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British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • Sustainable Bees and Queens

  • Queen breeding specialism discussion forum.
Queen breeding specialism discussion forum.
 #1527  by AdamD
 16 Dec 2018, 15:58
BIBBA are holding a number of 1 day events to help and encourage everyone from the small-scale beekeeper upwards and BKAs to produce bees and queens from local stock, by using simple techniques
that may be little more than a variation of what many beekeepers already do and at little or no cost.

See this link:-
https://bibba.com/sustainable-bees-queens/

I assume that Roger P and his dog will be doing the presentations as he has (they have) done in the past. Well worth attending if anyone can make it.
 #1528  by NigelP
 16 Dec 2018, 17:23
I hear they are very good on the practical side.
But their attitude to imported bees is very negative.
I think beekeepers should be told what strains are available to them and more about their respected properties.

I've had the one of the leading lights in their organisation try to explain to me that Buckfast bees are simply an Italian x Carniolan...which is the sort of tripe and nonsense I've come to expect from that particular organisation in their quest to force all beekeepers to use local bees.
They do organise good conferences though....mind Randy Oliver had a bit of go at their "black bee" mentality at one recently.
 #1531  by AdamD
 17 Dec 2018, 09:01
Roger has a more pragmatic view - raising local queens - they don't have to be black ones.
 #1532  by Jim Norfolk
 17 Dec 2018, 11:49
I have to agree with Adam it is about local bees not black bees. Importing bees has brought pests and diseases to this island and there will be more to come. Local bees can be very good depsite those Nigel's neighbours keep. I had some lovely productive local bees when I was in Chichester and I have to say those I bought from Adam when I moved up here are even better. We should all be striving to improve our local stock and breed from our best colonies regardless of race or colour. I also believe we should be producing good numbers of drones from our best colonies rather than leave our queens to mate with whatever is around.
 #1535  by Patrick
 17 Dec 2018, 22:54
Looking at it from the other end, if breeding from your better bees is a bit tricky (and it shouldn’t be) then at least actively plan to change the queen heading your worst would benefit everyone.

If we committed to address some of the worst tempered in our apiaries each year, it would make beekeeping a lot more fun I reckon.

Problem is they are often the ones left alone (which is probably why they get a reputation for getting in bigger crops, I suspect by sometimes also robbing out less feisty neighbours).
 #1536  by NigelP
 18 Dec 2018, 08:23
Jim Norfolk wrote:
17 Dec 2018, 11:49
Local bees can be very good depsite those Nigel's neighbours keep.
Don't disagree some areas do have calm gentle local bees. Luck for those who have them.
What I don't see is this obsession with anti--imports and given you are not allowed to send bees from within a 6 mile AFB/EFB exclusion zone difficult to understand the disease bit . But if you repeat something often enough people will believe it.
As I've said many times there are types and strains of bees to suit each individual's needs or ambitions as a beekeeper. But newcomers are simply not being given this in formation in the bluster of misinformation that local bees are best and adapted for their area.
Strange how my non natives non locally adapted queens hives wipe the floor with the locals. But then not everyone would want to run these bees as big colonies and lots of honey to depose of at the end of the season. This is about 1/3 of my honey "haul" from this year from 16 hives.

Image
 #1537  by DianeBees
 18 Dec 2018, 12:21
Patrick wrote:
17 Dec 2018, 22:54
Looking at it from the other end, if breeding from your better bees is a bit tricky (and it shouldn’t be) then at least actively plan to change the queen heading your worst would benefit everyone.

If we committed to address some of the worst tempered in our apiaries each year, it would make beekeeping a lot more fun I reckon.
These two points are really important.

Sometimes you need to see other people's bees though to realise just how chilled out your own are and vice versa. Some people might just think 'that's how bees are'...
 #1545  by Chrisbarlow
 18 Dec 2018, 18:51
I agree with your comments Diane, initially when I first started beekeeping I just thought all bees were like mine, when I finally started keeping really calm bees it was quite a revelation at how calm some bees can really bee.
 #1546  by Patrick
 18 Dec 2018, 20:35
The curve ball is that they can sometimes change during the season and so it’s important to know reason why.

I can’t recall a gnarly queen’s daughter being mild mannered but the opposite is certainly possible. I remember reading somewhere about temperament going down the drone line which is why requeening before they knock out drones and mess everyone else up is a priority.

But whatever, putting up with bloody awful bees is just a trial we shouldn’t put ourselves through.

Nice pile of buckets Nigel. Hope the floors reinforced.. :D
 #1552  by NigelP
 19 Dec 2018, 15:31
Gentle to nasty....a perennial problem with keeping Buckfast and open mating ....
The answer as to why they become nasty is quite simple , as long as you know where you are starting from with your queens as it's simply reversion to the local phenotype of bees in your area. Those living in areas with gentle local bees don't see this problem as often.
I start with isolated station or Island mated queens which I happily pay big bucks for. These queens are generally superb and come complete with Buckfast drone sperm, so they are 100% Buckfast (okay we know Buckfatst are a designer mongrel bee but a relative stable one as they breed "true"). I call these F0

Now any queen I breed from these (which I will call F1) will also be 100% Buckfast (can't be anything else), but now she gets open mated and will contain sperm from local mongrel bees. So her daughters will be 50% Buckfast and 50% Mongrel. Now these bees are as good and sometimes better than their mother and retain a lovely temperament..
Its the next generation beyond this where problems occur. Any queen derived from the F1 will only be 50% Buckfast BUT her daughters genes are now 75% mongrel and this (in most cases in my area) tips the balance into large feisty colonies which you do not want to be anywhere near. They essentially are mongrel bees with a bit of Buckast thrown in. You can see the colour changes from the F0 and F1 queens tan/tawny Buckfast to black very vividly in the F2.

Part of my beekeeping comprises of trying to prevent these F2 queens from ever arising.....the problem occurs in late summer early autumn when you sometimes get a supersedure and it's too late to do anything else but sit back and expect the worst next spring. I currently have 2 hives which have supersedure queens and I already know one is going to be a headache.

However next season I am trying a cunning plan. Knowing that virgin queens fly further than the drones from their own apiary I have cunningly sited a new apiary about 1/2 mile away down the "valley head" where I live.
So in theory at least these drones will be pure Buckfast drones and hopefully I might get some better tempered F2 queens and not have to put up with the bad tempered stock I get from these late supersedure queens.
We shall see....