Posts by Mathijs

Robirot, thanks that's look ok! I think I will buy them.

Also thanks Honeybee75.

The thing why it frustrated me is from kieler or apidea to a 6 frame nuc or a miniplus you have a lot of work to do. For the future I put my P-queens on miniplus to test them, next year they will go to Dutch Simplex or Dadant. But a lot of beekeeper who do the better work with queen rearing work with miniplus. So I don't understand why there are no 3 waben miniplus commercially. I know Geller sells miniplus EWK, but with the schutzhause, they're also very expensive and I don't like EWK.

Thanks, I think this is from that 3 waben miniplus beute topic. I thought that was someone idea, but didn't knew you can buy it. But almost 30 Euro is still expensive for such a hive. I have to think about it or there should be another webshop. Can't imange they're so hard to find.

Hi,

I'm searching for a beekeeping webshop where I can buy 3 frames mating nucs of miniplus size? I have found 1 so far, but they’re like €75 each, that's to much. I can't make them myself, I don't have the space, equipment and knowledge. (I don't know why it's so hard to find 3 frames mating nucs of miniplus size, because miniplus is used a lot for P-queens.)

Does anybody know a webshop where I can buy these for a fair price?

Mathijs

Thank you!

Hi Kai,

What kind of measurement? Wings? I have the wings results of these queens and I can email them. Problem is, that the mating station is not always pure. So this queen was mated pure for 76%. So in theorie 15 mellifera drones and 5 other specie drones. But maybe you have a amm drone that gives not the right wings. So these bees are now tested by DNA.

About the mating station, this year they did pretty well. From the first mating session 70% was mated pure according to the wings. From the second session I don't know. I have to say the organization is growing with bees and volunteers and the weather was bad. As we know Dark bees doing well with bad weather, they even think they mate with bad weather.

Mathijs.

Data was to big, this is me with the bees, these are very gentle.

Hi,

I will show a few picture of one of my Belgium Dark colonies. The queen has it's origin in Chimay and is mated in Northern Belgium in the province Limburg on the mating station of Zwartebij.org.

I had 6 queens out of 6 who where mated. One had starved, 2 where mated pure for 50%, 2 for 70% and 1 95% according to there wings. In the first mating session 70% was mated pure. Bees know will be researched on DNA.

The queen on the photo is mated pure for 76% according to there wings, so if you so something which doesn’t look pure, that’s probably the reason.

What’s the reason the Belgium Dark bees are placed in the hybrid section of this forum?

Mathijs.

No, Jacco van de Ree, use red as a marking for his queens. Even the young queens mated this year have the colour red.

Zwartebij.org is founded by Dylan Elen who placed some messages in the past on this forum. They have a mating station on the mainland in Belgium, the province of Limburg. They use the Dark bees from Chimay and in the future they will start using Texel Dark bees, but keep them seperate. Dylan is an ecologist and look at the bees with that view, so no Swedish or another far Dark population to cross with.

This year they had 70% pure matings according to the wings, and that on a mating station on the mainland! Now they are going to test them on DNA. Last year what was mated pure, according to the wings was pure by DNA, what was mated hybrid, according to the wings, was hybrid byDNA.

I’ve forget to mention, the DNA research by Dylan is nuclearDNA/SNP. Both are pure. In the future we will test more colonies.

Do you know anything about Zwartebij.org and what they are doing?

Hi,

I can tell a bit about the Dark bee from Texel, I work with them.

Around 1983 when varroa almost arrived the Netherlands, Texel stopped importing bees. They would be a refegium to rear colonies when there where a lot of die offs on the mainland. This was never needed due to treatments against varroa. On 1996 they had a lot of winter losses and varroa had arrived the island, it's not know how and why, maybe a drone who crossed the see, but more expecting due to import. So in 1994 or 1995 varroa arrived. From research back than the bee was really close to the Dark bee. From mtDNA of the drones around 2014 it was the purest Dark bee population from the population they investigate, there was one hybrid drone. Recent DNA research from Bangor Univiersty in Wales by Dylan Elen, showed they are pure Mellifera. From 3 colonies there are used 10 workers. 2 where 100% pure, 1 had 3% hybridization in it. There will be more DNA investigated.

In the 1960 and '70s there was temporarily Ligustica imported for the collection of heather honey. After the honey collection the bees leaved the island. One beekeeper imported Ligustica queens, I don't know how much. Sometimes you see the ros rings. (Not the Buckfast yellow but ros from the old Ligustica hybrids), but it is pretty rare. I spoke with a beekeeper on Texel who told the bees where not very gentle in 1990 when he started, the colonies with more ros rings where more gentle, so maybe they selected consciously or unconsciously on it. Sadly they didn’t know back than they had the Dark bees. Now they don’t want the yellow rings even they are rare. Because of very less hybridization (95+ pure) the wing index is not reliable. There are colonies who are 100% by wings but also 20%. These are the same colonies.

On Texel there are around 16 beekeepers, 1, 2 or at least 3 of them treat against varroa, and if they do only when they think it's necessary. A lot of beekeepers didn’t treat since varroa arrived. In the begenning they had a lot of winter losses, after that the population was stabile and than grow. The beekeepers have together around 150-200 bees, and there are 40 colonies living in the wild, that’s almost a quarter of the population! The wild colonies living in trees, chimneys and they told me about a colonie who is living for 40+ years in a church. Research done by Romée van der Zee showed that the winter losses is between 1-9%. Because of that reason De Duurzame bij (DDB, in English The Sustainable Bee), started using this bee, because it is a good be for the Dutch climate. DDB select on a slow growth of varroa in spring and fall, good antennae fall on bottom board, gentleness, variety purity, like wings, and abdomen. They use Neeltje Jans in Zeeland as a mating station because, it's not allowed to import bees to Texel, now to protect the Dark bee.

