A new study

[Erichalfbee]

I haven't had such a good laugh in ages.
I should get out more

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Although one thing I have learnt on here - just realised where Donald Trump and Boris Johnson got their debating technique from....
If in a corner - just bluster, waffle and then rattle a load of senseless gibberish out

 

[pargyle]

Oh please don't stop now! - I've just put in a bulk online order for more popcorn - it's being delivered this afternoon

NO ..it has to stop ... my sides are hurting and the last cup of coca cola and the popcorn went all over the carpet - she won't be amused !!

 

[Dr J.Bell]

@jbell, why dont you have any faith in the fao hive number figures?

The methodology is flawed. In the UK the number of Hives is completely unknown, as an example 2 years while suited up and checking equipment outside at work, a lady approached us. She was probably in her early to mid 80's! Having spotted us on a number of occasions on the lawn outside our office in Bee suits (its where we practice protocols) she had come over to ask for help.

A long story short, her husband had died 4 weeks before and he kept Bees, we spent 11 weeks going all over the place gathering each of his hives, some where so old and clearly hand made. We collected nearly 780 Hives all together and not a single hive had ever been inspected. To this day i have no idea what if anything he did with the honey, I do know he kept the wax! We paid to have several very large outbuildings cleared of literally tons of the stuff!

No one knew about him or his hives.


On the other hand data is collected several times a years using insect traps, both day and night. The idea is not to just trap bees but all kinds of insects, the study has been going at this particular university for over 35 years now, it gives a good indication of species diversity. Year upon year the numbers and genectic diversity of Bees and some other flying insects has declined rapidly, if you graph the data against know invasion times of various pathogens and reported problems the correlation is striking.

I dont want to get into a debate over 'is the Bee in decline' or not, in my experience this becomes as futile as the debate on climate change. Some (many) simple refuse to accept peer reviewed published data, instead they choose to side with who fits there own ideal. As scientist's we have no bias, we collect data we publish it. Many of those other studies are done by people with vested interests, for example without naming names i am aware of several studies paid for by an insecticide company, the study was done by a group involved and respected by Beekeepers, draw your own conclusions.

I stated when i first joined that as a company a larger company had set us up. the company involved does produce some products for Bee keepers and some other animal products, there main income however is from the agricultural sector. If anything they have more to loose than many if the decline of pollinators continues. I am not allowed to name the parent company, this is a shame.

I think it was a mistake to not allow us to disclose, but i understand the reason's, i can assure you the company that has been set up is completely independent, we have passed all due diligence that went with pairing up with the university. I know how independent we are as i run all the studies, all data collected comes through my office. No one has or will pressure me to alter data in any way.

While i hope a short term solution can be found that may involve spraying for example, this would be to get back some control of the situation, but this wouldnt have any affect on the average small scale keeper. My instinct is most of the recommendations we are likely to end up making will be policy based, some may well affect things such as building and planning permission. Introducing more conserved areas and a complete rethink on the current practice of cutting verges and hedges at the wrong time of year!

As you can see we are looking into many areas, but the solution still lays with the small scale producer. It is more likely we will get better data more quickly from the smaller producer. There is also something else planned, but this is not the right time to disclose, what i dont want to do is influence the area we choose to trial some policy changes.

I am currently on semi leave until tomorrow, i apologize if i appear to go missing for a few days once i get back into the office! I will return shortly, but normally if i take a short break from work the first few days back are a bit

 

[Dr J.Bell]

B+ has such feature, that he has vivid imagnation, and then he puts that image to another's mouth. Then he ask, why does that another Person thinks that way.
His talkings goes not adult to adult but foot ball huligan to fish and chip kiosk gueue.
.

I take it you changed the meds!! Go back to the old ones, it was at least less of a random selection of words strung together.

 

[Dr J.Bell]

Sometimes you make sense. Sometimes you don't.

I look forward to the times he does, is there a pattern such as phase of moon? or do we just wait for the moment sense appears? Would be so much easier if i could mark the dates on a calendar.

 

[Vortex]

Introducing more conserved areas and a complete rethink on the current practice of cutting verges and hedges at the wrong time of year!

One of my pet peeves and logically that one should be easy to change if there was an organization willing to apply the right pressure..just change the judging criteria for "Britain in Bloom" so that verges were judged on biodiversity and sustainability.. then it would be in the interests of councils to turn them into meadows and not cut them between April and August.

 

[Dr J.Bell]

One of my pet peeves and logically that one should be easy to change if there was an organization willing to apply the right pressure..just change the judging criteria for "Britain in Bloom" so that verges were judged on biodiversity and sustainability.. then it would be in the interests of councils to turn them into meadows and not cut them between April and August.

