New Zealand bees.

[Into the lions den]

Who issues them?

In discussions as recently as the week before Christmas at FERA in London, when this subject was talked about, there was no indication that they would issue certificates, in fact quite the contrary. Putting just such a system in place was one of the issues. The ones from most provenances are issued by the local bee inspectorate. Wording is similar, that the apaiaries and colonies from which the bees/queens came were inspected by an official inspector within a particular time frame prior to shipping, and from some sources it includes an official statement about the geographical area surrounding the apairies as well. All official, all carrying the signature of an official, and a govt stamp.

I would have to add a personal slant on that, that queen shipments actually do not worry me much as disease transfer risk is minimal, but for packages it does, and for nucs it REALLY does.

 

[gavin]

I'm thinking in the longer term Murray (and I regard you as the most strategic beekeeper I know, so I value this debate). OK, I was being provocative to get a response (not necessarily from you!) but the future genetics of our bees should have some better thought and debate. What state should the nation's (UK or Scotland!) bee stocks be in 10 years from now? At the moment most are very mixed. Better-bred stocks are in the minority and within a couple of years they get mixed with the genetics in the area around the apiary (and vice versa of course). As you know, first crosses can be vigorous and productive but there is documented evidence that the later generations are poorer than the parents in terms of production if nothing else. If beekeepers themselves have a desire to have better stocks it seems to me that there are only two ways this can go. One is continual buying in of good queens so that what happens outside your own apiary/apiaries is of no significance, the other is cooperative beekeeping where the majority of beekeepers in broad areas are keeping the same kind of bee. Otherwise we stay more or less where we are now and I don't think that is a good place.

Yes, I know that native types with the right traits are not available and I'm not criticising you for importing NZ bees to set up a new unit. I've posted on here about how gentle your Aberdeenshire bees are, and if we were keeping bees in a country without any heritage of bee stocks I'd be all for them. I do realise that there are health issues in the UK that may be better controlled in New Zealand and that we have a long way to go to improve our standards here.

The fact that your stocks stock revert to something that looks like a native bee after a while suggests that there is something about those traits that encourages survival in our conditions. Interesting that you use the term 'crystalise out' for apparently Amm types. There is a lot we don't understand about how bees maintain or mix their genetics (certainly a lot I don't understand). Basic principles (mating with lots of drones over wide areas, high levels of recombination in honeybee chromosomes) suggests that mixing should be rapid and thorough and it doesn't seem to be.

As regards the prospects for home-based queen raising, I'm also painfully aware that last year's queen raising was disastrous locally for a long period. Thought that it was just me until you told me of your difficulties too. The last few summers have been poor up here, but last summer was particularly poor. But in most years it will be better – isn't that why you are investing in training for queen raising?

Is it dangerous ground to promote native honeybee honey production? I don't think so. It may be one way to get the UK consumer to be more interested in home honey production rather than the cheap stuff you can buy in from anywhere. (I can just hear you saying that we can't produce enough in the UK for the demand already Murray!) Provenance is important now in marketing, and supermarkets do this now for some of their main commodities ('we buy our Maris Pipers from Mr Smith of East Lothian ...'). The bee part of that could be included, whether or not there is a difference in the honey. There are various quality marks in food production, and organic labels too of course. I don't suppose for a minute that there is anything different about any heather honey you could produce according to organic specifications compared to your main production, but it still carries weight with the consumer because it accords with their values.

As regards racism and sexism, I find these things odious and was rather taken aback by a heart-felt post on this forum by someone with a multi-racial family who found posts on native purity and the misbehaviour of mongrels objectionable. More so because the owner of one site where we are trying to establish a breeding group herself has a multi-racial family. Is aligning your beekeeping priorities with a conservationist slant to preserve and improve what we had here previously akin to racism? I don't think so but if it was, I'd be running away from such ideals, you can be sure of that.

On the question of the temper of second-generation crosses between Amm and Carniolans, I do listen to what you say but I'm puzzled as to why folk like Ruttner said otherwise. I'm happy to watch and wait to see for myself. It isn't the first generation that has the trouble, people say, but subsequent ones. Maybe it needs a proper test, swapping Apideas between apiaries of known genetics – but for now I have other uses for those Apideas. Maybe the Welsh breeder you mentioned could report what the second crosses to locals are like in a year or two's time?

