# General beekeeping > Native honeybees >  Co-op Imports New Zealand Bees

## AlexJ

I'm not sure if this is an old story being revisited but there are some interesting threads in relation to the Co-op introducing hundreds of hives (imported queens from New Zealand) in England with some already introduced to north-east Scotland.  

http://www.britishbee.org.uk/forum/s...ead.php?t=4984

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=9017

I think some of the SBAi regulars may have contributed already.  For my part it seems out of kilter with the aims of the SBA/BIBBA to be introducing imported queens en-masse.

Should we not be pushing for local breeding initiatives which are linked to a national programme? 

Alex

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## gavin

One certainly has!   :Embarrassment: 

Well, there is a small nucleus of an East of Scotland initiative which I hope will still go ahead despite friction over other matters ... where the idea was to test out a mating site but not to invite everyone in for now ... and there is already action elsewhere, as was presented in November in Scotlandwell.

www.SBAi.org.uk/Breeding

The bee farmer in question is aware of the east of Scotland plans and will, I think, cooperate by avoiding important sensitive sites.

But a national programme?  Is this for the SBA or BIBBA?  Should there be a BIBBA coordinated effort N of the border?

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## gavin

But yes, mass importation of queens (and in this case full packages) is out of kilter with the aspirations of many, perhaps most, beekeepers N of the border.  I'm surrounded by them and really don't like the idea - but I'm still happy to keep lines open.  The 2010 importations were ostensibly to keep bee farmers afloat who had lost many, in some cases most, of their colonies in the 2009/2010 winter.  Some with imported stocks did so but retained their near-native stocks in separate areas.  Some - as in the thread you cite - are full converts to these highly bred Carniolans from NZ via Germany.

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## The Drone Ranger

I wouldn't mind some nice carniolan drones in my area

I didn't know it was a policy of the SBA to ask its members adopt BIBBA's ideas

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## gavin

Saw plenty of Carniolan drones today, but that was in Aberdeenshire.  The SBA leans towards supporting a conservationist stance and generally tries to discourage imports but recognises that Scottish beekeepers have a wide diversity of opinions on the matter and so is not too dogmatic about that.  BIBBA on the other hand exists to support and encourage the breeding and selection of British native bees.  At least that is my understanding, although I do not speak for the SBA.

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## Jon

If you are a native bee breeder carniolan drones are a nightmare. Ruttner did a lot of work on aggressive hybrids and far and away the worst is the cross between AMM and carnica. Pure carnica such as the bees they work in germany are very docile but carnica Amm hybrids are the stuff of horror movies. bee breeders need to work together -  as a mish mash of all the races is the worst possible starting point.

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## Calum

I'd love to get a decent grant to breed amm's in an isolated island en masse, dream job.
Does st. kilda have bees?

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## Neils

> If you are a native bee breeder carniolan drones are a nightmare. Ruttner did a lot of work on aggressive hybrids and far and away the worst is the cross between AMM and carnica. Pure carnica such as the bees they work in germany are very docile but carnica Amm hybrids are the stuff of horror movies. bee breeders need to work together -  as a mish mash of all the races is the worst possible starting point.


Carnie crosses are a pain full stop in my limited experience. Mine won't let you in the apiary for any length of time. They propolise everything and I'm sure the buggers are going to try and swarm again.

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## Adam

Neil, I thought carnis were not hign propolis producers - mine aren't.

I have an eclectic mix of bees in my apiary. Carnis which produce lots of gentle bees then swarm - good for filling nucs with. My carnis seem to have no stores of pollen it seems - they just convert stores into bees.
I have some darker propolis generators from my original colony- a more native looking bee. I also have some decent middle-coloured bees which are my favourite at the moment - they are from a caught cast last year. I have written (somewhere) about my second generation crosses from an imported NZ Italian queen. Out of the 4 daughters one was killed last autumn and two more went this Spring due to being BAD GIRLS. I am fortunate that I could unit hiives or drop in new queens.  It is only in the last couple of weeks that the hives in question are well behaved as the bees laid in early April have now gone. However one of the offspring has given me 5 supers of honey so far including the one on a clearer board at the moment and there are 3 more supers on the hive and bramble and fireweed is in abundance  :Smile: . She has been laying 12 - 13 frames of brood in a double National all summer. The bees were a bit touchy earlier but they are now fine and they just keep on going. No queencells and few drones.

Greed has prompted me to graft some queen cups from this colony in the hope I can get some more high-performers!

In truth I am in a quandry as to which line I should breed from. I would like to breed from all (apart from the carni's).

Relating to the original post, the worry must be that imported italians girls will mate with local boys and cause havoc.

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## Trog

Eclectic.  Yes, I like that.  Better than 'mongrel'  :Smile: 

I understand your quandry.  The boisterous ones seem to be the best honey producers and the most docile tend to be so laid-back there's nothing to spare at the end of the summer.  That's why I can't quite buy into the 'pure AMM' side of things, though I have some very nice dark bees.  I also have some very nice bees with a bit of yellow on them.  And some not quite so nice but still much more gentle than the ones on which I learnt donkey's years ago.  And some that can be mildly tetchy, depending on the hive politics and the weather at the time, then sweet and cuddly at other times.

Bramble and fireweed about to flower but escallonia and white clover in abundance, along with bell heather.

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## Neils

> Neil, I thought carnis were not hign propolis producers - mine aren't.


I was told the opposite, but just doing a bit more reading, low propolis does generally seem to be a commonly accepted benefit.

This hive almost literally drips with the stuff, I'll take a picture of the hive tool and gloves after the next inspection.

Whatever they are, they're evil little buggers. On an apiary that's open to the public, I don't see that as being a problem to be perfectly honest and they're packing in the honey at the moment so I'll put up with the "you want some attitude" for a while longer I think.

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## The Drone Ranger

I only have one queen that looks like this out of 20
The last one that showed up was in 2005 I had 2 that year.
There must have been an Italian great great grandparent somewhere in my bees.
She is very beautiful though and it's one of the pleasures of life to get a surprise once in a while.
I just hope she sorts out the chalkbrood her mother left behind she was pretty dark

It's great to see how reasonable and tolerant people are on the forum

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## gavin

I have a hive which has parentage from your bees and looks quite Italian.  I'd have thought that stock in your photo has Buckfast in its parentage?  Not necessarily from a queen you introduced, could be that the genes came from drones in your areas.  Buckfast usually have those orangey bands together with the broad grey bands on the tail.

PS  We're all reasonable and tolerant, aren't we?!

