949*


Smith wasn't impressed by fancy terminology either.

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## drumgerry

Terminology schmerminology!  :Smile:

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## gwizzie

All I can say is thank god I put Amm  :Stick Out Tongue:

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## Jon

I used to write AMM instead of Amm but Gavin corrected me when I got him to proof read an article I wrote a few years ago. Nowt wrong with a correction if it is done in good humour.

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## gavin

> I used to write AMM instead of Amm but Gavin corrected me when I got him to proof read an article I wrote a few years ago. Nowt wrong with a correction if it is done in good humour.


You have a long memory!  Must have affected you deeply  :Wink: .  Nowt wrong with a bit of pedantry anyway.

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## Jon

I do tend to remember when I am corrected but it's not a problem.
It used to happen a lot with speaking Spanish.
There were a couple of friends who would always correct minor mistakes I made but if you want to get better those are the sort of friends you need to hang out with.
Everyone else knows exactly what you mean but they don't correct the error so you go on oblivious thinking everything is perfect.
And no, a bit of pedantry does no harm at all!

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## The Drone Ranger

It's no good asking for precision from me  :Smile: 

When I was making up some mini nucs today (you all know what I mean )  :Smile: 
It occurred to me that a few drones get chucked in as well (not too many)
When you read about making up mating nucs you always get "make sure there are no drones......."
That only matters when you are taking your mating nucs to a mating station (like the serious queen raisers on here)
If you are mating them in your own apierrry (sic)  it does no harm

ps
I have been guilty of describing near Amm as Ammish in the past 
Luckily the Amish have not taken offence

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## gwizzie

> Nowt wrong with a correction if it is done in good humour.


Very true (but how can you tell if just in words) I ran a forum for over 6 years and there is a fine line to how everyone interpreted what is said. NOW back on to beetalk  :Wink: 

Jon can you please if poss tell me are Amm bees as productive as buckfast bees for honey ect ect

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## drumgerry

> Nowt wrong with a correction if it is done in good humour.


And maybe not the approach to take with your very FIRST post!

I probably use AMM and Amm interchangeably.  I'm assuming it's some science-y mullarkey that means the second is the correct version.

As to productivity GWizzie - being unscientific and generalising a fair bit I'd say that more native type bees will get you a decent crop most summers whereas uber prolific bees will get you a massive crop in a good year and you'll be feeding them in a crap year like what we are having jist noo.

Maybe to be more accurate I'd say that my sentence above relates to a strong and healthy AMM(!) colony compared with a strong and healthy uber prolific strain colony.

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## The Drone Ranger

> Very true (but how can you tell if just in words) I ran a forum for over 6 years and there is a fine line to how everyone interpreted what is said. NOW back on to beetalk 
> 
> Jon can you please if poss tell me are Amm bees as productive as buckfast bees for honey ect ect


Hi Graham
The one I have of Jon's is really productive and good for honey
There will be some not so good strains as well 
Likewise with Buckfast I believe Pete Little goes to great lengths to produce the best
There are a lot of not so good strains of those as well

Bit like Black Rock chickens there is only one true Black Rock (Peter Siddons bred them)
There are lots of barred rock crossed with Rhode Island Reds which look the same but most are not as good

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## gwizzie

> Hi Graham
> The one I have of Jon's is really productive and good for honey
> There will be some not so good strains as well 
> Likewise with Buckfast I believe Pete Little goes to great lengths to produce the best
> There are a lot of not so good strains of those as well
> 
> Bit like Black Rock chickens there is only one true Black Rock (Peter Siddons bred them)
> There are lots of barred rock crossed with Rhode Island Reds which look the same but most are not as good


DR you never cease to amaze me LOL... I have a few chickens myself all good layers but the Wyandotte's I have can be more broody :-(     Back to the bees!
But thanks for the explanation, I am a wee bit pi**ed as I don't have enough bees to overwinter a few of Jon's queens to get me going next year :-(

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## gwizzie

> And maybe not the approach to take with your very FIRST post!
> 
> I probably use AMM and Amm interchangeably.  I'm assuming it's some science-y mullarkey that means the second is the correct version.
> 
> As to productivity GWizzie - being unscientific and generalising a fair bit I'd say that more native type bees will get you a decent crop most summers whereas uber prolific bees will get you a massive crop in a good year and you'll be feeding them in a crap year like what we are having jist noo.
> 
> Maybe to be more accurate I'd say that my sentence above relates to a strong and healthy AMM(!) colony compared with a strong and healthy uber prolific strain colony.


Thanks for your explanation and reply  :Wink:  after reading about buckfast bees and others having a nightmare of a time requeening ect etc.... I really think i'm going to stay with the (native) black bees..... O for more bees  :Frown:

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## Jon

Don't worry. I intend to have queens next year from the end of May onwards.
Prolific bees like Buckfast will make more honey than Amm (watch that lowercase) under perfect conditions but if you have more marginal conditions, Amm will likely come out on top. So the answer is - depends on where you live and what weather you get.

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## gwizzie

> Don't worry. I intend to have queens next year from the end of May onwards.
> Prolific bees like Buckfast will make more honey than Amm (watch that lowercase) under perfect conditions but if you have more marginal conditions, Amm will likely come out on top. So the answer is - depends on where you live and what weather you get.


Thanks Jon, I will have to wait  :Frown:  dont want to but hay ho.... 