Did you have experience of Bernard Mobus' strain at its peak, the one Poly Hive has mentioned on here? I still think that breeding effort with native stocks is a worthwhile effort … but which will need years to deliver a decent bee. But if I'm barking up the wrong tree I'd rather that you persuaded me of that now.

best wishes

Gavin

PS Is that my longest post on this forum?!

 

[Hivemaker.]

Who issues them?
.

Hi Murray
I think our recent conversation explains a little more about this,so no need to go further on here.

 

[Skyhook]

.Not looking to pick a fight with you there Gavin, but that is dangerous ground. The honey from Apis mellifera is the same, irrespective of what strain or ecotype of A.m. produces it, from the same climatic and floral factors. Heather honey (for example) has its character decided by the flowers, not by the bees. Going down that particular line is just the same as saying you do not want your lunch cooked by Black/Welsh/Female/Islamic persons or whatever. The lunch will be the same, its only prejudices about the cook that can be at play.

A little strong I think, in what is otherwise an interesting post. If, for example, naturalists are looking to re-introduce a species extinct in the UK, they will study a number of strains from the continent and select the one most similar to the native type, as this is a) most likely to survive, and b) will most nearly fit the niche in the eco-system. This seems to me good conservation practice, and I fail to see what it has to do with racism- a very strong accusation to make, this week of all weeks.

 

[mbc]

Hi Murray
I think our recent conversation explains a little more about this,so no need to go further on here.

???!
Who would I go to to get a health certificate for any bees I intended to sell ?

 

[gavin]

Don't worry - no offense taken or intended. Others have already raised this issue and it is one that conservationist minded beekeepers and indeed conservationists fretting about invasive organisms will have to face. I know Murray very well and there is a lot of respect both ways I think. He has invested a lot in these new wonder-bees, and will just have to accept that I'll be there to challenge from time to time. And if he wants to try to keep me straight I'll be all the better for that too.

Some cracking issues there for Dan to tackle though, if he's still pondering what to talk about in Stirling. I'd pay good money for that (come to think of it, I *will* be paying good money to go ... ).

G.

 

[mbc]

.The honey from Apis mellifera is the same, irrespective of what strain or ecotype of A.m. produces it, from the same climatic and floral factors..

Not strictly true as all honey is unique and who knows what analitical techniques we might come up with to, for instance, tag ensyme types in honey from AMM specifically.

( great thread by the way - its nice to read what some of the big hitters have to say on this fascinating topic.)

 

[gavin]

for instance, tag enzyme types in honey from AMM specifically.

LOL! The particularly white cappings of Amm had occurred to me of course, but your suggestion is probably feasible should anyone wish to try.

 

[RoofTops]

???!
Who would I go to to get a health certificate for any bees I intended to sell ?

The best you can expect would be to ask your local bee inspector to look at them and then you could say "checked by bee inspector".

I have seen this at an auction of bees and it would be what I would expect for any large sale.

For smaller sales the issue is likely to be the inspector having the time and inclination to make the trip, taking into account other factors such as your proximity to previous disease outbreaks.

 

[Into the lions den]

This seems to me good conservation practice, and I fail to see what it has to do with racism- a very strong accusation to make, this week of all weeks.

It was not an accusation of racism...just an illustration of what the logical, or even illogical, conclusions can lead to.

Honey character is determined by floral source and supplemented by geographical origin, if significant, not by what nationality or race of bee produced it.

 

[DanBee]

Chaps - lots of interesting points. I must say from the outset that I do not believe Amm has a right to be here exclusively, nor can it be the only bee to survive or thrive in the UK. Yes, it has the longest tenure, but even Amm was a migrant, aided by Man, and a century of import and mixing just cannot be undone. My view is that we should choose bees based upon their performance, not their appearance or 'pedigree'.

I have handled reasonably 'pure' examples of strains of Amm, Buckfast, Carnica, and Ligustica, and all tick all the usual boxes for UK beekeepers, with the exception of Ligustica's brood raising during winter. It is somewhat amusing to peep over the fence into any other 'pure strain' breeding camps where they are striving for exactly the same characteristics as in the Amm camp here in the UK. Notably, each camp achieves these same objectives almost regardless of what strain/race/breed they start from.

