From: Erik Osterlund <honeybee@elgon.se>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 13:42:13 +0200
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: A. M. Monticola

Hi Clay

I have worked Monticola in Africa and in Sweden and its crosses with
Buckfast into a combination bee (new "race") the latest 11 years (new
combination bee). I call the new combination Elgon from a mountain in East
Africa with this bee. Two differents strains of Monticola are used, one
from Mt Elgon (3500 m) (black bee) and one from Mt Kenya (2500 m)
(black/brown bee). It is a much more gentle bee than Scutellata and much
less prone to swarm. Actually the combinations which resulted are less
swarmy then "pure" Buckfast. In Africa the mountain bee, as it is called,
is known to be much more easy to handle than the lowland bee (Scutellata).
Monticola is also know as one of the races in Africa that does not abscond,
or leave a hive to move to another area when food is scarce. That is
probably due to the fact the oftentimes there is a daily rain on these
mountins, with no or little period of time without nectar available. The
other strains without absconding traits are said to be Capensis in the
south and Unicolor (mountain type) on island Madagaskar.

Recently work is done concerning searching the differences in the DNA
between Scutellata and Monticola and the variation inside the different
groups. The DNA investigation, done by a Chinese Ph D student, Shi Wei, has
shown that there is great difference between Monticola and Scutellata, but
also that there is great difference in the Monticola group and in the
Scutellata group. A Master of Science work done by a Swedish student during
six months has shown a great variety among Monticola. They exist on many
mountains and varies also in color, not only black varieties, but also
brown and some lighter colored exist.

On 3500 m (tree level) on Mt Elgon there is frost every night, afternoon
rain every day. There are only a few hours available for getting nectar
every day, when there are flowers blooming. The effect has become in the
new bee that this bee is flying at lower temperatures. Also that the
development time for the queen and the workers are generally one day
shorter that with other bees. The pure Monticola and the first cross had
difficulties lowering the temperature in the colony during winter and thus
had a harder time. The queen layed eggs but they did not develop into brood
without fresh pollen. Queen pheromones seems to be stronger than in
European bees. If you move a colony inside an apiary, the bees tend to find
the new site where their queen is. And they tend to abandon their site if
they loose their queen, especially if all brood is gone, into nearby
colonies with a queen. In crossings this trait is not spelled out so
clearly. If the colony is queenless more than 14 days many start getting
laying workers, first in drone cells and queen cell cups. It is still
possible to give them a new laying queen. When they also lay in worker
cells you can give them a ripe queen cell and they stop laying when the new
queen is laying (bit by bit). The combination give very huge colonies in
strenght with a rapid build up, but is a little sensitive to pollen
availability for egglaying, like carniolans. They stop egglaying early in
autumn and have a long period withouth brood in winter. They winter very
well.

The temper originally is not extremely gentle, but easy to handle with some
smoke. First crosses varies a little more. In following generations it was
quite easy to breed a very gentle bee.

In Canada I know there are lines of Buckfast bees with Monticola heritage
from Mt Kenya. How much that influence these lines I have no idea.

Erik