Carniolan bees

[Josethayil]

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.

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.

 

[James s]

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.

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.

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

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.

 

[Josethayil]

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.

Was this in NZ or overseas?

 

[Josethayil]

 

[Josethayil]

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

Was this in NZ or overseas?

It was overseas

 

[Josethayil]

Carniolan queen from Waikino bees. Bought a few queens this year. Well developed and well mated queens. Very calm and prolific. 😊

 

[John B]

It's not that Carniolan bees aren't quiet, although the ones I've seen in Norway are a lot better for temperament. It's the fact that when they cross with any other bee you get an unpredictable and often nasty hybrid especially in the F2 cross. The importation of this bee has set back New Zealand Queen breeding by a generation. It used to be to suspected that our bees were a bit inbred but recent research has proven this to be completely untrue and the last thing we needed was an influx of bees not bred for our conditions. It's a pretty fair bet that deformed wing virus also came in with that semen.
The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, but it is not always so. Personally if I was going to import anything I would have brought in Danish Buckfast bees but then even that would have risked bringing in the paralysis virus. We had a closed border for good reasons and it was opened for very poor reasons. As others have said the carniolan genes were already well represented in New Zealand's bee population.

 

[Josethayil]

It's not that Carniolan bees aren't quiet, although the ones I've seen in Norway are a lot better for temperament. It's the fact that when they cross with any other bee you get an unpredictable and often nasty hybrid especially in the F2 cross. The importation of this bee has set back New Zealand Queen breeding by a generation. It used to be to suspected that our bees were a bit inbred but recent research has proven this to be completely untrue and the last thing we needed was an influx of bees not bred for our conditions. It's a pretty fair bet that deformed wing virus also came in with that semen.
The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, but it is not always so. Personally if I was going to import anything I would have brought in Danish Buckfast bees but then even that would have risked bringing in the paralysis virus. We had a closed border for good reasons and it was opened for very poor reasons. As others have said the carniolan genes were already well represented in New Zealand's bee population.

I guess we cannot go back to what it was before and we got the Carniolans here to stay. Just wondering since we did open the borders and got new genetics in why don’t we get some more genetics which can improve our current stock. There are a few stocks which are showing good resistance to varroa, so maybe a good option. But then again do we have the resources and means to do it safely without getting more diseases in?

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

It's not that Carniolan bees aren't quiet, although the ones I've seen in Norway are a lot better for temperament. It's the fact that when they cross with any other bee you get an unpredictable and often nasty hybrid especially in the F2 cross. The importation of this bee has set back New Zealand Queen breeding by a generation. It used to be to suspected that our bees were a bit inbred but recent research has proven this to be completely untrue and the last thing we needed was an influx of bees not bred for our conditions. It's a pretty fair bet that deformed wing virus also came in with that semen.
The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, but it is not always so. Personally if I was going to import anything I would have brought in Danish Buckfast bees but then even that would have risked bringing in the paralysis virus. We had a closed border for good reasons and it was opened for very poor reasons. As others have said the carniolan genes were already well represented in New Zealand's bee population.

John B, the deformed wing virus appeared with the arrival of the Varroa mite in NZ. It is the source of this virus. As far as I know, the Carnica sperm was imported with the help of a German institute. I do not think that they are working there amateurs. Colonies that are used as paternal lines must be healthy. When a colony is affected by the Varroa mite, the amount of drone sperm decreases sharply. It will be very difficult to collect a whole capillary of sperm from such a colony. I do not exclude the option you mentioned, but if we assume that the mite that got to NZ was virus-free, then the second option seems fantastic.
I would add some clarification. UNCONTROLLED crossing gives unpredictable results.
Buckfast was created by Brother Adam from various bee populations using controlled mating, taking the desired characteristics from them. He assessed the bees according to twenty different characteristics. Bees were selected only for economically useful traits. There was no selection by color, tergite width and proboscis length, cubital index, etc. This is a completely different approach to beekeeping and breeding work. I am not sure that Carnica was able to spoil New Zealand beekeeping so much. All NZ breeders used Carnica in their work, that its genetics were reflected in most colonies? I will give a clear example using dogs, so that it is more understandable. For example, you brought a German Shepherd (Carnica), and let it out for a walk on the street, where your neighbors also have dogs - black, white, spotted, shaggy, etc. Ordinary local mongrel dogs (Local drone background). After crossing, puppies appeared. And when they grew up and also began to crossbreed uncontrollably, then after 7-8 generations only the ears will probably remain from our shepherd. This is a very simplified example, but it shows that the small amount of Carnica genetics will be absorbed by the bulk of your native bees' genetics.