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Bettabees not breeding queens and up for sale
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<blockquote data-quote="Otto" data-source="post: 11672" data-attributes="member: 73"><p>Mostly agree with what you have said above [USER=13]@Alastair[/USER] but not sure what you mean by mongrelisation. All bees we have in NZ are hybrids (or mongrels if you prefer). Bees have been imported numerous times since first being introduced and everything has interbred.</p><p></p><p>Many beekeepers select on colour and call yellow/orange bees Italians. I have never seen pure A.m. ligustica and don't actually know how closely our "Italians" match them. I don't believe you can select pure Italians from the mix we have here.</p><p></p><p>Similarly we have "Carniolans" that resulted from several semen imports David Yanke did after Varroa got here. He had an "Italian" breeding population prior to that and started by inseminating Italian queens with the Carnie semen. Selection for Carniolans after that was primarily based on colour but there are certainly yellow bees in the background.</p><p></p><p>My top criteria for selecting queens to breed from has always been temperament. I just have no desire to work with grumpy bees. Good temperament is also one of the easiest things to make positive progress on when breeding bees. I have always thought colour a very arbitrary selection criteria.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Otto, post: 11672, member: 73"] Mostly agree with what you have said above [USER=13]@Alastair[/USER] but not sure what you mean by mongrelisation. All bees we have in NZ are hybrids (or mongrels if you prefer). Bees have been imported numerous times since first being introduced and everything has interbred. Many beekeepers select on colour and call yellow/orange bees Italians. I have never seen pure A.m. ligustica and don't actually know how closely our "Italians" match them. I don't believe you can select pure Italians from the mix we have here. Similarly we have "Carniolans" that resulted from several semen imports David Yanke did after Varroa got here. He had an "Italian" breeding population prior to that and started by inseminating Italian queens with the Carnie semen. Selection for Carniolans after that was primarily based on colour but there are certainly yellow bees in the background. My top criteria for selecting queens to breed from has always been temperament. I just have no desire to work with grumpy bees. Good temperament is also one of the easiest things to make positive progress on when breeding bees. I have always thought colour a very arbitrary selection criteria. [/QUOTE]
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