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## Neils

We're beekeepers, of course we aren't  :Stick Out Tongue:

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## The Drone Ranger

Gavin

I do know a beekeeper who had two buckfast colonies not far from me (that was 2003)
Haven't kept in touch
So you could be right there
As long as this queen and her kids play nicely she can stay

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## The Drone Ranger

Even the big queen producers like easybee have given up and are importing queens now.
Personally if I was buying a nuc I would like one with an overwintered queen and bees she had raised herself.
The current advice is to get one with this years queen.
This years queen could have no relationship to the bees in the nuc
That advice puts the commercial bee suppliers who sell nucs in a bind they can't get early enough matings so they import.
I don't know why they don't breed their own queens for honey production though.

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## Adam

here's a goopy propolis picture

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## Neils

Mine aren't a million miles away from that  :Smile:

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## Neonach

Calum, you will not get a decent grant to breed AMMs on an isolated island en masse.  I know because I live in just such a situation: No honeybees here except mine, and no grants either. I asked: a grant might be possible had I successfully established a business and could provide data that showed it was sustainable, and the grant would be for expansion that provided at least 1 additional full time employment or FTE.  Unfortunately that full time job I want to create is mine, and apparently that doesn't count.  It is a real struggle learning to understand how to best site apiaries, when to intervene (eg early spring supplemental feeding), how to manage mating, and above all where to get pure amm guaranteed disease free (no disease or pests at all that I can see - just a bit of wax moth).  Until I can increase my number of colonies and obtain more diverse blood-lines I am forever on the brink of wipe-out. I'm aiming to get to 15 or 16 colonies at 3 or 4 apiaries (all 3miles or more apart), and achieve this within another 2 possibly 3 years, partly by breeding, partly by introducing nucs. That's a lot of money and effort, but the biggest worry is whether a supplier will actually supply, and at the right time of year, and be good specimens and not just cast-offs, and be disease free. Still sound like a dream job?

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## Trog

Hello Jonathan and welcome.  How long have you been keeping bees and how do you get on in the far west?  How many colonies do you have just now?  Can be a bit touch and go even in the Inner Hebrides!

I think most of the AMM in the varroa-free areas are originally from Colonsay, because for a time that was the only place to get them.  Here on Mull the numbers of colonies are increasing rapidly but we're not remote enough to avoid some mixing with the local mongrels whose origins go back to pre-varroa days when bees were brought in from other parts of the UK.

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## Jon

Hi J
It sound like you are trying to get a grant from some Government business orientated body which does not understand the unique position you are in with regard to potentially being a supplier of pure native bees on a remote island site free from the possibility of cross matings. There is potentially a huge market there. I would try the co-op or some of the organizations which have current programmes to support beekeeping. Gavin recent got a large grant to establish an apiary in the east of Scotland and that included the purchase of bees and equipment.

Have you sampled any of your colonies using wing morphometry? Kate Thompson would very keen to get a sample of your bees as she is mapping AMM over the uk and Ireland and comparing bee wings to DNA markers unique to AMM.

I would not give up on the idea of a grant.

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## The Drone Ranger

Here a link to the topic from the Beekeepers Forum linking to Biobees for an interview with Murray Mcgregor on the project, the importation of bees from NZ, the type of bee, health checks, and reasons for doing so
http://biobees.libsyn.com/interview-...rray-mc-gregor

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## Peter

>I think some of the SBAi regulars may have contributed already.  For my part it seems out of kilter with the aims of the SBA/BIBBA to be >introducing imported queens en-masse.

>Should we not be pushing for local breeding initiatives which are linked to a national programme? 

Is it not ironic that the Co-op gives money to BIBBA to preserve native bees, then destroys that work by paying for imported NZ Italians?

I personally will never shop at the Co-op again.

Best wishes

Peter

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## Jon

There was a thread about 1000 posts long on beekeeping forum at the time  relating to the ethics of the co-op importing hundreds of Carnica colonies from NZ. Another factor is that the main site they were located on is only about 10 miles away from where Ron Hoskins was working to breed local bees which were able to deal with varroa mites. Stirring up the gene pool like that must have wrecked anything he was trying to achieve.

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## Dark Bee

When I am in England, I never shop at the Co-op. I was outraged by their ill advised and ill informed support for a ban on fox hunting. They have no interest in supporting the English way of life or indeed of supporting anything English.
Their meat pies and burgers definitely do not contain horsemeat, because the said meat pies and burgers do not contain any meat  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): .

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## mbc

I have heard whispers that moves are afoot to gain funding this spring for importing packages on a massive scale to restock winter losses. 
Seems a shame when there seems a will to help the bee situation generally that the paths chosen are the quick fix, arguably causing more long term problems, rather than the harder but potentially more rewarding path :
>Should we not be pushing for local breeding initiatives which are linked to a national programme?

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## mbc

> When I am in England, I never shop at the Co-op. I was outraged by their ill advised and ill informed ban on fox hunting. They have no interest in supporting the English way of life or indeed of supporting anything English.
> Their meat pies and burgers definitely do not contain horsemeat, because the said meat pies and burgers do not contain any meat .


Despite its failings, the Co-op is much better than the other big choices in terms of their commitment to the environment, sustainability and fair trade.  Doesnt say much I know, but for me they should be the last on the list of the big supermarket chains to boycott.

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## Jon

> Despite its failings, the Co-op is much better than the other big choices in terms of their commitment to the environment, sustainability and fair trade.  Doesnt say much I know, but for me they should be the last on the list of the big supermarket chains to boycott.


I agree with you MBC and we do our weekly shop at the Coop, but they are all over the place with regard to the native bee issue as funding imports of a different sub species is just about the most unhelpful thing they could possibly do for those of us interested in breeding native bees.

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## mbc

I think their "Plan bee" is about as good as it gets for a big corporation to support native pollinators from laypeople, and as to the misguided importation, they were led by the best advice available to them by Murray Mcgregor, who, fair play to him, made a very convincing argument as to the reasoning behind the imports - on that thread you mentioned on the beekeepingforum when he came on with the amusing username of "Into the lions den".  We may not agree with what went on, but his reasoning made a very strong defence of why they went about it that way.

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## madasafish

I suspect that native UK queen breeders are likely to have fewer queens to sell and much later than normal - due to the weather.

I also suspect demand for new queens is going to be high.

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## The Drone Ranger

The trouble for the co-op I suppose is sorting out a partner to work with.
On one side we have the lady with the cowpat hives who got Julia Bradbury stung in the eye (Countryfile)
On the other side large Commercial bee enterprises importing Carniolans
If you have worked in a large corporate company you know they always listen to the partner with a proven track record

I was nearly in sympathy with the argument for imports but at the end of the day if early high yielding crops like rape disappeared so would the excuse for importing early queens. Likewise if large scale queen breeding was taking place in UK perhaps the imports would reduce.

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## drumgerry

> I was nearly in sympathy with the argument for imports but at the end of the day if early high yielding crops like rape disappeared so would the excuse for importing early queens. Likewise if large scale queen breeding was taking place in UK perhaps the imports would reduce.