From a conservation point of view, I cannot fault Gavin's argument. However I do wonder how different the beekeeping landscape may be between us. Here, the local mongrel is very mixed; stocks do not revert to 'black' appearance but settle to a mixed, dare I say Buckfasty, appearance. To attempt to revert all local stocks to Amm would be akin to trying to push water uphill. What concerns me most about contemplating such a reversion would be the loss of positive genetics. Yes, I do believe there are positive aspects to mixed genetics because I view the evolution of strains and races as a journey rather than a destination.

The reports of strain character and cross character that we rely upon originate from a very small number of sources making observations very many decades ago. Ruttner's work was published around 1970, Br. Adams' earlier still. Cooper's ideas about Amm were based upon decades of observation before the 1960's formation of VBBA. My point here is twofold: we believe that most of the old 'pure' strains have now been diluted by crossing and movement of bees; whilst those strains which have been actively bred for conservation or commercial purposes have naturally been selected (i.e. improved). Thus we could pop over to Kirchhain in Germany and have a look at their Carnicas, but would these be the same Carnicas that Br. Adam investigated in the 1930's - 1950's, or that Ruttner might have worked with in the 1960's? I would guess not - Carnicas according to the mid-C20 literature are excessively swarmy, yet would the Germans not have attempted to calm this trait over the intervening sixty years...?

ITLD's comments regarding vested interest are pertinent, maybe correct, maybe not. However it's notable that here in the Amm-supportive UK, Ruttner (Amm-supportive) is considered authoritative whereas Br. Adam (Amm-hostile) is considered biased. It's not like we have a lot of sources to quote from even before we start binning the ones we don't agree with!

Something that is often overlooked is that Br. Adam reported that Carnica x Amm was good for the 1st generation, nasty for the 2nd generation, then good for subsequent generations. He made the point that you had to persevere, to work through that troublesome generation. I'm no great fan of Br. Adam or the Buckfast activity per se (the stories I could tell... ) but I do respect his work and observations. I wonder if the apparently un-pissy mongrels here have worked through their troublesome generations all on their own, or did they start from less clear-cut (less 'pure') basis that made the historical expectations of such crosses irrelevant?

In this respect I watch with interest how ITLD, Gavin, and the beekeepers around them evaluate the subsequent generations of mixed stocks. I have faith that both Murray and Gavin will report honestly what they see, warts and all. Putting aside any preconceptions about Carnica and Amm, I fully expect to hear that their experiences with mixed stocks will differ noticeably from the mid-C20 literature's expectation of the outcome.

The aspect of how bees and beekeepers interact is an interesting one. Fundamentally, if you believe that your neighbour has no right to influence what bees you keep, then you must accept that you have no right to influence your neighbour's choice of bees either. None of us has the right to dictate that others around us should choose the stocks we prefer - it's the old 'can't have your cake and eat it' scenario I'm afraid it puts us back in the position where we must agree sensible ground rules. Here an honest evaluation of the local baseline would indicate what would and wouldn't be suitable, but to start such an evaluation with an expectation of an Amm outcome would not, locally at least, be either honest or realistic. This is where we come back to my favoured approach of selection based upon performance, not appearance

I received an email today with an invitation to a bee improvement meeting held over the border in Cornwall. I know one or two of the characters involved, and have a lot of respect for them and for what they are trying to achieve. However, I was dismayed to see that morphometry was prominent on the agenda. Why? Morphometry allows us to use physical characteristics to plot how genetically close a group of bee samples are to each other; morphometrical characteristics of the main strains are documented and clustering of plotted measurements indicates both 'purity' and compatibility. This would allow us to assess various locally-adapted stocks for their compatible inclusion in a breeding programme. However, in the UK it does not seem to be used for this purpose; rather it is used for determining whether a sample exhibits Amm characteristics or not. If we are to move towards selection based upon positive outcome, we must move away from the view that morphometry is a binary tool which relates to Amm-ness, and instead use it as a tool for determining compatible favourable breeding materials, thus we must open our eyes to the other corners of the morphometry plot

Skyhook - I think you're wrong to brand ITLD's comments as racist. The cook analogy was well chosen, and I think Gavin's treading very controversial ground if he wants consumers and activists to push for Amm-only honey production in the UK. A quick glance at the political issues around the fringes of beekeeping - dare I mention pesticides and GM as examples - should remind us that there are a vocal minority who happily use beekeeping as a peg on which to hang their broader political/ecological ambitions. We beekeepers do not necessarily benefit from this use and abuse of our craft.