We are working with a university, we have both Government and EU funding, i can assure you that the final reports will be seen and will at the very least reach parliament for debate. Everything we are doing is part of an action group reporting ultimately directly to the UK government, this is also passed on to the EU commission.

I cant make a comment at present on verge cutting, however it is likely a new member may join who I know likes to rant about such things, he is well versed in the practices of verge cutting and the stupidity of current policy.

I do hope he joins soon, unfortunately i would be unable to join the debate or make a comment.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I admit i have read few books on Bees or insects, I certainly never read the ones I have wrote myself!!

What books have you written.

 

[enrico]

So let me ask a question. I keep bees and am the only beekeeper within three miles. A survey is done in my area and honey bees are found to be in my area on flora. I then move and take my bees with me, the following year another survey is done and now there are no bees on the flora. Would the survey results now be that bees are in decline? The area that o have moved to already has bees in the area, so there would be no change in the bees found on the flora. I am not saying that any findings are wrong but I personally can see no easy way to get even a rough idea if bees are in decline or not!
E

 

[thenovice]

Hi enrico,

an experiment should be designed to take a representative sample, big enough to make statistical sense. there are mathematical models out there to calculate sample density and size. so only sampling the vicinity of your apiary would skew results. sampling all over the UK would give a good idea of what bees are doing (in the UK, not anywhere else of course).

 

[Dr J.Bell]

So let me ask a question. I keep bees and am the only beekeeper within three miles. A survey is done in my area and honey bees are found to be in my area on flora. I then move and take my bees with me, the following year another survey is done and now there are no bees on the flora. Would the survey results now be that bees are in decline? The area that o have moved to already has bees in the area, so there would be no change in the bees found on the flora. I am not saying that any findings are wrong but I personally can see no easy way to get even a rough idea if bees are in decline or not!
E

Depends on methodology, but many surveys that we currently do involve capture. We take genetic samples, your assumption seems to be that within your area as you see only your hives then only your bees are there.
In reality what we find are a diverse mix of genetics. Even now it surprises me when i visit an area to survey just how many different populations of bees are present!

In your scenario, (please keep in mind it would be extremely counter productive to detail how we survey) what we would most likely see is some of your diluted genetics (depending how long and when you had been there) and some new ones and as well as ones we see each time we survey.

Some of the genes are probably from escaped swarms or wild colonies, in most sites we tend to see the genetics from these year after year!
So from a capture survey as long as the long standing genes were showing then we would conclude no decline, however we also correlate with inspection reports, so if there is a report of 20 hives dying out then they would affect the figures.

Hopefully that makes sense? We dont rely on a single method but rather a well tried methodology that so far seems to work well. As a side note....
Ever heard the saying your never more than 10 feet from a rat?

Take a guess how many different genetic subsets we would expect to see over 10 days at a survey site? In other words roughly how many different colonies of Bees do you think we find on average at each survey site?

colony being defined as a set of genetics defining separate colonies, however often you see genes from several from interbreeding.

 

[foghornleghorn]

So let me ask a question. I keep bees and am the only beekeeper within three miles. A survey is done in my area and honey bees are found to be in my area on flora. I then move and take my bees with me, the following year another survey is done and now there are

Depends on methodology, but many surveys that we currently do involve capture. We take genetic samples, your assumption seems to be that within your area as you see only your hives then only your bees are there.
In reality what we find are a diverse mix of genetics. Even now it surprises me when i visit an area to survey just how many different populations of bees are present!

In your scenario, (please keep in mind it would be extremely counter productive to detail how we survey) what we would most likely see is some of your diluted genetics (depending how long and when you had been there) and some new ones and as well as ones we see each time we survey.

Some of the genes are probably from escaped swarms or wild colonies, in most sites we tend to see the genetics from these year after year!
So from a capture survey as long as the long standing genes were showing then we would conclude no decline, however we also correlate with inspection reports, so if there is a report of 20 hives dying out then they would affect the figures.

Hopefully that makes sense? We dont rely on a single method but rather a well tried methodology that so far seems to work well. As a side note....
Ever heard the saying your never more than 10 feet from a rat?

Take a guess how many different genetic subsets we would expect to see over 10 days at a survey site? In other words roughly how many different colonies of Bees do you think we find on average at each survey site?

colony being defined as a set of genetics defining separate colonies, however often you see genes from several from interbreeding.

The methodology is flawed. In the UK the number of Hives is completely unknown, as an example 2 years while suited up and checking equipment outside at work, a lady approached us. She was probably in her early to mid 80's! Having spotted us on a number of occasions on the lawn outside our office in Bee suits (its where we practice protocols) she had come over to ask for help.

