Phil Moore

> *Have a look at Ruttner, The Dark Honey Bee, p19 "Brood rearing starts 
> late
> and increases slowly to a peak in mid summer which is definitely slower 
> than
> with other races"
Agree - build up can be slower, but we find that other races build quickly 
(especially on the rape) and then swarm - losing crop.  A.m.m. tends to 
swarm after the rape (if it swarms) and gathers a better crop.

> Then page 26 " swarming tendency varies considerably....very low in the
> north of England and high in the south"

We are in the Midlands and are happy with swarming tendency.  Ruttner seems 
to have ignored the inclination to supersede rather than swarm - and 
excellent trait that reduces our workload immeasurably.  Unfortunately, 
there is a misconception that older queens are of lesser value - this may be 
true with some other races, but we find that our A.m.m. stocks produce 
excellent crops despite the age of the queen.  We have queens now going into 
their fifth season, but average crop has increased by 50% since we started 
breeding towardds pure A.m.m.

> Now page 27 The behaviour of the Dark bee on the comb is nervous 
> everywhere
> throughout the area of distribution. The bees never sit quietly on the
> comb..."

Absolutely not true in my experience - pure A.m.m. sits very quietly. In 
fact we sometimes think they are almost too quiet!  A visit to Galtee to 
have a look at Micheal Mac Gillacoda's bees would leave you in no doubt 
whatsoever.

> *So where is this paragon of apicultural virtue, does it exist or is it 
> just
> an aspiration?

It exists - but not in the numbers that  would like to see.  When we get 
over the 'the grass is greener on the other side' symndrome, perhaps things 
will change.  Fortunately many new beekeepers are more interested in 
conservation than some of our purely commercially minded bee farmers.

>In most areas Amm will be out performed by other
> races and hybrids.

Not my experience when inputs are taken into consideration - if you feed 
ligustica 60lbs sugar to get through the winter and feed A.m.m. 0-10lbs then 
you must ask whether you are getting sufficient extra honey to justify the 
extra cost.  But, more importantly, there is an ethical element to all 
this - which I leave you to ponder.

Best wishes

Peter 

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