Sorry about the essay. Didn't want Gavin to get cocky!

 

[Into the lions den]

The fact that your stocks stock revert to something that looks like a native bee after a while suggests that there is something about those traits that encourages survival in our conditions. Interesting that you use the term 'crystalise out' for apparently Amm types.

I use the term often. I reckon it is why there are the large tracts of Scotland that are A.m.m. dominated, and having in my younger years talked with some old timers who were around before IOW swept through and wiped out almost every colony, I know most were replaced by bought in stock. ( Much of it A.m.m. from France, but also a lot of Italian) Yet today you see nothing of these importations in antiquity. Why? I reckon there was just enough of a crossover for drones of the last remaining relict native stock in an area to get out there and pass on the genetics into the new pool.

In time, due to the descendant drones being better able to cope in the local conditions, and their known propensity for apiary vicinity mating may be a key in this as bad weather may favour that, and over many generations, the genetics will tend to those of the most successful drones.

My thoughts on this are that what is being assessed by those practicing the black art of morphometry as pure A.m.m. is in fact a modified version, mainly carries all the basic traits that enhance local survival, but has largely dropped those which counted against it, though all will still be there lurking as minority traits in a diverse gene pool. Over the intervening years they have become strain stable, as a native dominated bee with resistance traits inherited from imported stock. As such things as body shape and wing pattern are local traits which were selected for by the environment, then of course they will be present in the end product bee, but it will still have imported genes where beneficial, and it will morph out as pure.

Now, whether the drones being successful, or the actual bee ecotype being dominant, are measures of what is best is a moot point. The old timers did not greatly like the old bee, much preferring the new ones. I do suspect there has been a lot of revisionism and donning of rose tinted glasses going on. We are beekeepers, and we have a range of desires from our stock, not all of which are shared. Whether genes that are suited to natural survival are actually those best suited to beekeeping as a craft or a profession is a whole different debate. I personally do not regard demonstrable mating success as any kind of demonstration of what is the best bee to have, unless our new measure is the ability to survive as an unmanaged feral colony.

But in most years it will be better – isn't that why you are investing in training for queen raising?

Of course, and bottom line is that it will be a lot cheaper too. Stock importation need not be done all the time, only needs a freshen up as it loses vigour, reverting back to the local type.


On the question of the temper of second-generation crosses between Amm and Carniolans, I do listen to what you say but I'm puzzled as to why folk like Ruttner said otherwise. I'm happy to watch and wait to see for myself. It isn't the first generation that has the trouble, people say, but subsequent ones.

Thats a case of move the goalposts I'm afraid........on this forum it was plainly stated that the crosses will be aggressive, and often by people who possibly have little experience of the matter, trotting out conventional opinion. The crosses are not aggressive. They are intermediate...and the next cross intermediate again..trending back to local each time. Local strain colonies throw up the odd real snotty ones.... crosses throw up the odd real snotty ones. However they are very unusual and easy to eliminate.

Maybe it needs a proper test, swapping Apideas between apiaries of known genetics – but for now I have other uses for those Apideas. Maybe the Welsh breeder you mentioned could report what the second crosses to locals are like in a year or two's time?

I will, but for now he is so delighted with his results he is investing several hundred pounds (each!) in bringing in some inseminated breeder queens of the same strain. I will be happy to let you have some QCs or VQs to experiment with.

Did you have experience of Bernard Mobus' strain at its peak, the one Poly Hive has mentioned on here? I still think that breeding effort with native stocks is a worthwhile effort … but which will need years to deliver a decent bee. But if I'm barking up the wrong tree I'd rather that you persuaded me of that now.

I have direct experience of the Maud strain, yes, albeit in helping a neighbouring guy with a couple of hundred hives who converted mostly over to it. They were nothing special, just sound local bees, small winter clusters, low stores consumption, but way too slow off the mark in spring for us. A low vigour bee, very stable though, but he struggled to get more than 1 to 2 supers of honey a year from them. A much larger unit further north had several hundred of them as well, and their reports were pretty well identical. Both units eventually got rid of them all as they were not up to the job for commercial work and did not like being migrated. Would be a very good bee for an amateur beekeeper who did not need them to pay the bills. They were far from angelic temperament wise though, despite being claimed to be very gentle. This was now some 25 to 30 years ago, and todays climatic situation would possibly have rendered them obsolete anyway, as we need a bee up here that is firing on all cylinders from late April onwards, and these did not really get going till well into May, and were often not at producing strength until clover time.