And the interests of commercial beekeepers or commercial anything are always going to be that - their own interests.  What gets them the profit margin they need to pay the wages of their staff and make their living.  Not something you can really find fault with.  But their interests don't necessarily coincide with the long term future of the honeybee in these islands.  There's always going to be that "have to make a profit this year" element to what they do.

Now I'm a BIBBA member and I must say things don't move fast with them.  I don't want to be overly critical of them but some practical solution to the plight of AMM/native bees needs to be found.  And I'm not sure BIBBA have the oomph to deliver that.  Project Discovery seems a good thing but how long have BIBBA been at this with no seeming practical progress?  It seems to be down to the hobby beekeeper to deliver any practical results.  And if that's the case why isn't there funding for us to scale it all up?

I could see myself getting II kit and training at some point and embarking on a serious breeding programme but I suspect that'll be down to me with no help forthcoming from funding bodies.  It does frustrate the hell out of me to see large scale funding for projects and businesses at whose core lies the import of non-native strains of bees.  Not sure where the logic for it is but I suspect  a big part of the problem is that the funding bodies wouldn't know a Carniolan from a Landrover.  And it's accordingly easy to bamboozle them.  Feed the Co-op (I'm not referring to Murray here btw) a line about saving the bees whereas in reality nothing of the sort is happening and all that's being done is saving the business of a Greek or Slovenian queen breeder.

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## Feckless Drone

Following up DRs comments - here in Tayside we get the "benefits" of the commercial drones and swarms perhaps; whatever is bought in. Maybe late matings when the commercial drones are up in the heather might avoid them. But, would it be good use of funds to get a commercial operation on Q-rearing going locally rather than import? Maybe not depending on costings and time is money but I am sure many here would welcome such an activity. It would be interesting to get the commercial perspective on the benefits or not of setting up Q-rearing here. Or are these operations satisfied with how things are going normally. I would like to know if artificial insemination is really necessary to do this properly? Jon has discussed raising Qs at his association apiary and the numbers seemed not too far off what might be required or available at a couple of sites.

Given that the commercial activities have a strong influence on hobby keepers in this area then I want to learn from them, what works and what does'nt. Murray Mc gave us a really interesting talk last winter and I'm still a bit surprised about the limited interaction between hobby keepers and commercial. Could a Q-rearing group help promote the interaction?

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## The Drone Ranger

"_wouldn't know a Carniolan from Landrover_"
Fell about laughing at that one  :Smile: 

It is possible a large beekeeping operation might develop a queen breeding program if it was profitable.
Could that work with a pure strain of AMM possibly (but probably not likely)
It would need to be financially attractive -- subsidy ??

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## drumgerry

DR from what I recall of what Murray said about it at the time he believed AMM wasn't profitable for his operation.  And if reliant on open mated queens it wasn't reliable in weather terms.  

So maybe it needs to be made profitable and more reliable for the likes of him.  There seems to be subsidies for plenty of things agricultural so why not a UK-based AMM breeding programme? 

I also recall that in 2012 he wasn't getting ridiculous amounts of heather honey from his NZ Carniolans.  Maybe 30lbs or so?  Shame he's not here to confirm or deny.  But that's not an outrageous amount of honey and certainly my native-ish types got that last year as well despite the crappy summer.  So maybe the gulf between native/AMM and his all singing all dancing Carniolans isn't so great after all.  And if not why not go down the native route rather than bring queens from half a world away with its attendant risks?

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## Jon

Hi Feckless D




> Jon has discussed raising Qs at his association apiary and the numbers seemed not too far off what might be required or available at a couple of sites.


I see several problem areas with regard to UK queen rearing interacting with commercial customers.

1. They want them early and in many years local stuff wont be ready until late June. Maybe overwintering queens in small units could get around that problem but again it is somewhat hit or miss in our climate.

2. They need queens supplied to a timetable and we have the problem with UK/Irish weather so that is a big variable both in terms of volume of successfully mated queens and the timing of availability. I find it is hard enough to keep a couple of local shops supplied with honey when they want it all year round let alone queens.

3. They want them cheap. I think some of those queens which come in from Greece and Slovenia work out at about £5 each if you buy in bulk. Why do you think every shark in the market is selling nucs made up from local bees plus a cheap imported queen. It is good business for them. I don't mean Murray here as I know he is more interested in quality queens. How could a UK supplier provide queens at £5. Even at £30 each it is a labour of love rather than a viable business model.

4. You need isolated mating stations with the right sort of drones present in volume. II is not suitable for mass volume sales and is more a technique for producing breeder queens in my opinion. Pete L can chip in here if he sees fit re. time and profitability of II.

I see the problem from a different angle as I think individuals and beekeeper associations should be geared up to rearing their own queens in a collective effort. Many of them focus almost exclusively on honey shows and have nothing on offer at all in terms of rearing queens. I always find it strange that so many beekeepers think that buying in an imported queen at maybe £40 is going to solve a problem. I see a lot of posters on BKF talk about 'bought' queens as if the act of paying for one makes it automatically better than something reared as part of an organised local breeding programme.

The commercial guys do business in terms of profitability. I doubt there is any sentiment about the impact of placing hundreds of Carnica colonies in areas where it might be sensitive in terms of hybridization with local stocks. If the rumours about heavy losses among commercial beekeepers this winter are true, we could well be swamped by hundred of imports as commercial beekeepers seek to refill the empty boxes in time for the first nectar flow.

The real cost of imports will only become known when we get tropilaelaps or small hive beetle or some virus which is already present in some bee stocks and has not even been recognized yet.
The thing is, those of us who do not support imports will have to pay the price the same as those beekeepers who do.

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi Drumgerry
Couldn't say for sure about the heather honey.
The colonies at rape are at full strength and getting geared up for swarming soon after
Perhaps the bees that go to heather are not the same ones though
Perhaps there is a market for UK raised queens going to heather.
heres how they do it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYs5Ot0ayBw
heres where they go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lzp...B7F9F13BA63BC2

I guess while rape is king imports will be with us, but since rape growing is reliant on subsidies that can change.

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## Dark Bee

> ..................................................  ..................................................  ..................................................  ..................................................  .............
> 
> 
> 
> I see the problem from a different angle as I think individuals and beekeeper associations should be geared up to rearing their own queens in a collective effort. Many of them focus almost exclusively on honey shows and have nothing on offer at all in terms of rearing queens. I always find it strange that so many beekeepers think that buying in an imported queen at maybe £40 is going to solve a problem. I see a lot of posters on BKF talk about 'bought' queens as if the act of paying for one makes it automatically better than something reared as part of an organised local breeding programme.........................................  ..................................................  ..................................................  .
> ..................................................  ......................................
> 
> The real cost of imports will only become known when we get tropilaelaps or small hive beetle or some virus which is already present in some bee stocks and has not even been recognized yet.
> The thing is, those of us who do not support imports will have to pay the price the same as those beekeepers who do.



