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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #12262  by JoJo36
 06 Dec 2021, 07:37
I do wonder why if "local bees were so great" why Father Adam took years to find the almost perfect bee which is in great demand today?!
We imported a huge number of bees following the "Isle if Wight" disease and it is my understanding that the ones that survived it were mostly 'foreign" ??!!
When you think of fruit trees and plants, they are tweaked to produce the best fruit and be tolerant of disease so a mixture should be better in my opinion.
I've never had black bees but different people that I know have, have said that they are more feisty than the gentle Italian??!!
 #12264  by NigelP
 06 Dec 2021, 10:37
Yup, most "local" bees are mongrels with a wide variety of genes from different races in them. The aggressiveness is very area dependant with those keepers in areas with gentle locals wondering what the rest of us are on about. For reasons I cannot understand many think that what they have in their area is universal across the rest of the country. It isn't.
If anyone is looking for decent UK Buckfast queens (beware their are many sellers selling substandard Buckfast) then Jed Marshall is certainly worth looking at https://www.bhpqueens.co.uk/
 #12265  by AdamD
 07 Dec 2021, 09:18
My local bees are generally OK - but then the gene-pool will be from a mix of bees that various beekeepers have brought into the area, which must be the same in most parts of the country so to an extent it's pot luck depending on your post code.

I suppose to gauge the state of the local bee population, we can assess the quality of the swarms that we collect. For me, they are variable in behaviour with some that are pleasant to deal with and some that need rapid re-queening which becomes apparent a week or two after collection. There are some that supercede the queen very rapidly and some that turn out that have a desire to make queencells at the drop of a hat. One local beekeeper told me that he collected a swarm with the current year's queen as denoted by the dot on her thorax.

I am sure that a concerted effort by a decent proportion of local beekeepers could change the general behaviour over 2 or 3 years as there are not too many feral colonies in most parts of the country to affect any 're-population' effort. Although if Bob liked Hybrids and Bill liked Italians, the effect would be minimal. I believe that the Germans had a massive re-queening exercise after the 2nd world war in favour of Carniolans.