A long story short, her husband had died 4 weeks before and he kept Bees, we spent 11 weeks going all over the place gathering each of his hives, some where so old and clearly hand made. We collected nearly 780 Hives all together and not a single hive had ever been inspected. To this day i have no idea what if anything he did with the honey, I do know he kept the wax! We paid to have several very large outbuildings cleared of literally tons of the stuff!

No one knew about him or his hives.


On the other hand data is collected several times a years using insect traps, both day and night. The idea is not to just trap bees but all kinds of insects, the study has been going at this particular university for over 35 years now, it gives a good indication of species diversity. Year upon year the numbers and genectic diversity of Bees and some other flying insects has declined rapidly, if you graph the data against know invasion times of various pathogens and reported problems the correlation is striking.

I dont want to get into a debate over 'is the Bee in decline' or not, in my experience this becomes as futile as the debate on climate change. Some (many) simple refuse to accept peer reviewed published data, instead they choose to side with who fits there own ideal. As scientist's we have no bias, we collect data we publish it. Many of those other studies are done by people with vested interests, for example without naming names i am aware of several studies paid for by an insecticide company, the study was done by a group involved and respected by Beekeepers, draw your own conclusions.

I stated when i first joined that as a company a larger company had set us up. the company involved does produce some products for Bee keepers and some other animal products, there main income however is from the agricultural sector. If anything they have more to loose than many if the decline of pollinators continues. I am not allowed to name the parent company, this is a shame.

I think it was a mistake to not allow us to disclose, but i understand the reason's, i can assure you the company that has been set up is completely independent, we have passed all due diligence that went with pairing up with the university. I know how independent we are as i run all the studies, all data collected comes through my office. No one has or will pressure me to alter data in any way.

While i hope a short term solution can be found that may involve spraying for example, this would be to get back some control of the situation, but this wouldnt have any affect on the average small scale keeper. My instinct is most of the recommendations we are likely to end up making will be policy based, some may well affect things such as building and planning permission. Introducing more conserved areas and a complete rethink on the current practice of cutting verges and hedges at the wrong time of year!

As you can see we are looking into many areas, but the solution still lays with the small scale producer. It is more likely we will get better data more quickly from the smaller producer. There is also something else planned, but this is not the right time to disclose, what i dont want to do is influence the area we choose to trial some policy changes.

I am currently on semi leave until tomorrow, i apologize if i appear to go missing for a few days once i get back into the office! I will return shortly, but normally if i take a short break from work the first few days back are a bit

But ultimately that is just a guess, I was only talking about numbers of hives in the world which are increasing. I havent looked into the breakdown of figures but would be fairly sure the increase is from africa/asia/south America. These are also the areas undercutting the price eu producers receive, varroa/disease and poorer forage added in and you've made large scale beekeeping less attractive to new entrants and also brought forward older beekeepers giving up because its not worth the hassle to them anymore. All of a sudden you have a drop in hive numbers, but if you were to double or triple the price of honey I'd guarantee you'd see an increase in hive numbers even with all the present challenges.
But i do agree on bumbles and other insects being in decline

 

[Dr J.Bell]

So let me ask a question. I keep bees and am the only beekeeper within three miles. A survey is done in my area and honey bees are found to be in my area on flora. I then move and take my bees with me, the following year another survey is done and now there are





But ultimately that is just a guess, I was only talking about numbers of hives in the world which are increasing. I havent looked into the breakdown of figures but would be fairly sure the increase is from africa/asia/south America. These are also the areas undercutting the price eu producers receive, varroa/disease and poorer forage added in and you've made large scale beekeeping less attractive to new entrants and also brought forward older beekeepers giving up because its not worth the hassle to them anymore. All of a sudden you have a drop in hive numbers, but if you were to double or triple the price of honey I'd guarantee you'd see an increase in hive numbers even with all the present challenges.
But i do agree on bumbles and other insects being in decline

I cant answer at the moment but I will answer this more fully when I can.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I admit i have read few books on Bees or insects, I certainly never read the ones I have wrote myself!!

What books have you written.

 

[Dr J.Bell]

What books have you written.

You want me to reveal the name I write under?
you are going to have to cross my palm with a one huge amount of silver to get that information . Or wait until Those that have come forward and offered to publish an article in relation to my study have done so.

I also then want my username changed

 

[Hivemaker.]

...

 

[snelgrove]

...

 

[Dr J.Bell]

...

See if you can spot them in firefly publishers

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Quiet on here now.

Has he been grounded? or too much homework to do?