A splendid post Jon, The above excerpts are especially pertinent and contain basic truths with which every beekeeper and BKA should be at one.

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## Feckless Drone

Jon - yes, nail well and truly hit. I appreciate timing and reliability of getting new Qs, subsidies to keep costs down and livelihood verses pesky amateurs. I guess also here in sconny botland there is a long tradition of importing bees as well so what would a another 1000 Qs matter? Still I do like the idea of a collective doing Q-rearing in a concerted effort to improve stocks and supplies. There is a growing level of activity on Q-rearing in associations I think. Gavin has introduced a few here to grafting, apideas etc (but I'm not allowed to call it a masterclass) and there are other associations active in this. And actually it is such good fun to then see and appreciate a bit better what the bees are doing. I would like to know what the succession plans are for the commercial outfits from season and to season. And why do they need to import? is it the outcome of a poor Q mating season or seasons? Are their losses high? And if yes why is that? Or is it a mechanism to gain and use a subsidy? My prejudice is that a good commercial operation probably looks after bees much better then I can and if they have problems to sort out then the solutions might help me improve in the craft.

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## Ely

> I'm not sure if this is an old story being revisited but there are some interesting threads in relation to the Co-op introducing hundreds of hives (imported queens from New Zealand) in England with some already introduced to north-east Scotland.  
> 
> http://www.britishbee.org.uk/forum/s...ead.php?t=4984
> 
> http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=9017
> 
> I think some of the SBAi regulars may have contributed already.  For my part it seems out of kilter with the aims of the SBA/BIBBA to be introducing imported queens en-masse.
> 
> Should we not be pushing for local breeding initiatives which are linked to a national programme? 
> ...


It must be really frustrating for UK breeders trying to breed suitable queens for their conditions. Must be like peeing against the wind

Sent from my XT615 using Tapatalk 2

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## Jon

The issue for me is not a gripe with commercial beekeepers as we all have a lot to learn from best practice.
You only have to read beekeeping forum to see that the bulk of the useful information on there comes from Murray Mcg, Hivemaker, Dan B and and a few other commercial beekeepers.
But irrespective of anything else, the risks associated with imports are a threat to all of us, to local breeding programmes and more worryingly the disease risk.
And the disease risk is not uniform.
Importing packages or nucs is a far bigger risk than importing a queen with a couple of attendants.
Importing from outside the EU is a bigger risk than from within the EU and I don't buy the argument about the tight phytosanitary controls in a place like NZ.
Bees are tested for nosema, trachael mite, foulbroods, but not for a range of viruses some of which may be unknown. (due credit to Donald Rumsfeld and his unknown unknowns)
What about Jerry Bromenshenk's work where he has linked an irridovirus to CCD? He is due to publish an update on that work shortly.
He may or may not be correct with that hypothesis but are we sure that bees coming in here are free from a virus like that which we likely don't have yet in the UK or Ireland.
Nearly every bee problem we have was brought in at some point by a beekeeper and these problems are not trivial. varroa first appeared in Ireland in 1998 on the Sligo Leitrim border, ie not at a port, so the mites were most likely driven here when someone brought in a few colonies in the back of a van. And every beekeeper in the country has had to radically change their beekeeping practice because of the behaviour of one individual.

Anyway, I cannot see how it is a viable business model if commercial beekeepers have to constantly restock with packages from outside the UK.
Losses vary from year to year, and this winter is particularly bad, but surely it is possible to manage commercial stocks in a way that is sustainable numbers wise without constant imports. It's not as if the imports are free.

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## The Drone Ranger

I wonder if anyone had time to check out the You tube links in my earlier post #37
How do feel about the way they mass produce queens compared to how we do it here? 

If we redefined Local to mean _within Scotland_ then perhaps someone would pick up the challenge of queen breeding commercially.
At the moment Beekeeping associations are saying "don't buy bees that are not local" and "make sure its this years queen"
Would bee farmers make good bee breeders ?

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## Jon

> Hi DR. I saw your links.
> 
> Would bee farmers make good bee breeders ?


It is a separate business. In the US there are several specialist queen breeders and most of the bee farmers there buy queens or import packages when they need them. If you are going to make a business of queen rearing I reckon you need to be really focused on it.

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## gavin

Just so's everyone knows, Feckless D must get his name because he's always calm and very reasonable, good at soothing me when I need it, and never, ever likely to use an unpleasant swear word!  Not even in the slightly milder form used by Father Jack and his compatriots.  And as for that masterclass thing, I was barely keeping ahead of the class, usually coming back to SBAi to learn a bit more about using Apideas before having to pretend that I had some knowledge worth imparting.  I think that I got away with it though (and learned by making a lot of mistakes) ....

Local breeding initiatives, cooperative breeding - absolutely.  Bee breeding amongst commercial guys?  Well, one at least does raise his own queens and is gearing up for more of it.  Although he has a lot of Carnies, I'm not sure that this is the way all his breeding efforts are going to go.  I don't see cooperation on a full local breeding programme working between the local bee farmers though.  You can take collaboration between sometimes individualistic competitors a bit too far! 

Is Tayside a lost cause for a near-native breeding effort?  No, I don't think so.  Murray himself uses a site with a clearing in a wood and reckons that many of the matings take place above the clearing.  Jon is able to maintain semi-decent stocks around Belfast, so as long as you select the best fertilised queens to be your drone and queen raisers, it is possible.  Plus we have an isolated site in mind, but haven't yet used it - the cost of travel is a consideration here as well as the need for more colonies than we currently have.  But I think that all we can achieve (without bringing in 'pure' Amm from elsewhere which I don't really want to do) is to breed docile, productive, healthy near-native types from the more Amm-leaning (and therefore stable) local bees.

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## Jon

> so as long as you select the best fertilised queens to be your drone and queen raisers


As long as you are sure of the mother queen you grafted from the drone bit is no problem as the daughters will produce the right drones irrespective of the drones they have mated with.
I have several colonies with quite a few yellow banded bees but I use them as drone producers as I am 100% sure of the origin of these queens.
I think the bigger problem is likely to be getting a pure (ish) race queen to graft from.
In your case Gav, I would be tempted to try and get one decent new queen every year which would be the one to graft from.
Any colonies headed by her daughters would be the drone producers for the following season and you would graft from an unrelated queen in the following season.
This is a simple system which works well in an area with multiple races but you do need to be able to source a new pure race queen every year - preferably a local one.

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## The Drone Ranger

There was a link on another thread to BiBBA who are doing wing/hair/tongue screening etc  then going on to DNA test candidates to identify any AMM bees.
If there are some local to me the test results will identify them meanwhile I'll just "Keep Calm and Carry On"

Jon 
Snelgrove in "Swarming its Causes....." suggests more or less the same solution as you have for establishing a population of single race bees in two years. Would two different breeder queen sources be better for genetic mix ?

