Carniolan bees

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J

Josethayil

22
6
Hamilton
Experience
Hobbyist
Breeder of queens Koss said:
I don't want to upset you, but most likely all that's left of the Carnica is its color... Studying the forum, I concluded that the Carnica came to NZ in the early 2000s. It came in the form of a capillary with sperm, for biosafety reasons. More than 20 years have passed. And without the influx of new blood, this genetics would have become closely related, which would have resulted in a loss of vitality in bees. With constant crossing with the local population, there will invariably be absorbing crossing. After 7 generations of crossing, little remains of the original line. There is a misconception that a "breed" a priori should show stable certain characteristics. You have a closed population of bees in the country, and the colonies behave differently and are very different from each other. Carnica would not be Carnica if the institutes of Kirchein and Celle had not worked on it, there were no isolated mating stations, there was no special beebreed program that calculates which combinations to mate and a very large number of breeders of this bee who improve it. After all, initially, Carnica was a rather angry and swarming bee. And only human labor made it what it is now.
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When you look at bees in NZ as a whole they have been isolated from other populations for a while other that an few imports such as the Carniolans in 2000's. So when we look at genetic diversity most of our bees will be closely related. We do have some exceptional bee breeders who maintain lines of bees which show certain desirable characters which are added into the general population of bees in NZ. With Varroa wiping out most of the feral bees we have lost some of the diversity we had in those bees but then we also benefited from that as this also meant we were able to select bees for desirable characters better without the interference from feral drones.

When we look at bees in NZ now there are still good lines of Italian bees and good lines of Carniolan bees maintained by different breeders with some degree of isolated mating and use of AI techniques. People are able to source queens and cells from them to add into their existing genetics.

But most of the bees around are a cross between what was here before the carniolans were brought in and the carniolans. Only takes two generations of free mating to see this in any colony.
 
J

James s

8
12
Waikouaiti
Experience
Semi Commercial
Breeder of queens Koss said:
I don't want to upset you, but most likely all that's left of the Carnica is its color... Studying the forum, I concluded that the Carnica came to NZ in the early 2000s. It came in the form of a capillary with sperm, for biosafety reasons. More than 20 years have passed. And without the influx of new blood, this genetics would have become closely related, which would have resulted in a loss of vitality in bees. With constant crossing with the local population, there will invariably be absorbing crossing. After 7 generations of crossing, little remains of the original line. There is a misconception that a "breed" a priori should show stable certain characteristics. You have a closed population of bees in the country, and the colonies behave differently and are very different from each other. Carnica would not be Carnica if the institutes of Kirchein and Celle had not worked on it, there were no isolated mating stations, there was no special beebreed program that calculates which combinations to mate and a very large number of breeders of this bee who improve it. After all, initially, Carnica was a rather angry and swarming bee. And only human labor made it what it is now.
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True. We were talking about this at the southern beekeepers discussion group today. but apparently carniolians were repeatedly imported into nz by South Island beekeepers in the early 1900s (along with linguistica)the supply ran out and Italians were reluctantly imported instead. Franz las did some research after studying wing clippings of Otago stock. I think allele testing has been done that shows the blood still runs thick in our Italian population. I agree that our carniolians are heavily diluted but they still show a lot of carnie traits.
 
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B

Breeder of queens Koss

137
92
Russia
Experience
International
I had a Carnica Peshets. From my experience I can say that they are more enterprising on a weak nectar flow than Italian bees. But there are also disadvantages - they flood the nest very easily with a good nectar flow. The queen has nowhere to sow, which is why they go into winter in very small colonies.
I bought it for the purpose of receiving and growing larvae as a nurse colony. But then I abandoned this idea. They grew rather small queen cells.
 
J

Josethayil

22
6
Hamilton
Experience
Hobbyist
Breeder of queens Koss said:
I had a Carnica Peshets. From my experience I can say that they are more enterprising on a weak nectar flow than Italian bees. But there are also disadvantages - they flood the nest very easily with a good nectar flow. The queen has nowhere to sow, which is why they go into winter in very small colonies.
I bought it for the purpose of receiving and growing larvae as a nurse colony. But then I abandoned this idea. They grew rather small queen cells.
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Was this in NZ or overseas?
 


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