The black bee

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... it's probably as much threatened by people breeding by phenotype rather than genotype, or people importing AMM queens from other countries with no research into their genetic background.

:iagree:

I think the dangers of selecting for colour and then wing morphometry are that it seems that no-one has bothered to characterise the mogrel bees that we all love to hate and therefore no-one can be certain what represents a significant characteristic for the purpose of identifying natives amongst the mongrels that are all around us. Furthermore breeding for those qualities will only undermine their use as tools for selecting races of honeybees further.

I am probably erroneous but I am seeing troll like symptoms on what was a thread concerning the native bee. Which is very much alive and well.

Well, yes you are erroneous in the first bit. I am not sure about the second sentance. I would like to see the native honeybee identified and preserved in one shape or form, but there is so much misinformation thrown in by people who have made up their mind and are sticking to it that it is difficult to take any statement seriously.
 
Are you saying Ruttner is wrong then?

I ran AMM for near 20 years in Scotland with discoidal shift clean off the BIBBA fan at times.

I keep being told I was not using native bees when blatantly I was.

PH
 
Are you saying Ruttner is wrong then?

I am not sure whether Ruttner was correct or not in believing the native bee to be in existance. However, when viewed objectively, starting from the correct null hypothesis that the existance of the native honeybee is yet to be determined, I have not seen any conclusive proof that it does still exist. The best evidence for its existance seems to be suggestive at best and often contradicts other evidence. And yes, I have read Ruttner et al, 'the dark European honeybee', I have read much of Cooper's little book, I have read (several times) the Paper by Jenson et al on the introgression of A.m.ligustica among many other articles on the subject. There is also good theoretical as well as experimental evidence that relying on a few markers (such as cubital index, discoid shift) is quite unreliable in determining the racial origin of honeybees, especially in the context of the multiracial bees of the British Isles.
 
However, when viewed objectively, starting from the correct null hypothesis that the existance of the native honeybee is yet to be determined, I have not seen any conclusive proof that it does still exist.
But the trouble with that use of statistical tools is this; it works the other way too!

I would argue that the hypothesis is that AMM is extinct, the correct Null Hypothesis (NH) is that it is still extant, until it can be conclusively proven that the NH is incorrect then the original hypothesis fails, ie AMM is still extant.

Why can I argue in this way? Well, clearly there WAS a Native Honeybee (AMM), therefore the alternate hypothesis must be that the situation has changed (to AMM extinct), thus the NH is "AMM is alive and well"
 
All I can say to this is that having measured some thousands of samples of wings that the scatter grams were so definite, clustered well down in the bottom left quadrant that I am in no doubt what so ever that I was dealing with AMM.

Bear in mind this was Aberdeenshire where climate is very unkind to inabooters.

They tend to die off rapidly.

PH
 
Blodwen,
I see your thinking, but I must disagree. Yes there was a native honeybee, but there is good reason to suppose that it does not exist to this day.
Our null hypothesis cannot be that the native honeybee is alive and well as that cannot be disproven (i.e. cannot prove a negative). Even if you surveyed every known colony in the UK and failed to demonstrate that any of them are native, you cannot discount the possibility that there were some colonies that are not known about. Therefore arguing that no-one has ever proven the native honeybee to be extinct, therefore it exists is a scientific nonsense. We know that there were once dinosaurs, but just because no-one has seen one does not prove they do not exist, so do we accept that they also exist?
Demonstrating the existance of the native honeybee would immediately disprove the hypothesis that it does not exist ("using the test of observed data ", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_hypothesis). The correct null hypothesis therefore should be that the existance of the native honeybee has not been determined (see also http://statistics.berkeley.edu/~stark/SticiGui/Text/gloss.htm#null_hypothesis).
 
All I can say to this is that having measured some thousands of samples of wings that the scatter grams were so definite, clustered well down in the bottom left quadrant that I am in no doubt what so ever that I was dealing with AMM.

Bear in mind this was Aberdeenshire where climate is very unkind to inabooters.

They tend to die off rapidly.

PH

According to the latest BBKA winter loss statistics, Northern bees often die off. The irony is that other subspecies of bee (including Carniolan and Italian) have been proven to thrive in areas much cooler than anything the British Isles has to offer.
What you haven't asked yourself is what percentage of mongrels scatter in the 'bottom left': it seems like the answer to that question has never been addressed (at least to my knowledge)
 
The BBKA do not have stats for Scotland.

They are but British in name only. No remit over the border.

Yellow bees do not last further north because the native bees fly to mate at lower temps.

What is your back ground with bees Richard Bache?

PH
 
Yellow bees do not last further north because the native bees fly to mate at lower temps.

What is your back ground with bees Richard Bache?

I cannot believe this business about yellow bees not lasting as they are the favoured strain in countries with much colder weather than we have. Also I have seen very little evidence for this notion that native bees mate at lower temperatures: it seems to me (at least at the moment) to be an invention of Beowulf Cooper, with no evidence to support those claims.