If all the big beekeepers convert to AMM I will be delighted because in next to no time at all I will have them too.

Re the queen producers I was amazed how they slice and dice the queen cells in the video 
I'm used to giving them kid glove treatment how can those queens be better ?

----------


## Jon

More queens is better but you can get by with one if you always select a new unrelated queen to graft from every year.
I know people who have used this system for years.




> I was amazed how they slice and dice the queen cells in the video


I hadn't seen that before either but 1 day from emergence the queens are fully formed, just soft. If you hold them to the light like he did in the video you can see the queens moving about. Some people post queen cells but I have never tried it myself. I imagine it is like posting mated queens and you include a few workers in case the virgin emerges in the post.

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## The Drone Ranger

There was another video of someone doing the grafting.
The speed was incredible must be practice makes perfect
Before colour sexing of chicks Japanese chicken sexers could do one every 3 seconds

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## Dark Bee

> ..................................................  ..................................................  ..................................................  ................  But I think that all we can achieve (without bringing in 'pure' Amm from elsewhere which I don't really want to do) is to breed docile, productive, healthy near-native types from the more Amm-leaning (and therefore stable) local bees.


I know Jon has alredy replied, but I would like to add that using AMM queens from a project that has been in existence for some years will or should give you a headstart. The other thing to remember is that in areas of harsher climate there will be a continual natural selection in favour of AMM. For example here in South Shamrockshire, the area was inundated with Italian bees twenty years ago by a now dead entrepeneur, over the years the yellow bands have faded and would have disappeared altogether were it not for the odd subsequent importation by new commercial men - who instinctively know how "it should be done". The weather is on your side, never forget that; Think of Napoleons mob and the Germans on the road to Moscow :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):  Have alook at the characteristics the GBBA score when breeder queens are being selected, they have stood the test of time and it would be difficult to improve on them.

----------


## wee willy

> There was another video of someone doing the grafting.
> The speed was incredible must be practice makes perfect
> Before colour sexing of chicks Japanese chicken sexers could do one every 3 seconds


Before sex linked chooks ,we loved to watch the sexers at work ! They rarely got it wrong , as kids we would buy half a dozen cocks for very little money (very little money was all we had) and try to rear them for Christmas , I must admit with limited success as a card board box in the hearth was as near a Hoover as we could manage !
VM


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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## The Drone Ranger

I was mentored by a 3rd Generation beekeeper who had bees descended from his grandfathers original bees
Although they were completely black and probably AMM type he brought them down to the rape every spring.
Like all bees they used to swarm or replace the queen while on the rape so even they would have been hybridising.
At the time nobody really thought much about it 
In the Winter they went back home up the Glen on Heather till the next Spring

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## The Drone Ranger

> Before sex linked chooks ,we loved to watch the sexers at work ! They rarely got it wrong , as kids we would buy half a dozen cocks for very little money (very little money was all we had) and try to rear them for Christmas , I must admit with limited success as a card board box in the hearth was as near a Hoover as we could manage !
> VM
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Lol!
We were useless at the "A cockerel is for Christmas not for Life"
10 different cockerels (pets) eyeing one another through the wire fences

On the queens subject there is a chap advertising in beecraft British Black Bees unmated queen £13.99 Scottish
Don't know any more than that but an unmated queen would still be OK to generate next years drones in principle
This is not a recommendation just an observation

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## gavin

> .....  as kids we would buy half a dozen cocks for very little money (very little money was all we had) and try to rear them for Christmas , I must admit with limited success as a card board box in the hearth was as near a Hoover as we could manage !
> VM


We used t' dream of having cardboard box in hearth!




Luxury.

Hope I haven't upset the thread ....

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## Jon

> On the queens subject there is a chap advertising in beecraft British Black Bees unmated queen £13.99 Scottish
> Don't know any more than that but an unmated queen would still be OK to generate next years drones in principle
> This is not a recommendation just an observation


If I thought I could sell virgin queens at £13.99 I would build a business around it.
People here would hardly pay that for a mated queen.

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## brothermoo

I would pay that Jon! Would others? Not sure, but how much are galtee queens? As far as I know they are hard to get so a source of local queens of good breeding would be great if someone didn't want to put in the effort and buy apideas etc.
__________________
sent via tapatalk

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## The Drone Ranger

> If I thought I could sell virgin queens at £13.99 I would build a business around it.
> People here would hardly pay that for a mated queen.


I think there could be a lot of takers even at £13-99 for AMMish Queens
I would rather take a punt on an easy to introduce virgin (no pheromone)
than £45 for a mated version which might get rejected anyway
Plus although it's affecting the drone population the workers would all be local bees

I'm going stir crazy now  :Smile: 

So taking Jon and Dark Bee 's suggestions the plan could be
Later in season after rape etc introduce AMM virgin to hive she mates with later AMMish local drones
year 2 her drones are pure AMM workers are mostly AMMish
same Year 2 introduce new AMM virgin later in season to mate with these drones
Year 3 graft from your second queen into every hive in the locality improving drone population  
In year 3 you still need an Amm virgin for your breeding line but it has only cost about £42 in queens

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## Poly Hive

Ok I have NZ bred Carnies. I have today (9/5/14) installed 10 queens from that type. I last bought three years ago so I am refreshing my blood lines. I can take you through my bees and say this is from that blood line and this is not. It is obvious. The non ones need smoking the purer ones do not. The non ones have "issues" they run they clump they occasionally sting. I took some 15 stings today re-queening 10 hives so I can live happily with that. Swarmy? LOL NO.... not at all. Excessively stingy NO. 

The pure ones are just incredible. No smoke no stings. Wonderful. 

Having said that my pure AMM was the same. But they could not provide me with 3 national brood boxes of brood. The Carnies can. Mind you queen finding gets interesting........... :Wink: 

PH

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## prakel

> Having said that my pure AMM was the same. But they could not provide me with 3 national brood boxes of brood. The Carnies can. Mind you queen finding gets interesting...........


How do the two compare with regard to honey production?

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## drumgerry

I think over-prolific bees are over-rated.  What do you do when the weather's sh*t and they're eating through their stores?  Answer - spend money on feeding them.  I refuse to keep a strain of bees that need to be fed in midsummer to keep them alive.

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## drumgerry

Unless you're not keeping such units as honey producers but as bee producers ie to stock nucs for sale.  In which case you're passing on the problem of potential midsummer feeding to your buyers.  Not saying that's what you're actually doing but it's a reason I could imagine to keep such big colonies.  And if they are being kept for honey they'd need to be producing 3 times the honey my single box units are to justify keeping them to say nothing of the imports issue.

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## gavin

Given that .....




