# General beekeeping > Native honeybees >  Native Irish Honeybee Society membership

## Jon

Anyone interested can download a form here

Annual membership is £20 for which you get 4 colour magazines. 

The 4 seasons magazine was the magazine of the Galtee Bee Breeding Group and NIHBS has recently agreed to take it over.
It covers beekeeping topics with a focus on AMM and bee breeding.

Obviously the magazine has an Irish focus, but may be of interest to a few here who are interested in bee breeding and our native bee.
NIHBS had nearly 200 members signed up at the last count and with luck might reach 300 by the end of the year.

4-seasons-cover.jpg 4-seasons-contents.jpg

http://nihbs.org/

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## COVENANTER

..Iwill be joining your group jon. I am eagerly awaiting  delivery of a mated  appis mm queen .I am  a novice bee keeper with two hives  .both came through the winter. thankfullI think that the amm bee is the way to go now due to our weather change. I was speaking to an american beekeeper who told me that many bee keepers in usa are  keeping russian bees .apparently they are varroa resistant. And can survive huge extremes of weather .and seem to be nosema free as well.I wonder if they are closely related to amm bees .i have tried to find them in uk but noone seems to keep them i wonder why .

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## Jon

The Russian (Primorski) bees are not closely related to AMM. They were originally transported from The Urals region of Russia east to the Primorski region about 150 years ago. They have co-existed with varroa for this time and have acquired some resistance.
The honeybee is not native to the US and they keep a huge variety of different races but Italians predominate.

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## COVENANTER

thanks for info jon nowhere could i find anything on these bees.can they be obtained in uk.

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## Jon

> thanks for info jon nowhere could i find anything on these bees.can they be obtained in uk.


Not that I know of.
All the UK beekeeper associations are against imports because of the risk of bringing in a new bee disease.

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## The Drone Ranger

> Not that I know of.
> All the UK beekeeper associations are against imports because of the risk of bringing in a new bee disease.


Except for commercial beekeepers association

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## Jon

The Bee Farmers Association I think you call it.
Risky business.

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## The Drone Ranger

> The Bee Farmers Association I think you call it.
> Risky business.


I know 
we are supposed to condemn any beekeeper who buys a queen that turns out imported
But at the same time ignore or turn a blind eye to people who buy thousands of them
I don't like moaning (much) but that's hypocrisy in my book

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## Jon

And bringing in packages or nucs is a vastly greater risk than just importing queens.

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