My background in beekeeping will, no doubt, be used to suggest that I wouldn't have seen a native bee because I live in the wrong part of the kingdom. Indeed I have not, but I look for objective evidence rather than anecdote. So as an aside, I have been keeping bees for just over 10 years in the South West of England.
 
i know that my black bees fly when its colder than my yellow bees i dont know if mine are AMM or some cross off them, but they do fly in colder weather
 
Well you see the trouble is this.

Yes yellow strains live in cooler countries than the UK.

However those countries have much warmer summers than ours.


I can tell you though from practical experience of some 15 years of managing and propogating AMM that they successfully mate at lower temps. No invention there. My mentors said the same thing. One at the time running some 500 colonies of AMM.

I am not discussing this from a theoretical position, but from hard won practical experience.

Believe what you wish, theorise all you want, I know what I know.

PH
 
I have a couple of hives with some dark bees in.

Don't know if they are an extinct or an extant AMM.

But I like them all the same.
 
All I can say to this is that having measured some thousands of samples of wings that the scatter grams were so definite, clustered well down in the bottom left quadrant that I am in no doubt what so ever that I was dealing with AMM.

I've sent you links in the past to the paper mentioned by Richard Bache above that shows that phenotype is not as accurate measure of pure AMM.

I've also sent you links in the past to papers measuring the genetics of various colonies of bees in the UK.

If you are just interested in breeding a "Tamaskan" bee then carry on with your wing measurements.

If you actually want to do something about saving the native bee then you're going to have to start reading and understanding exactly how to go about it correctly.
 
You really should address these concerns to BIBBA Crg. Not to I.

PH
 
Crg; If you actually want to do something about saving the native bee then you're going to have to start reading and understanding exactly how to go about it correctly.[/QUOTE said:
Oooh bitch
 
Well you see the trouble is this.

Yes yellow strains live in cooler countries than the UK.

However those countries have much warmer summers than ours.

Not so. It is the favoured bee in Finland, almost up to the artic circle and although the peak temperatures may be comparable to Scotland, the temperatures don't last long and the winter is much colder.

I can tell you though from practical experience of some 15 years of managing and propogating AMM that they successfully mate at lower temps. No invention there. My mentors said the same thing. One at the time running some 500 colonies of AMM.

I am not discussing this from a theoretical position, but from hard won practical experience.

The problem is that the methods you are using have never been validated as a test for 'nativeness'. You may cite all this practical experience, but you cannot be sure what type of bee you have. Have you witnessed matings in both your bees and "yellow" bees and made a record of the temperature that this occured??? No???


Believe what you wish, theorise all you want, I know what I know.

:banghead:Oh dear! I am not talking from a theoretical point of view, just requesting evidence for the assertions that are being made. For all your practical experience and knowhow you have thus far failed to prove anything...
 
I give up on this.

Aim at BIBBA not I.

When they made their one sally north of the border they couldn't believe the results achieved.

So go argue with them.

PH
 
Not so. It is the favoured bee in Finland, almost up to the artic circle and although the peak temperatures may be comparable to Scotland, the temperatures don't last long and the winter is much colder.





Nonsense. Yellow bees may be the favoured bee of some commercial beekeepers in Finland but I think you'll find that good old mother nature strongly favoured dark bees
 
Nonsense. Yellow bees may be the favoured bee of some commercial beekeepers in Finland but I think you'll find that good old mother nature strongly favoured dark bees

Good old mother nature never had bees in Finland: they were all introduced. Yes, the Black bee was introduced sooner, but...
"Experienced Finnish beekeepers use A.m.ligustica"
Vidano, C. The Italian bee in Finland. in Beekeeping in cold climates. Apimondia symposium 1974. pp45-48.

We know that initial introductions of Italian bees had high winter losses in Finland, but we cannot discount the possibility that initial losses of AMM were similar also when they were first introduced in the 18th Century. Indeed, the intial losses of A.m.ligustica have been attributed to the need for better ventilation, which was not initially appreciated.

The sucess crowning the tenacity of the Finnish beekeepers just as of those in all northern countries who all work under inclement weather conditions for a long period of the year, proves that in regions where A.m.ligustica (or the Italian bee) is at home, where ideal climate and flow conditions exist, very favourable opportunities are too often missed
Vidano, C. The Italian bee in Finland. in Beekeeping in cold climates. Apimondia symposium 1974. pp45-48.
 
Good old mother nature never had bees in Finland: they were all introduced. Yes, the Black bee was introduced sooner, but...

Confident assertion considering the climatic changes and expanding and contracting range of apis mellifera over the past 50 million years.

Finland is a country of huge forests and heathlands and bees have certainly thrived there before and since the arrival of man.
Early Finish poems and folklore are littered with mention of bees, honey and mead which seems strange for a country only introduced to bees since the advent of modern appiculture ( according to Richard Bache !)

Case dissmissed
 

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