> I can take you through my bees and say this is from that blood line and this is not. It is obvious. The non ones need smoking the purer ones do not.


and




> The pure ones are just incredible. No smoke no stings. Wonderful.


then what is it that your NZ carnies are breeding with to make hybrids that do need smoking?  And what are your NZ carnies doing to the beekeepers that have these bees?  Sounds like it is every man for himself (now) in an area that once had a successful dark bee breeding group.

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## Little_John

> I think there could be a lot of takers even at £13-99 for AMMish Queens
> I would rather take a punt on an easy to introduce virgin (no pheromone) than £45 for a mated version which might get rejected anyway


By saying "no pheromone", I'm sure most regulars on here will know what you meant by that - but for the benefit of anyone new to beekeeping who may have read that comment in a literal (absolute) way, here's some dope on pheromones:




> *Journal of Apicultural Research. Vol. 35 (3-4) pp.122-123, December 1996
> 
> Relative attractiveness of queen mandibular pheromone components to honey bee (Apis mellifera) drones*
> 
> Gerald M Loper; Orley R Taylor, Jr; Leonard J Foster; Jan Kochansky
> 
> Queen honey bees produce a mixture of pheromones whose functions are still incompletely understood. A total of five queen mandibular gland pheromone (QMP) chemicals have been identified; 9-keto-2(E) decenoic acid (9-ODA) is the most abundant and appears to be the most biologically active, although the other chemicals have varying effects on worker development, behaviour and response (Slessor et al., 1990). The proportions of these chemicals, especially 9-ODA and 4- hydroxy-3-methoxyphenylethanol (HDA), change as the virgin queens age and after they mate (Pankiw et al., 1996). 9-ODA also serves to attract flying drones to queens on mating flights even though drones are unresponsive to queens while in the nest.


My own focus is now upon why the virgin queen doesn't usually attract drones when in the nest or on her orientation flights, but does when on her mating flight. In what way is the mating flight different (rhetorical question) ?
My hunch is that the speed of movement may play a part.

LJ

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi LJ

There is some evidence though that the queens only are mated in the drone congregation areas. 
Also some evidence that queens flying outside the congregation area or the "lanes" to and from them are not attractive to drones
The reports of apiary vicinity mating seems to break that rule 
A lot of the studies appear to be conducted using queens tethered to balloons in some way 
Good luck solving the puzzle  :Smile:

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## Jon

I have witnessed apiary vicinity mating a dozen times or more at 3 different apiaries so not every queen flies to a congregation area.

Also, a mated queen is more likely to be accepted than a virgin. Caveats apply




> Direct introduction of mated and virgin queens using smoke:a method that gives almost 100% acceptance when hives have been queenless for 2 days or more.
> J Antonio Perez-Sato1,2,Martin H.Kärcher1,3,William O H Hughes1,4*,Francis L W Ratnieks1,3. 1Department of Animal and Plant Sciences,University of Sheffield,Western Bank,Sheffield,S10 2TN,UK. 2Present address:Colegio de Postgraduados,Campus Cordoba.Km 348 Carretera Federal Cordoba-Veracruz.Congregación Manuel Leon Amatlan de los Reyes,Cordoba,Veracruz,C.P 94946,Mexico. 3Present addressepartment of Biological and Environmental Science,University of Sussex,Falmer,Brighton,BN1 9QG,UK. 4Present address:Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology,University of Leeds,Leeds,LS2 9JT,UK.
> Received 15 June 2007,revised manuscript received 4 June 2008,accepted for publication 22 June 2008.
> *Corresponding author.Email:w.o.h.hughes@leeds.ac.uk.
> Summary
> We compared the acceptance of virgin and mated queens introduced into queenless hives using either artificial queen cells or direct introduction accompanied by smoke. In Experiment 1,virgin queens aged 3-4 days were introduced into 5-frame hives than had been dequeened 1,2,3,4,5,or 6 days previously. Acceptance increased significantly with the length of time a colony had been queenless,and direct introduction gave significantly greater success than artificial queen cells (between 31% and 100% acceptance vs. 8% to 92% for direct and cell introduction respectively,depending on the period of queenlessness). In Experiment 2,virgin and mated queens were introduced into 2-frame observation hives that had been dequeened 1,2,3 and 4 days previously. The probability of acceptance was significantly higher for mated queens than virgins,for direct introduction versus artificial queen cells, and for longer queenless periods. Accordingly,the probability of a queen being balled by the workers declined significantly with the duration of the queenless period,and was significantly less for mated versus virgin queens. Finally,in Experiment 3,we introduced mated queens into medium-sized hives (10 medium Langstroth frames) that had been queenless for 2 days using both the direct introduction and artificial cells. All queens were accepted.

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## Little_John

> A lot of the studies appear to be conducted using queens tethered to balloons in some way 
> Good luck solving the puzzle


Thanks.  I'm currently working on the design of a queen-bee mating chamber. Although many have tried this over the centuries, they didn't have the advantage of having seen the act of mating itself - which was captured fairly recently by the use of high-speed photography. It wasn't totally authentic of course, as the queen was tethered in front of the camera (like your balloons, maybe ?), but it did go some way to demonstrate that securing the queen in the flat position is counter-productive. Which was the method of restraint used by Lynn Royce and others in their 1992 mating chamber experiments, despite which they achieved mating in some 50% of introductions.

My approach is to accomodate this need for the drone to bend the virgin almost double in order to penetrate her from below - also I'll be ensuring that the queens are 'flying' within the chamber in as natural a way as possible, as Phillips (1923) reported that drones have little or no interest in a virgin queen at rest.

I've discussed my proposals with Ratnieks, but he's pretty dismissive of the whole idea (nothing like a bit of encouragement ...) - which has firmed-up my resolve to crack this captive mating problem even further. "Red rag to a bull" etc.

And anyway - it's good occupational therapy  :Smile: 

LJ

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## prakel

> I've discussed my proposals with Ratnieks, but he's pretty dismissive of the whole idea (nothing like a bit of encouragement ...) - which has firmed-up my resolve to crack this captive mating problem even further. "Red rag to a bull" etc.


Nothing like being told that you can't do something eh?

On another point, I wonder whether there's ever a 'need' for the queen and drone to spend time on the ground after initial locking? I've seen this with bumblebees and they stayed there for a fair while in fact I was unable to observe to the end due to demands on my time from a less than understanding employer (try it: 'why aren't you working?' ... 'I'm watching bumblebees have sex'). I asked a US scientist/beekeeper/writer about this and received the usual dismissive response that seems common to many 'expert' beekeepers.

Manley mentioned this same phenomenon (related to him by a third party) in Honey Farming.