I personally can't see the need to try to get a bee that has a specific colour or wing venation. What we want is firstly, healthy bees and then a combination of low swarming propensity, easy to handle and a sensible amount of honey production. If bees happen to become dark as a result of any selection that the beekeeper makes, then so be it. Locally adapted bees has to be the way to go - although we must be aware that local adaption will be as a result of Man's manipulation and selection and not entirely at the hands of Nature.
 #12266  by NigelP
 07 Dec 2021, 17:03
AdamD wrote:
07 Dec 2021, 09:18
I am sure that a concerted effort by a decent proportion of local beekeepers could change the general behaviour over 2 or 3 years as there are not too many feral colonies in most parts of the country to affect any 're-population' effort. Although if Bob liked Hybrids and Bill liked Italians, the effect would be minimal. I believe that the Germans had a massive re-queening exercise after the 2nd world war in favour of Carniolans.
As you say Adam getting enough beekeepers in an area to agree to anything would be quite a challenge. It would need to be done at a National level and I cannot see this or any future government caring enough to do such a thing. Germany, as you say<, did replace most of their black bees with Carniolans but do retain isolated mating areas for other races/hybrids such as Buckfast and Italian. Israel replaced their indigenous bee with Italians.
Slovenia insists all their beekeepers keep Carniolans and has banned all other bee imports to support this. I coukld ,live with Carniolans, they are a nice bee to work with.
We exported our local black bee all over the world, but as beekeepers discovered the merits of the other races they have largely been replaced, which tells it's own story
 #12267  by thewoodgatherer
 08 Dec 2021, 07:22
Same -Jonathan Getty, and from what I’m seeing they can keep up with the rest in terms of honey production but then I don’t run fresh Ged Marshal hives alongside to compare to be honest or Italians.
Two things I have noticed is that they have constantly failed to produce successfully mated queens in my area, this has happed too many times to be a coincidence, the second is that they are robbing little buggars and once the Summer flow is over they are the first and most persistent at helping themselves to others stores.
On a big plus side they winter sometimes on 10lbs and don’t start building up until after the others which last year put them in the Tortoise position while many of my locals got caught out by the late cold snap.
At the end of the day it’s like farming, we have the ability to manipulate genes to produce what we consider is the best honeybees for our purpose and use, maximising honey production while ticking other boxes.
I’m not a fan of this and would like to see the reintroduced of AMM with a ban on imported queens or other races. Nature always knows best and not by chance but by trial and error.
 #12268  by NigelP
 08 Dec 2021, 17:25
I think "Nature knows best" is a big big misnomer.
Without interference from man what lives is what survives, and rarely has the necessary characteristics man wants from them . If it was true we would still be farming Aurochs for beef and milk.
Jon Gettys Amm's are being selected and bred for traits that beekeepers find desirable. And as such are as unnatural as any other species/races /hybrids of bee that have been bred for desirable characteristics.
Banning bee imports would put a lot of professional beekeepers into liquidation, they simply cannot get the yields they require using "local bees". Murray McGregor (3000+) hives has his main queen rearing station in Piedmont in Italy so as to get reliable and early mating's for his selected queens (mainly of Carniolan origins IIRC)
Interestingly enough there is a movement to bring the Aurochs back.....
 #12269  by JoJo36
 08 Dec 2021, 18:07
I think we all have a CHOICE and which ones we keep is dependant on each and every beekeepers' own needs!
Variety is the spice of life:)
 #12270  by Alfred
 08 Dec 2021, 18:39
So true
I'm on the count down to blessed retirement and maybe then I can get more fussy about the inhabitants of my boxes.
For the meantime I'm doing just about ok with feral swarmage.
True they're easy come -easy go and the quality is usually moderate to hopeless but just like buying scatchcards,sometimes you lose and sometimes you just win your money back.
At least they're healthy stock when they go.
Plus they're ideal to learn with.
But I have got one or two for my efforts that are highly productive -if a little insane..
I'm not dependant on honey sales just as long as they pay for the extractor(1/4 way there so far)
I've lost bought queens and felt gutted each time
So this works for the meantime.
 #12272  by JoJo36
 09 Dec 2021, 07:03
I agree Alfred!

If you spend a huge amount on queens and lose them it is sickening where if they are 'locals' its not quite as bad and even prompts you more to try different methods which you wouldn't dare if you were experimenting with the upmarket ones!
That way you learn more too although I would say you definitely sound like an experienced beekeeper now and part way to getting your extractor money back:)
You will find that when you are retired you will be busier than ever and wonder how you had the time to work??!!

Let's hope the winter is not to wet, and long and we all have a few colonies left going into spring!!

Maybe for Christmas "er indoors" may have bought you a gold coloured bee suit to signify the dosh you are going to make next year and turn your hobby into an industry??!! Ha ha :)
 #12273  by NigelP
 09 Dec 2021, 08:45
Queen introduction is rarely 100%, so I expect to take losses from my introductions ....and I do. It's also far more difficult to introduce a foreign queen into local stock....although I have developed methods that give you a decent chance.
So I always buy in 3's and usually end up with at least 2 accepted (all 3 this year). These are my breeder queens that I breed the rest of my stock from, they produce the equivalent of the F1's that other sellers sell at around £40 a queen.
Not cheap queens originally, but ignoring the free queens they produce for me, they more than pay for themselves in the amount of honey they bring in.
JoJo36 wrote:
08 Dec 2021, 18:07
I think we all have a CHOICE and which ones we keep is dependant on each and every beekeepers' own needs!
Variety is the spice of life:)
So true, JoJo. Currently any beekeeper can choose to keep the type of bee strain/hybrid/mongrel/local that suits their beekeeping needs or wants. Yet we have groups who pursue an agenda to allow us to only use a certain race.. That is not a democratic policy it's a dictatorial one and pretty racist as well :)