Not opposed to local breeding efforts however as there is merit in that, but if I went fully over to that I would be gone and bust way before we had a single fully stable and commercially workeable bee. Stock improvement though, for all of us, is just common sense. We all have differing ideas however, on what characteristics are to be aspired to, and thus we will forever be doing different things.

..

 

[Poly Hive]

"I have direct experience of the Maud strain, yes, albeit in helping a neighbouring guy with a couple of hundred hives who converted mostly over to it. They were nothing special, just sound local bees, small winter clusters, low stores consumption, but way too slow off the mark in spring for us. A low vigour bee, very stable though, but he struggled to get more than 1 to 2 supers of honey a year from them. A much larger unit further north had several hundred of them as well, and their reports were pretty well identical. Both units eventually got rid of them all as they were not up to the job for commercial work and did not like being migrated. Would be a very good bee for an amateur beekeeper who did not need them to pay the bills. They were far from angelic temperament wise though, despite being claimed to be very gentle. This was now some 25 to 30 years ago, and todays climatic situation would possibly have rendered them obsolete anyway, as we need a bee up here that is firing on all cylinders from late April onwards, and these did not really get going till well into May, and were often not at producing strength until clover time."

I am going to challenge you on this one Murray.

As you know I inherited or bought, or both the breeding stock from Bernard.

I received over a ton of OSR from these Mauds so not getting going until Clover time is in my, and I state my experience, was not normal. Three or more supers were not unusual.

If you are referring to my friend north of Inverness and son then he had issues with age and time as do we all and so due to an influx of yellow bees in his range he effectively gave up and went to Hawaii for a source.

I certainly got considerably more honey from them than you are stating but, but, they were easy to distress with migration, and could indeed be tinky wee sods. My best achieved over 300lbs in fact.

However I repeat they did produce honey and I intensified the AMM in my time, if I can be allowed to say this was so via wing measurements.

I now duck very low and get ready to fly off on Saturday. Caribbean here I come and frankly b****r the bees for two weeks..LOL

PH

 

[iand]

Just a short post after all the long and very interesting posts guys. One thing has struck me the amm breeding with all the wing measuring to select those true to type etc etc.
We used to use Angus bulls on our cows many years ago, but they eventually went out of fashion. Reason stocky animal with very short legs. No worries if angry easy to outrun. Breeders have since turned the breed around and bred an animal more to the modern liking. Hereford went the same way.
When we took an English Leicester ram to the Royal show etc, the shepherd always stood next to his shoulder. Why a few black strands in his wool NOT TRUE TO TYPE. Think crufts and some dog breeds with problems. Is it a similar situation with amm I know PH had some he was happy with but ITLD not. Back to selection of one strain or another.
My own bees were a feisty lot 25 years ago, however continuous selection and new genetic material over time. Now told at demo's al I get is how quiet to handle they are!
Even now after having pure carnica introduced to the mix via some drones from a breeder Q Graft a couple of years ago. No aggressive tendencies yet
I echo all what ITLD has to say about them. I have seen those bees with a langstroth deep super full when the rest were still sat in the hive kept in by our cold north easterlys at Osr time.

ian

 

[Skyhook]

Thus we could pop over to Kirchhain in Germany and have a look at their Carnicas, but would these be the same Carnicas that Br. Adam investigated in the 1930's - 1950's, or that Ruttner might have worked with in the 1960's? I would guess not - Carnicas according to the mid-C20 literature are excessively swarmy, yet would the Germans not have attempted to calm this trait over the intervening sixty years...?

Interesting to note that one of the nails in the coffin of german skep beekeeping for heather honey was the intrroduction of carnica into what had previously been an area of Amm- apparently the carnica weren't swarmy enough!

 

[Skyhook]

Skyhook - I think you're wrong to brand ITLD's comments as racist. The cook analogy was well chosen, and I think Gavin's treading very controversial ground if he wants consumers and activists to push for Amm-only honey production in the UK. A quick glance at the political issues around the fringes of beekeeping - dare I mention pesticides and GM as examples - should remind us that there are a vocal minority who happily use beekeeping as a peg on which to hang their broader political/ecological ambitions. We beekeepers do not necessarily benefit from this use and abuse of our craft.