> Amm (watch that lowercase)


 LOL 

I think it's getting a bit out of hand now AMM or Amm as long as we all know what it is then who cares ? (prob my English teacher) but then I use to argue with them too about silent letters, but then that's another topic (they take up extra space on the page and use up ink) hahaha

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## Kate Atchley

Prakel's quote's gone wrong but you'll get the drift. 

[QUOTE When Dr. Phillips was head of the bee culture laboratory in Washington, he wrote me that the word "grafting" was an improper term and that they did not graft but transferred. Jay Smith 'Better Queens' 1949 [/QUOTE]

Yes, misleading use of language. ... _precisely_ wrong indeed! 

But on the grafting theme, could save a lot of bother to be able to change bee 'stock' with a wee bit of Chinese tool action.

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## Jon

The other one that some get hung up on is stating that queens hatch from cells as opposed to emerge from cells.

And of course the legions of beekeepers who spell supersedure with a c in the middle of it instead of an s.

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## SDM

> And maybe not the approach to take with your very FIRST post!
> 
> I probably use AMM and Amm interchangeably.  I'm assuming it's some science-y mullarkey that means the second is the correct version


It's the wanabee biologist in me. It comes from the taxonomic classification system
Remember....
Keeping Precious Creatures Organised for Grumpy Scientist
Or, Kingdom Phylum Class Order Genus Species

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## Mellifera Crofter

> The other one that some get hung up on is  ...


Or 'honeybees' instead of 'honey bees' - or perhaps that's just my hang-up.
Kitta

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## prakel

> Or 'honeybees' instead of 'honey bees' - or perhaps that's just my hang-up.
> Kitta


 :Smile: 

*Honey Bees 4 Questions: Jamie Ellis*

https://youtu.be/fHtboH5jfvA

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## gavin

Jamie Ellis is an American so he doesn't count  :Smile: .

Although the 'National Honey Show' poster of the video did seem to go along with him.

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## prakel

> The other one that some get hung up on is stating that queens hatch from cells as opposed to emerge from cells.


Back to the previously mentioned book:




> A certain high brow told me cells do not hatch as only eggs can do that. Instead we should say the virgin emerges. From a grammatical standpoint he is correct but when I get ready to say anything I do not propose to let grammatical expressions or rhetorical technicalities hamper the thought I wish to express so, Mr. Highbrow, we shall continue to "hatch" our cells. 
> 
> *Jay Smith 'Better Queens' 1949*






> Jamie Ellis is an American so he doesn't count .


lol. But he does do great talks  :Smile: 

edit (very off topic): Gavin, I need a revision of the 'how to link a video tutorial' for some reason I've forgotten how to get the screen shot without the rest of the page the video's on.

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## drumgerry

Prakel - if it's from Youtube cut (Ctrl c) the URL from the top of your browser rather than use the share thing on the Youtube page, use "go advanced" on the forum, take the video option, paste into the box (Ctrl v) and if you hit preview post you should have a video in your post.  Hope that helps and not sure why I couldn't use the standard Youtube share facility to do the same.

This is a pointless example of me doing it the way I described (it's a  dull video I took of my bees bearding!)

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## The Drone Ranger

Gwizzie
Have a look at Fatshark's excellent site The Apiarist and check out circle split
I managed two of them this year and my seasons first queens went in there

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## Kate Atchley

In Ardnamurchan we are set to rear more Amm queens than we have orders for, so far. They're from Colonsay stock.

Do let me know if you'd like to be added to the list.

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## Jon

I posted my first 15 queens off today.
Fingers crossed for a good season.

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## Poly Hive

I would like a couple Kate if possible?

PH

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## alancooper

> I posted my first 15 queens off today.
> Fingers crossed for a good season.


Is this exceptionally early? I inspected my hives on Monday - plenty sealed drone brood but just a small number had hatched.

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## Jon

The post is a year old. I haven't even started grafting yet this year. Someone has revived the thread.

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## Wmfd

> The post is a year old. I haven't even started grafting yet this year. Someone has revived the thread.


Jon, out of interest, how do you gauge when to start grafting? 

I'd thought of things like:
* Presence of drones
* Overnight temperatures - still too cold in my view here (frost on the windscreen!)
* Strength of colonies to be used

I'm not sure though, am I on the right track?

(Thought I'd try cell punching this year, after mangling quite a few larvae with a paintbrush last year!)

David



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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## mbc

I'm not starting grafting yet either, I like to wait untill I see some natural queen cells started when on my rounds.

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## Jon

I put drone combs into my drone raising colonies around the middle of April which means I will have viable drones towards the end of May.
If the weather is cold, the queenright cell raising method will give very poor results as the bees are just not interested in raising queen cells.
You get more cells started by using a queenless setup with a box packed with young bees.
Most years I start grafting somewhere between 1st and 10th May

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## busybeephilip

I've been thinking about it, several of my hives are making cells, have added supers to see if that will make them stop, else will start splitting

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## Wmfd

Thanks for the insights, I was hoping to use the queen right method (for ease of doing in a hive I have at home) so interesting to hear when it tends not to work. I thought a week or so ago it was getting warmer but seems to have gone backwards.

Sorry, I've probably got this in the wrong part of the forum!

David

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## prakel

I've traditionally started grafting on May Day which suits from a beekeeper convienience point of view and also from pushing prospective queen matings into the second half of the month. Early May can be rather unpredictable here. To be honest, I don't think that it would do any harm to wait an extra couple of weeks. I pay no attention to swarming preparations but that's because none of our colonies ever start raising queens before May, and then, very few of them bother anyway so it's a rather unpredictable guage for us.

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## madasafish

I have just set up my Cloake Board system ready for grafting 1st May...

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