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Subject:
From:
Steve Rose <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
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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