300 uk queens wanted

[hedgerow pete]

and any way find your own tree i still hanging about from this one after my last rantings

 

[mikethebee]

if this has been posted on BBKA SORRY
Geoff
in answer to your post the Australian Queens!! “as you say experimenting with!” Most has been distributed all over the UK in nucs, the feed back has been fantastic with bumper crops and easy to work bees.

Nottshives
If you read the forum post you would find I went down the road of queen rearing in the end packing it up for 3 reasons.
A. employed 1 man to run 500 Queen rearing boxes all season for the weather to ruin everything. Look at reports of last years lousy UK queens reports in UK!
B. I lost the QUEEN breeding ground after 30 years.
C. years of bad unpredictable wet lousy weather and duff queens.

We import about 2500 good mated queens every year APRIL TO OCT they replace the nucs we take for sale through the season from our breeder boxes.
We then get a surplice of flying bees which are shaken into packages for sale, or made up into more nucs.

You ask; why Mated Queens from Abroad works out cheaper,
Easy there just a phone call away and “there mated”, cost effetely better, and delivered to the door when I want them.

I have asked for 300 UK queens on both forums; NOTE THE WORDING Now the weather has been very good to rear home produced queens is there anyone out there that can supply me 300 UK queens and save me the problem of importing more,
as an exsercise to find;
1 . To see if there is a genuine UK suppler out there that can accommodate me.
2 . to try and do business and use some UK queens.
3 . To prove to the bigots (No to imported queens) on the BBKA that my offer is genuine, get off there ass and do something about it.

JCBrum
mikethebee has offered to buy 300 queens.
No-one has offered to sell 300 queens.
He'll buy elsewhere.
"res ipsa loquitur"
exactly spot on
all the best mike

 

[mikethebee]

Dave
East Yorks New Bee IT’S chocking it down out side so I be sat in waiting for customers to come and collect there nucs and hives.
And wasting me time on the forum.
Yes I agree I be a miserable b***ard BUT YOU DON’T BUY ME
Its them bloody good bees I produce YOU BUY!! Love you.

lets keep to the post.....
all the best mike

 

[chris_richmond]

Cant say I love you Mike but your bees I do love, the bees in the nucs that arrived have been out working all the local gardens since I opened them up.

Just finished making a couple more hives to put them in, for some reason they look better than the kit ones bought from Thornes but I could be delusional because I made them or I cocked up making the Thornes ones.
Will get some greenbacks in the post for you next week Mike as promissed.

Cheers Chris

 

[Chris B]

Hi Mike,
What are you willing to pay for 300 queens? I suspect no UK breeder could compete on price against imports, but then again should a nuc with a home reared queen command a premium price?
What are your requirements on strain of bee?
And perhaps most importantly, when do you need them?
Regards
Chris

 

[Heather]

And Mike- dont stop a Yorkshire man with a sense of humour - like hens teeth

 

[East Yorks New Bee]

And Mike- dont stop a Yorkshire man with a sense of humour - like hens teeth

 

[mikethebee]

The sales pitch for 300 queens wanted, is on both forums.
The exercise is to find out if there is a beek that would be able to provide me with mated Queens. “Within the UK breeding season”!!

My first concern is I don’t want time-wasters 2 hive dreamers offering there queens.
Or get involved with any BBKA amateur hobbyist beeks that just want to wind me up with irrelevant questions.
Nor do I intend to get involved with associations
I don’t intend traveling around to pick the queens up these day there are ways and means to post,
I’m looking for a beek in the UK that can “and do” produce mated queens, is dedicated to queen rearing, is willing to supply me good UK mated queens in season in return for a guaranteed cash up front yearly customer, and someone that is prepared to work with me to have a go and earn some money for his labor , You have to tell me the price ! I will take it, or leave it, I don’t buy and sale.

AS you know,
I buy imported queens in 300 at a time, this amount is what we can handle in a short time, we don’t necessarily have to have this amount! 100 weekly fortnightly would be OK.
All the best mike

 

[BKF Admin]

And Mike- dont stop a Yorkshire man with a sense of humour - like hens teeth

Nice one Heather

 

[Baggyone]

Considering all the hoohah about importation of queens in certain places, I think Mike has made his point admirably. No-one seems to be stepping forward and therefore Mike has no option BUT to import.

