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From:
Peter Edwards <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 3 Jun 2014 21:56:19 +0100
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>I have to disagree with you Peter.
Hi Jon
Not entirely sure which point you disagree with - perhaps all my post?

>As you know, I keep and breed Amm, and I have a lot of Galtee Bee Breeding Group genetics in my stock.
In May many of my colonies are quite happy to work up to 15 or 16 frames of brood when the second brood chamber is added.

Ours too will fill more than a single box if given the opportunity - especially this year - but  they seem quite happy with one when they fill 9-11 frames with brood and put the honey upstairs.

>They don't fill the upper chamber entirely with brood but are quite capable of filling half with brood and the rest with stores.

Exactly!  Probably 35-40lbs of honey in the brood boxes - and if that is rape honey then it granulates in the comb.  At the end of the season, or in times of dearth they will reduce the brood nest and pack it with honey moved down from the supers.

>I also find a pollen arch above the brood is quite typical.
I think that is common to all subspecies of bee.

Yes, they do have pollen above the brood - but also below and in amongst.

>You must be seeing what you have selected for in your own stock over the years.

Most of our A.m.m. stock came from the BIBBA E Midlands group, but we also have some from Northumberland and Orkney.  They all exhibit those traits, so I do not think that it is my selection that has affected pollen storage.

>A lot of the lore about Amm comes from the Beowulf Cooper books such as 'Honeybees of the British Isles' and is perpetuated to the present day by Bibba (UK bee inprovement group) There is not a jot of science or experimentation in any of Cooper's books and they are merely one man's observations and opinions about the stock he kept at the time.

Appreciate that and I am sure that he was not infallible, but I do not think that we should knock careful, honest observation - the basis of much of our scientific knowledge.
What we do need is more properly conducted scientific studies of the different sub-species so that we can separate myth from reality.  So often research seems to be conducted with the assumption that they are all the same.

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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