"I don't know where she got her info but I know that many in Ireland 
are opposed to Buckfast Italians etc, and favour the native bee AMM "

It seems that many of the bees sold in the UK and Ireland as Buckfasts 
are reared and open mated in Southern Europe from breeder queens 
supplied from places like Denmark.  These bees seem to be productive and 
prolific and do well in parts of the UK, especially in low-lying 
districts.  The culture of hobbyists in the UK and Ireland is not to 
requeen annually but to work more sustainably by artificial swarming, 
hence maintaining blood lines for many generations.  In my experience 
these open-mated Buckfasts don't lend themselves to this and can get 
particularly defensive in subsequent generations.  Many of us work in 
groups to rear queens from our local stocks that appear to be closest to 
the original AMMs that are native to our area.  This proves to be much 
more sustainable and, rather than losing their gentleness through the 
generations, they actually get gentler and calmer as well as hardier.  I 
often get asked to requeen colonies that have been imported to our area 
and have turned unmanageable after the first supersedure.   In fact I am 
supplying a queen to a local beekeeper this coming weekend for this very 
reason.
DNA studies in the past have found that the background population in the 
UK have a range of AMM genetics varying from zero to close on 100% with 
the average being around 45% - higher than any other race.  It's the 
high purity ones that we seek to raise queens and drones from and they 
are the ones that breed true and can be used as the basis for bee 
improvement.  Heavily mongrelised bees prove to be difficult to improve 
as the best ones often throw the worst daughters. I suspect it is 
because the best performing mongrels are displaying hybrid vigour rather 
than good genetics.

Steve Rose
North Wales



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