So the moaners about imported queens should just shut the hell up imho.

 

[gavin]

So the moaners about imported queens should just shut the hell up imho.

There's nothing like open minds and open debate about the big issues affecting beekeeping and bee health then, is there Baggyone?!



Don't shoot me down, if you have that attitude you *need* folk like me around and thick skinned enough to keep harping on about dodgy practices, despite the hostility of some of you. Even scraping together 300 queens raised somewhere in the UK, taking them to Gloucestershire, adding them to bees of various types raised there and sending all over the UK seems like a dodgy practice to me. It might not seem so from your perspective if you already have all the pyrethroid-resistant mites and other problems you might find in Gloucestershire, but there are big chunks of land up here that don't even have Varroa yet. My first argument with Mike here was over an order for such a place.

bye for now

Gavin

 

[jimbeekeeper]

So the moaners about imported queens should just shut the hell up imho.

Like the MP's expenses and cash for questions, the information Mike holds on who has purchased one of his queens might one day reveal amazing information, Aye Mike

 

[Baggyone]

Don't get me wrong here, my personal view is that we as a nation should be able to produce all our livestock that we require. Slap up the big fence around the uk and stick it to everyone else.
BUT, in reality we cannot manage to do that. I wish that people were more open minded in the reasons why we have to import things.
I paid good money for my UK bred nuc that was done not that far from me. Hopefully, I will be able to pass on this line in the future.

 

[JCBrum]

Gavin, with respect (meant sincerely), mikethebee and the conduct of his business seems to be crucially important to you.

I, and perhaps others, cannot see how you can hope to control his lawful commercial activities by merely complaining and attempting to position your self as if you had the "moral high-ground".

Mike has said that his business is for sale. Why don't you buy it and close it down ?

I can't see any other legal, decent, honest, way for you (or anyone who feels the same way) to deal with it.

JC.

 

[mikethebee]

jimbeekeeper,
List of some places in Scotland imported queens and nucs have been sent,
Shetland, South Unst,Stornoway ,Portellrn, Inverness,
Wick, Stranraer,Perth, Cuppar,Dumfries and Gallaway,Dundee,
And thers a load more to go after the 16 July.
all the best mike

 

[mikethebee]

I don’t know the beeks that orders bees from me,I don’t have a clue what the bees feed on in Scotland other than heather, I have no idea how much rain falls or if the sun shines all day! Are they married single young or old short or bold,
All I know I have many letters of thanks to say how pleased they are, Even little gifts, post cards, "2 beware bee signs", pots of jam, eggs, postcards, That’s good enough for me must be doing something right.
And THEN we have the oddball that finds something wrong!!
ALL THE BEST MIKE

 

[match]

I think the wrong argument might be being made against Mike here. Bees coming from the centre of the UK should be assumed to have varroa. I have varroa here in Edinburgh, and thus wouldn't have any qualms about ordering from a faraway supplier. Varroa shouldn't stop Mike carrying out his (very necessary) trade in bees. Its also unreasonable to expect him to keep in regular contact with every association about what postcodes are and aren't likely to be varroa free before shipping.

What worries me is people in remote parts of the country, where there isn't currently any varroa, ordering bees and thus introducing varroa into the area. It is every beekeepers' responsibility to find out from their local association what the situation is before ordering bees, and taking extra care to only source local bees if they are in a varroa-free area.

Just my 2 pence...

 

[Poly Hive]

I agree Match and was taken aback to see Shetland on the list.

PH

 

[BKF Admin]

Well said Match,you cannot expect the Scottish goverment to step in and ban imports to the Scottish islands,it's up to us as beekeepers to police ourselves.

Someone on the Islands needs to start to breed some verroa free nucs to pass on.

If they do have verroa free bee's they need to get together and sort something,they owe it to their bee's and to Scotlands islands.