From: "Lucinda Sewell" <lucindajohn@sewellhome.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 22:56:00 +0100
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Strain

Erik Osterland wrote:

"He has Elgon bees (African Monticola and Buckfast in combination),
Buckfast, Carniolan and Norwegian mongrels(probably dark Mellifera crossed
with Carniolan). The only two that managde to draw nice 4.8 directly from
5.5 was two Norwegian mongrels. Not any of the ones with African heritage!"

This is promising news. The colony that convinced me of cellsize being an
avenue to explore in England propolised heavily, built up really fast and
swarmed like crazy...Caucasian traits, crossed with who knows what. I'm
about to shake them down, with a (not shaken) queen cell since their clipped
queen is gone. One thing is for sure, there are no ferals of more than 3
years age around Reading. That includes abandoned apairies (I just cleared
another) Any strains with the 'chutzpah' to survive without beekeepers
(those showing defensive traits like guarding their stores, or strong
swarming urges) have been relentlessly culled by generations of Beekeepers
in search of honey bees to match milk cows and laying hens. Are the
Monticola ok in subsequent, random, crosses Erik?

"Also he bought a lot of 5.10, 5.10, 5.10 foundation (yes the commercial wax
producer managed to do it perfectly regular) from the wax producer in
Sweden that as the first step now is selling ONLY 5.1 foundation. My
Norwegian friend also put on boxes with 5.1 on all kind of bees to see what
they would do with it. ALL of them, regardeless of heritage made nice combs
of them."

Will the producer sell foundation to UK? The price of the Dadant stuff via
Thornes is really heavy (about a GB pound a sheet, double usual!) Those who
are not prepared to roll their own, lower quality, foundation would be
interested I'm sure. I appreciate the costs involved in shipping the
foundation, and it is superb quality, but I know the price was a shock to
many.

John Sewell