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Mon, 15 Oct 2007 18:42:07 +0100 |
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Phil Moore wrote:
> But where is the experimental evidence that Amm live longer?
>
I have found Wedmore's take on this subject (para 19, Manual of
Beekeeping): ...Some Italian strains imported into Great Britain have
shown an effective life as low as five weeks, whereas the British black
bee had an effective life nearer eight weeks, and some modern strains
show a still better figure.
Cooper: “If 100 workers are marked in May, some can still be found ten
weeks later, in an average summer. Strains with long-lived workers also
tend to beget long-lived queens. Queens of any native strain should live
for 36 months in full production, and those of better strains should
live for 48-60 months when kept on a single BS broodbox…
Longevity is the mechanism by which bees kept in hives with relatively
small broodboxes manage to get such large honey crops in poor as well as
in good seasons. It is the long-lived bee which builds up to a populous
colony at the season of maximum honey flow, which shows the need for
prolificacy to be false.”
Tinsley: "It is interesting to go through the pages of the British
Beekeepers' Journal and compare the honey yields of the beekeepers in
the years before the acarine disease appeared, and the present time. In
1899 Lancelot Quayle, in the Isle of Man, produced 352 lb of honey from
a single stock, and had an average of 200 lb from 12 stocks. Again, in
1901-2 his average was 187 and 122 lb respectively, but after being
cleared out with the disease, his average has, with other strains of
bees, never been more than 50-80 lb. Similar yields to Quayle's were
freely reported in the Journal. I doubt very much whether our yields of
honey compare favourably with those obtained by the older beekeepers".
All this explains why my less prolific colonies compare so well with the
prolific swarms I occasionally collect.
Although I don't know whether the tests Wedmore and Cooper had conducted
were of sufficient rigour to be considered scientific, I can't see any
reason why all races have to have the same longevity and in the light of
the views of these august writers and my own experience I would require
scientific evidence to show that all races are the same in this respect.
Steve Rose
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