It seems from ITLD's and Gavin's posts that I read a meaning that wasn't intended; and I'm therefore happy to withdraw the suggestion.

 

[Into the lions den]

Is it a similar situation with amm I know PH had some he was happy with but ITLD not.

For sake of clarity, yes, I have quite a lot of these bees (NZ sourced carnica). They are brilliant.

However............


70% or more of our bees here are A.m.m. style. There are some relics remaining from Sue Cobeys New World carniolans, and rather more from some French A.m.m. and some Polish straight carnica ( their breeder queens however were brought from Norway) and carnica/mellifera hybrids (a superb bee but with unreliable supply, from near the Baltic sea coast, bought in big numbers for heather work in some parts of Germany)..............all being subsumed into our genetic bag and gradually approximating to local A.m.m.

Never do morphometry and to be honest do not know how, and not really interested as the traits I seek are nothing to do with wing shape or any other arbitrary physical factor.

Selection criteria are:-

1. Previous season productivity. We mark the high achievers and graft only from them, plus place a group of them, run as normal production hives, to supply the drones in the main mating apiary.

then....weeding out from the big number chosen under factor 1.

2. Disease issues...esp apparent resistance to chalk brood.
3. Temperament.
4. Swarminess.
5. Vigour.

Then, and only then, do cosmetic traits get a look in. I happen to *like* the look of a nice colony of uniformly black bees. All grafts are done from colonies selected after taking into account all the above.

Only a proportion of our queens are grafted, many are done as colony splits with their own cells, although if a colony has a strong negative on any of the above factors we use a cell/queen from the grafting process or another really good colony in the group if the days supply of grafted ones has been used up.

Helps maintain the diversity. Also have an upper limit of 30 daughters from any one mother, though have breached that rule in the past when selling nucs or queens. As they were being well dispersed the loss of local diversity would not arise.

Over selecting, and inbreeding are a serious risk, and some well known beekeepers have chosen to make too many queens from too few mothers and ended up with a damaging loss of vigour and a proportion of the queens exhibiting 'shot brood' patterns.

So........I am NOT a total user of the NZ stock. I keep local stock too. Never put all my eggs in one basket. Go all one way and the diversity suffers. What happens then when a disease outbreak of some kind comes along and your stock is ALL vulnerable?

fwiw.........our local black types were significantly more susceptible than imported types in the recent EFB crisis.........a fact I noticed and communicated to Gavin at the time although it was poo pooed by some. Last autumn, when talking at Cirencester local bee inspectors asked just that question. What were the relative EFB rates between the imported strains and the local ones? Turns out they too had noted that A.m.m. style ( I am presuming them not to be pure given the location) stock were indeed more vulnerable in their area too.

When producing a load of nucs with cells or vqs we make them up in the place where the cells were produced.....then stick them on the truck and take them away with us, and let them out at another apiary at least a couple of miles away to try to ensure that matings were mostly from drones of other lines.

 

[dilys]

The winter issue of the BIBBA magazine arrived just before Christmas

I seem to have missed out on my copy of BIM again! Dan, could you please let me know what issue number it was and roughly when it came out so that I can moan at them.

Thanks

Dil

 

[the naked beekeeper]

I seem to have missed out on my copy of BIM again! Dan, could you please let me know what issue number it was and roughly when it came out so that I can moan at them.

Thanks

Dil

Ditto

 

[mbc]

Never do morphometry and to be honest do not know how, and not really interested as the traits I seek are nothing to do with wing shape or any other arbitrary physical factor.

Selection criteria are:-

1. Previous season productivity. We mark the high achievers and graft only from them, plus place a group of them, run as normal production hives, to supply the drones in the main mating apiary.

then....weeding out from the big number chosen under factor 1.

2. Disease issues...esp apparent resistance to chalk brood.
3. Temperament.
4. Swarminess.
5. Vigour.

Then, and only then, do cosmetic traits get a look in. I happen to *like* the look of a nice colony of uniformly black bees. All grafts are done from colonies selected after taking into account all the above.

Its interesting to note that despite years of trying large numbers of other bees, following these selection criteria your bees revert to Amm "style".

"Also have an upper limit of 30 daughters from any one mother"

I imagine you could add two zero's to this figure for the number of daughters the NZ breeder queens produce.