If you want to know more, ask me.

Mathijs.

Here are a few of mine wing indexes from DDB, I have more from the queen rearing from this year what is not yet on the website. I have collected young bees today from a Texel queen from Jacco, the bees are now in the freezer.

http://bijenprofessor.nl/texelse-zwarte…leugelmetingen/

This is the breeding file of DBB from 2018 and some results, a lot are not in it.

http://www.duurzamebij.nl/uncategorized/teeltverslag-2018/

This I my YouTube channel.

Most of the bees I’ve checked are F1 colonies. I have a lot of material I will upload this winter, I have them on small cells.

https://www.youtube.com/user/MrRubikZz

Kai, did I understand it right that the Hi is not reliable? If yes, why?

Hi,

I'm a member of Zwartebij.org. Zwartebij.org get's more and more active members. One of them has a holiday home in the Ardeche. He has bees in Belgium and in the Ardeche. Last year in the Ardeche there arrived a swarm in a Warré which looked really dark. They didn't swarm this year and he sent me some dead bees to meausure the wing indexes. The bees all looked really dark and I'm very glad with the wing results from a unknown local swarm.

Dylan Elen, president of Zwartebij.org is going to test DNA of the bees, nuclear and maybe mtDNA. So I'm looking forward to the results.

Soon I will write about the Dutch Texel Dark bees.

Mathijs

After a few months visiting Carlo again I had a great time. This year I've visited the island Vulcano, one of the 8/9 island where they keep only the pure Sicula bee. On this island, where the name vulcan comes from, they have 80 colonies of pure Sicula bees, not counted the bees who swarmed and living in the mountains. The total Sicula population is around 250 colonies, with is very less in my opninion. One of the problems is that they can't cross different (island) lines, as carlo says this result in F2 bees who are very agressive, or is I like to call it, defensive. I don't understand why he calls this F2, because there still pure and if you give it another name, say F1. But Carlo don't speak English so it's very hard to ask for something like this with Google Translate. All the pure bees on the island are not treated against varroa, the Sicula has a higher brood temperture. And as I saw the workerbees with varroa did used grooming to take mites of their own body. The colonies who are indeed almost died at varroa (which where 2 when I was there from the maybe 40+ colonies we checked, I explain later what we did) where tranported to the main island of Sicily, also colonies with chalkbrood will be transported. We also took a colonie who will produce drones on a almost pure mountain mating station. Last year we drove near it, and I think if they found a really good deep and small mountain valley, used a lot of strong drone colonies and queens without unknown drones, they can easily have pure mated queens. As I remember right, Carlo didn't believe that will work (the mountain valley idea) and he has already 8/9 island where he can rear queens. The bees are gentle, but not like we are used to, they get very fast absed, not quick with Carlo, he is a really calm man, which I wish I was. But his collegae, worked more robused in the bees, for example loosening the frames. Carlo worked half of the time without his suit, until a stung of 10 an put his mask on. I only saw one bee with what you can call a yellow ring, but it even wasn't fully a yellow ring, and i think it's the queen her reason, she was pretty yellow. The Sicula queens havevery much variations in the queens. I also understand that from the Sicula video's of Kai, but maybe that's wrong, I cant understand german, but Kai speaks it loud and clearly what makes it a bit more understanable for me as a Dutchman. Also the bees are not really black like our black bees, if they stretch ther abdomen you see some orange in it, I think it's normal and that explaines also why the queens have very much variation. I observed the bees very well, so they must be pure.

The strange thing I saw and with that I'm afraid of a not so sustainable population of the Sicula is that we made small colonies with a almost hatching queencup. They do that a lot to make young colonies. But all the colonies we made on Vulcano where reared from 1 queen, we made maybe 30-40 colonies. And 1 queen, I don't know if they use that queen the same season again, or they use another queen, but it's not very good for genetics. I have to say that all the drones will mate and they will be different, and the wild colonies. But for the future...

That was it, if you have any questions feel free to ask them.

Hi Marcus,
Nice you het some Texel Dark bees. There also great varroa resistance, 1-3 of the 16 beekeepers on Texel treat there bees against varroa and only when needed. All the other beekeepers are treatment free. Togheter they have 130-200 colonies (depends per year, they sell many colonies trough the Netherlands and even Europe) and there are 40 colonies in the wild, in trees, chimneys and churches.
Good luck with your bees. Try to measure some wings. Because there is a small amount of Ligustica 5-10% from the 1960-1970 so the wings indexes are not full Mellifera. There are colonies who has 100% mellifera, but the average is 70/30 Mellifera/Ligustica. But DNA research was really good and now I’m waiting on the DNA research from Dylan Elen. This shows how unreliable wing indexes are.

Hi,

I don't speak german so I will react in English.
I'm Mathijs, a young Dutch beekeeper. In April 2018 I visited the Apiary of Carlo Amodeo.
I know Kai loved the Sicula so I thought to place the video's here. Turn on the subtitles and if someone wants it feel free to translate them to German, let me know, than I will sent them the english subtitles with the times.

I also keep Dunkle biene from Texel a Dutch island and Chimay, Beglium. I will write something about it when DNA research is known. DNA research is done by Dylan Elen, Kai knows him. But you can also watch my video's on YouTube, it is in Dutch, but I will translate the videos i capture this year to English.

In March I will visit Apicoltura Amodeo Carlo again.

Here are the video's from my holiday trip to Sicily.
Part 1:
tiny.cc/beessicily1
Part 2:
tiny.cc/beessicily2

With kind regards,
Mathijs Herremans.