> the other case in point was related to me in a letter two or three years ago in the following words: 'Some years ago, watching the bees one Sunday, we saw a virgin emerge for her mating flight, and noted the time. The situation of the apiary, flanked on two sides by very tall fir trees, enabled the flight of the bees in the sun to be followed clearly against the dark background. We saw the virgin pursued by a considerable number of drones, and the race continued swiftly in long zig-zags, a number of drones being "tailed off" at each sharp turn at a height of about fourty feet. These zig-zags continued for a considerable time, the height being evenly maintained and the distance from us not appreciably increasing. Suddenly something fell, fairly slowly, from the crowd, and, my father keeping watch on the hive, I ran to the spot to search. Unfortunately I misjudged the distance and went too far, for after a vain search I saw a queen rising apparently from the path in front of me. I at once looked for the drone, and sure enough found one on the grass verge, just as my father announced the return of the queen to her hive. The genital organs of the drone were missing, and my father was able to report that the queen had returned with the drone appendage clearly visible, having been absent from the hive twenty-five and a half minutes. We did not, unfortunately, time the period when the bees were on the ground, but we estimated it at about twenty minutes.....'
> 
> *Honey Farming page 89.*


This twenty minute estimate of the time spent on the ground certainly ties in with my bumblebees and again, makes me wonder whether we're expecting too much of the queen's legendary 'wing strength' even when combined with that of the drone to secure full completion of semen transfer while on the wing.

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## Bumble

> my pure AMM was the same. But they could not provide me with 3 national brood boxes of brood. The Carnies can.


And that's why some new beekeepers lose swarms in their first season when they follow well-meaning advice to buy gentle carnies and a standard national brood box.



> then what is it that your NZ carnies are breeding with to make hybrids that do need smoking?  And what are your NZ carnies doing to the beekeepers that have these bees?  Sounds like it is every man for himself (now) in an area that once had a successful dark bee breeding group.


It isn't just the breeding groups that suffer. Plenty of ordinary, I suppose you'd call them 'hobbyist', beekeepers have maintained their own stocks of local bees for years. Just one or two new beekeepers with their nice new carnie bloodline crossing into the local gene pool has meant that their hive management has to change, and quite significantly too. Keeping bees on double or triple brood can be too challenging for some of the older beekeepers.

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## Poly Hive

Rather unfair criticism as as far as I know there is no one in the area with bees apart from one other person who is running bees I supplied him with. 

The arguments over imports are long running and no doubt always will. As for the imports being in the 1000 range... I think it is a great deal more than that considerably more. 

From a business point of view the way forward would be to use the same techniques that the Canrie people have done and have the queens raised in a better climate than ours. 

I run my carnies mainly for producing nucs but they can and do support them selves in poor weather and also produce honey, though sadly their cappings are on the wet side not the bonny raised type the AMM built. 

I further would point out that I ran pure or as pure as I could tell AMM for many years. I also bought Bernards bees before he went to France. My best ever AMM unit produced over 300 lbs of honey from a single brood box so I very well aware, possibly more than many what a good one can do. The down side is they had a nasty habit of not surviving the winters, and could be VERY stingy. The good ones though were amazing. 

PH

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## drumgerry

Why on earth would we want to raise queens abroad only to import them?  Sort of defeats the purpose of having our own sustainable system.  Oh of course the answer will be the commercial guys need mated queens in March or some such ludicrous argument.  My counter argument is there needs to be an adjustment of expectation and if mated queens are only available in our Scottish climate from June onwards so be it.  If the commercial guys don't like that and can't run their businesses in that scenario maybe they need to find another business.  The reality of raising queens is that the commercial guys could do it but they prefer to import.

And didn't Bernard select for temper?!  I think Galtee shows that AMM is a gentle bee if bred as such.   Not sure why AMM should be less able to survive a winter.  Certainly my and others experience of native type bees shows them to be generally better suited to a Scottish winter than strains from mainland Europe.  

And I can guarantee that if your Carnies lived here in Speyside I'd be feeding them most summers to keep them alive.  I take it you're comfortable selling bees who will produce such huge colonies to people?  I wouldn't be to be honest.

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## Poly Hive

Bernard did indeed select for temper but I bought in from all over. AMM that is and some were good and some were crap. 

If AMM were bred abroad then imported it would solve the Gorgon knot if non supply. And that is the major issue. Try and buy an AMM queen. Go on... try. I have. Why am I now using Carnies? I cannot buy AMM. It is that simple. It is frankly not my choice it is what is available. That is the commercial reality. What happened to my AMM? they were destroyed by a landowner. Long story I am not going into but I can tell you this much he was not his fathers son with regards to attitude and manners. 

Moving on. AMM is not a great winterer. Sorry to prick your bubble but my death rates were on average 40% and as I was comitted to keeping a certain number of colonies I had to buy in. I was in a job at the time which paid well so it was not a disaster but it taught me a serious lesson... they winter ish... And Bernard found the same in reality. Argue if you like but back then that was the position. 

The carnies produce nice colonies and I have no issues with selling them on. I am honest unlike some and tell them what to expect and give my number for advice? I am no snake oil merchant for info. I also ran note the past tense one of the most widely read bee sites in the UK. It was hacked last night by some (expletives deleted) and will be back up shortly due to the efforts of my web guru bless him. It is getting close to 1 million pages read. 

As for feeding in Speyside you might be surprised. They are doing very well on the Black Isle. 

PH

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## Jon

> Try and buy an AMM queen. Go on... try. I have.


How many do you want?

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## drumgerry

Sorry 40% winter losses?  Don't mean to be rude but you must have been doing something wrong.  There's no earthly reason most colonies can't be kept alive with sufficient stores, a bit of fondant on top of the cluster to prevent isolation starvation and proper varroa treatment.  I winter my native-ish bees in a harsher climate than most of Aberdeenshire and didn't lose any colonies this year and a single one last winter ( the winter that never ended till May)

And as for AMM queens Jon sells them as does Andrew Abrahams.

Climate wise Speyside and the Black Isle are different worlds.

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## Jon

From the NIHBS website

native queen and nuc suppliers

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## mbc

> but I bought in from all over


Slightly missing the point of trying to improve locally adapted native bees.

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## prakel

> If AMM were bred abroad then imported it would solve the Gorgon knot if non supply.


They are, French types from Greece (yeah, I know you weren't too impressed when you tried them) and packages from France; at least one bee farmer brought a truck full of these packages in last year and was, as I understood things, planning on more this year but a comment he made on the internet a little while back makes me think that he may now be a Ligustica convert. 




> And that is the major issue. Try and buy an AMM queen. Go on... try. I have. Why am I now using Carnies? I cannot buy AMM. It is that simple. It is frankly not my choice it is what is available.


I don't understand this at all. if your experience of amm is one of dodgy temperament and 40% winter losses as standard why on earth would you not wish to stay with well bred carnica if as you say there's no one else being affected by your actions? You can do a lot worse than good carnica -and it sounds like you have.




