bbc news now

[biggles]

Bees on the news

 

[biggles]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/collections/p007rdq3#p00hhdrw

I missed it but I think is was about Ron Hoskins

 

[herefordshirehoney]

Amazing where can we buy his queens from?

 

[Winker]

Well done Ron Hoskins. Great little video

 

[circe]

Brilliant - I think I might get a little apidea ready next year and visit my friend in Swindon.....

 

[nosmoking]

Why so little news on what appears to bee a major breakthrough? Thoughts anyone...............

 

[Hivemaker.]

Why so little news on what appears to bee a major breakthrough? Thoughts anyone...............

There has been loads of news about this for the past couple of years,newspapers,television,internet, ect.

 

[Chris B]

Why so little news on what appears to bee a major breakthrough? Thoughts anyone...............

2 possibilities:

1. Because Ron has done this on a shoestring, he's not called Professor Ron, and he hasn't seen any of the £10m cash dolled out recently. Makes the £10m look like a waste of money.

2. It's unsustainable. If you need to continually spend 25 hours a day playing with microscopes just to keep your bees hygienic, then it has no lasting value.

(Or possibly both the above)

 

[Steve Dyer]

I saw an item on him where he talked about 50,000 varroa he had found which were damaged "presumably by bees grooming them off other bees". I would have liked to see a short video of the grooming behaviour happening.

He is searching for the holy grail of beekeeping, but, like the holy grail, it's never quite demonstrated to exist.

Steve

 

[sugarbush]

Why so little news on what appears to bee a major breakthrough? Thoughts anyone...............

Because this breakthrough was discovered in 1916 by Brother Adam at Buckfast Abby.

There are several strains of Hygienic bees including the Buckfasts and Minnesota Hygienics. Several Universities are working on other strains all the time. So far the biggest challenge being that the trait is often lost in the first generation. You pay good money for a Hygienic queen and the colony swarms a few weeks later, the trait is gone.

 

[biggles]

Found it and its nothing to do with the Swindon bee.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-14225248

In the TV showing there was a farmer at the end who said he was glad he didn't have to rely on honey bees. I've just put ten hives in his field! Maybe I'll get a call today saying take them away.

Flower in orchards to bring in other types of bees. What do you lot think?

 

[louiseww]

2 possibilities:

1. Because Ron has done this on a shoestring, he's not called Professor Ron, and he hasn't seen any of the £10m cash dolled out recently. Makes the £10m look like a waste of money.

2. It's unsustainable. If you need to continually spend 25 hours a day playing with microscopes just to keep your bees hygienic, then it has no lasting value.

(Or possibly both the above)

Yes I agree, the £60,000 given to Sussex for doctoral research is wasted. I went to a workshop there last week, very disappointing, they are trying to find out things we already know! Their flower bed for the data on pollinators was poor and the Professor in charge is not open to ideas and observations from experienced beekeepers - I am only a novice but have been observing bees in my garden for years. The research at East Malling in Kent seems to be doing well - this was on the South East Today news last night but the same drivel is churned out like 'honey bees don't forage when the temperature is below 15 degrees' well nobody has told my bees that!

 

[m100]

but the same drivel is churned out like 'honey bees don't forage when the temperature is below 15 degrees' well nobody has told my bees that!

Ditto.

If that were the case mine would be flying until after noon today yet they were flying before 7:30am when it reached the dizzy heights of 10 deg C.

 

[user 6228]

Ditto.

If that were the case mine would be flying until after noon today yet they were flying before 7:30am when it reached the dizzy heights of 10 deg C.

My meagre observations are that you dont get on to peak foraging traffic until 15C but they will be starting to fly well, well, below that.

 

[Crg]

Why so little news on what appears to bee a major breakthrough? Thoughts anyone...............

because it's not a breakthrough, many people have been doing it for many years?