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  • What Bees? And why?

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #9254  by NigelP
 15 Oct 2020, 15:50
Beeblebrox wrote:
15 Oct 2020, 14:17

However in a BIBBA Zoom lecture a couple of nights ago, the speaker mentioned they are mainly ligustica now (as you say) and this shows particularly in their mitochondrial DNA.
More misunderstanding by BIBA. It would be very shocking if the mitochondrial DNA wasn't mainly ligustica as that was the original cross, Mitochondrial DNA is mainly female and is passed on from mother to daughter at each crossing.... with little of it ever being attributed to males (or in this case drones). It is a historical record of where they started from, not where they are now.
The authors of the paper concluded ". A phylogenetic analysis, suggested that the matriline ‘Buckfast bee’ has remained most closely related to the A. mellifera ligustica race from which it originated in 1917, despite being cross-bred with many other A. mellifera races over the past 100 years".
https://tinyurl.com/y6m4rw85 free to download and read.
 #9271  by AdamD
 16 Oct 2020, 13:32
Bobbysbees, A July queen, if only recently introduced to the colony will not have her own bees for 3 weeks after introduction, and it's another 2 - 3 weeks before her bees age and develop into guard bees. It could be that the colony stated off gentle and will remain less so, now the queens own daughters are present throughout the hive. You'll find out in March!
 #9292  by Spike
 20 Oct 2020, 21:09
It seems that Italians and Carniolans are hardly mentioned now, are they still available?
 #9294  by Ian123
 20 Oct 2020, 22:22
There’s loads of carnis and Italians available, a good proportion of early package bees brought in are Italians. As for the carniolans a good proportion of imports are, just google queens for sale you’ll find them available. There’s plenty of good breeding groups/associations doing excellent work in the EU and has been for years. ...Ian
 #9299  by Chrisbarlow
 21 Oct 2020, 09:50
I would assess local stock first then if they're too aggressive opt for buckfast but with any breeding bees, keeping daughters calm is a matter of selection and culling. Regardless of what mum is like she can produce nasty daughter colonies... The trick to keeping calm bees is full the nasty queens... Something in my view is often over looked.

My take on buckfast queens though is not only are they generally calm but they are very low swarming.