> Moving on. AMM is not a great winterer. Sorry to prick your bubble but my death rates were on average 40% and as I was comitted to keeping a certain number of colonies I had to buy in. I was in a job at the time which paid well so it was not a disaster but it taught me a serious lesson... they winter ish...* And Bernard found the same in reality. Argue if you like but back then that was the position.*


I'd seriously love to hear more of this. Why do you think they were failing to survive in their natural environment? Were these stats of annual 40% losses being shared by your friends in the bee farmers club?

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## Poly Hive

All over as in all over Aberdeenshire. I found the death rate was due mainly to damp. As I moved over to poly that improved considerably. The more insulation they had the better they did. 

I wanted to buy AMM as over all I liked them and I was bought in to the AMM ethos but then I was stymied so went the Carnica route as I have already said (and god knows why I am justifying here) there are no others in the area to affect. Further to that there are so many types of bee in England or so my reading suggests that it makes no odds. 

PH

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## gavin

> Sorry 40% winter losses?  Don't mean to be rude but you must have been doing something wrong.  There's no earthly reason most colonies can't be kept alive with sufficient stores, a bit of fondant on top of the cluster to prevent isolation starvation and proper varroa treatment.


I thought that losses in the 2012-2013 winter (when the BFA and others thought the sky was falling in) were about 30%?  Our little local survey also had losses at 30% but they split to 50% of nuc-sized colonies and 20% of bigger colonies*, in that really difficult year.  This year losses will be much less and at this point I might guess 10%.  These are the local mixed-up, messed-up Amm-leaning mongrels.  Selected stocks from Bernard Mobus must surely have had even better survival when properly managed. And this is in the age of Varroa ....

*largely in wood locally.  Yes, survival in poly is often better, but well managed colonies in wood usually survive well.




> .... so went the Carnica route as I have  already said (and god knows why I am justifying here) ....



The heading of this sub-forum might give you a clue as to why you are being challenged on your enthusiasm for carnies!

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## drumgerry

That winter our local losses were probably less than the 30% Gavin - certainly there was no beemageddon as has been suggested elsewhere.  Personally my losses were far less.  I remain convinced that many winter losses are the result of management issues.  That little thing that I do with the block of fondant on the top bars above the cluster has practically ended any problems with isolation starvation.  I see it as a bridge for the bees between areas of stores.  Dampness?  No reason for that nowadays with open mesh floors - in either open or closed position there's plenty of ventilation.

As to poly survival rates I'm not seeing much difference between my wooden units and them and I have approximately half in each.

PH you revived a year dead thread with a long post extolling the virtues of carnies in the "Native Bees" area of the forum - perhaps that's why you're being taken to task.  Yours was the sort of post that'll have beginners thinking they'd like to try carnies and it's important that a counter argument be put forth by those of us who disagree.  You've already said that the NZ carnies are on the Black Isle.  I know they're elsewhere in large numbers in Scotland thanks to a certain bee farmer.  All of which puts a spanner in the works of anyone who wants to keep native bees in those areas.

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## prakel

> (and god knows why I am justifying here)


Just to be clear, *I'm* not asking you to _justify_ anything, more a case of asking you to clarify your preference. 

I know only too well that challenging people to justify _personal preferences_ in a forum environment never leads to a pleasant exchange -I remember when (elsewhere) people without my bees or location got really upset with my choice of dadant hives. The nonsense they wrote based on experience in different localities with different bees was astounding. Little did I realize back then how lucky I am to have never experienced the level of losses that some others seem to suffer (doubly so, using hives which are totally unsuitable for use in the UK  :Smile: )

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## mbc

> Further to that there are so many types of bee in England or so my reading suggests that it makes no odds.


It would be ever so easy for anyone to find something to read that quietens their conscience when they've made the decision to forego the hard path*, after all, the grass is always greener to some folk and its not exactly difficult to splash some cash and benefit from someone else's breeding efforts.  Perhaps one shouldn't publicly crow about how clever ones been sourcing foreign bees if one wishes to be taken seriously on an informed bee forum, I think its called "flaming", or is it "trolling"?  A short term, unsustainable quick fix is still just that, no matter what someone else has written to justify their own position.
FYI there is a very active East Midlands BIBBA breeding group.

*The hard path in this instance refers to working with the existing bees in an area to stabalise the population and to steadily improve them in cooperation with others.

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## Jon

And that same active East Midlands group had to abandon a mating site when a load of EasyBee Carnica nucs were brought into the area iirc.

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## mbc

> there are no others in the area to affect.


??!!




> And that same active East Midlands group had to abandon a mating site when a load of EasyBee Carnica nucs were brought into the area iirc.


"No man is an island" is especially true when talking about bee breeding.

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## fatshark

How different is the climate in Aberdeenshire vs. West coast islands? Colder and drier vs. warmer and wetter I presume. If the Amm were succumbing to damp (in Aberdeenshire) then it must be surely worse on Colonsay? I can't imagine the Amm stocks on Colonsay - which I believe are mainly in cedar - suffer anything like 40% losses.

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## drumgerry

Aberdeenshire is a pretty huge area Fatshark.  In terms of habitat it varies greatly from the coastal areas through the agricultural belt (where you find Craibstone where PH and B Mobus were located I believe) down to the very Highland areas around Braemar. But overall I'd say it's significantly less wet than the west coast.  Most of the rain that falls comes from the west and a lot of that gets dumped on the Cairngorms before it arrives.  I'm a native of Glasgow and when I first moved here (meaning Moray/Aberdeenshire) I couldn't believe how dry it was in comparison to my hometown.

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## fatshark

I lived in Glasgow for nearly a decade and evolved gills. I now have to do my beekeeping without gloves as I can't get any to fit properly …

ManFromAtlantis.jpg

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## drumgerry

Well at least you get to go to the Oil Barons Ball every year!

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## Bumble

> Rather unfair criticism as as far as I know there is no one in the area with bees apart from one other person who is running bees I supplied him with.


Then you must live in a very remote area of the East Midlands, because even where we live there are around 150 registered apiaries within the 10km DEFRA radius.



> The carnies produce nice colonies and I have no issues with selling them on. I am honest unlike some and tell them what to expect and give my number for advice? I am no snake oil merchant for info.





> The heading of this sub-forum might give you a clue as to why you are being challenged on your enthusiasm for carnies!


Which is why I commented, and also because BKAs in and around my area do their utmost to encourage their members to buy local bees. If new beekeepers are buying locally then they expect to get just that, and not get a colony that's a single generation away from an import.

@ Fatshark. We found the east of Scotland significantly dryer than the west, although coastal areas do get the Haar in the summer.

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## Adam

If a beekeeper is keeping bees in a 'difficult' location, i.e. somewhere that's very wet, cold or both,  isn't the best policy to breed from the survivors and losses will reduce over time as bees better adapted to the conditions will survive and even flourish. Then they become native over time.

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## Rosie

I agree with the gist of your post Adam but to me "native" means Amm and something like Amc can never turn into Amm although I accept that it could become just as well adapted as Amm over a long enough time.

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