Following recent publicity about the West Wales Bee Breeding project, scientists at Bangor University have been inundated with messages of support, offers of help and reports of feral colonies from beekeepers around Wales.
The project aims to breed a stock of disease resistant bees that are easy to work with and suited to the challenging Welsh climate.
An apiary in spring. Image by the West Wales Bee Breeding Program:
The project aims to breed a stock of disease resistant bees that are easy to work with and suited to the challenging Welsh climate.
An apiary in spring. Image by the West Wales Bee Breeding Program:
A website has just been launched for the project - www.bees.bangor.ac.ukso please get in touch if you have any information to share or phone (01248) 383735.
The team hopes to visit promising colonies and take nucleus colonies (a common method of increasing hives) which will raise their own queens.
These 'nucs' will be left in place until the queen has mated with drones of local provenance, and then moved to a specially established apiary in Mid Wales over winter.
In 2011, the team will rigorously compare the performance of these colonies in order to choose the best to enter the breeding program.
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