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Sounds like I should just read the wrapper and compost the magazine...
James
James
you would learn a lot of things more useful that waySounds like I should just read the wrapper and compost the magazine...
James
It actually shows the quality of the recruiting and the lack of oversight by the ‘executive’ is the BBKA to recruit an editor who clearly doesn’t understand beekeeping .
I’d suggest the executive may well have been impressed with the depth of his knowledge……….One could infer in many areas it surpassed theirsIt actually shows the quality of the recruiting and the lack of oversight by the ‘executive’ is the BBKA to recruit an editor who clearly doesn’t understand beekeeping .
Just had a email conversation with a SBI, he is with the consensus on here. "Totally irresponsible and frankly surprised the editor doesn't know better"don't ask - like a cancer, the NBU is slowly being taken over by BBKA dogma
I would say the difference is volume. Open feeding causes a feeding frenzy on a large volume of food. Feeding from single flowers on a tree is feeding on a minuscule volume in comparison. Therefore disease transmission via a large volume is significantly greater than from a single flower.I am aware of the conventional wisdom that open feeding will encourage robbing and the spread of disease. I am also aware of the chasm (understatement!) between the regular posters on here and the prominent members of the BBKA. However, I would ask one question.
Why does open feeding (of sugar syrup) encourage robbing and disease spreading any more than the occupants of many hives meeting up and feeding on a particularly attractive tree or shrub in early spring?.
I know from personal experience that many trees and shrubs in my own garden absolutely hum with bees in spring. These bees must be from numerous hives; my own apiaries are some distance away, and so the opportunity to spread disease must exist.
Perhaps I am missing something. For the record, I do not open feed, but I do believe that a pragmatic approach to life (and beekeeping) will always trump a dogmatic one.
Is there a trail pheromone similar to ants?I would say the difference is volume. Open feeding causes a feeding frenzy on a large volume of food. Feeding from single flowers on a tree is feeding on a minuscule volume in comparison. Therefore disease transmission via a large volume is significantly greater than from a single flower.
You have clearly never seen the effect that leaving an open source of concentrated food in the immdiate vicinity of an apiary causes. It's mayhem .. bees are opportunists and it's not just your bees that will find it - within no time at all every bee within miles will be there. There is carnage as bees crawl over each other and fight to get at the food source.I am aware of the conventional wisdom that open feeding will encourage robbing and the spread of disease. I am also aware of the chasm (understatement!) between the regular posters on here and the prominent members of the BBKA. However, I would ask one question.
Why does open feeding (of sugar syrup) encourage robbing and disease spreading any more than the occupants of many hives meeting up and feeding on a particularly attractive tree or shrub in early spring?.
I know from personal experience that many trees and shrubs in my own garden absolutely hum with bees in spring. These bees must be from numerous hives; my own apiaries are some distance away, and so the opportunity to spread disease must exist.
Perhaps I am missing something. For the record, I do not open feed, but I do believe that a pragmatic approach to life (and beekeeping) will always trump a dogmatic one.
I accept what you say, but would respectfully suggest that the presence/absence of disease in a contacting individual is the limiting factor, rather than the volume of contacts. For example, my whole family were down with Covid over New Year, but I am pretty sure we were not in contact with hundreds of infected individuals, it only took one. I guess what I am saying, is if there is disease in an area, it may eventually spread to other colonies, although I accept that the spread may be quicker if large numbers of contacts are made quickly.I would say the difference is volume. Open feeding causes a feeding frenzy on a large volume of food. Feeding from single flowers on a tree is feeding on a minuscule volume in comparison. Therefore disease transmission via a large volume is significantly greater than from a single flower.
Why does open feeding (of sugar syrup) encourage robbing and disease spreading any more than the occupants of many hives meeting up and feeding on a particularly attractive tree or shrub in early spring?.
I don't think anyone is advocating the open feeding of honey, however I am aware that many experienced members of this forum are in favour of using "old black comb" in bait hives, which must surely increase the risk of transmission of disease sporesOne only has to try and clean a super el fresco (it matters not if 100% dry), then one will see the massive difference between forna one thinks is very busy and then the mass of 1000's of honey bees that appear at the cleaning station.
As Neil says it is the sheer volume /throng of bees that increases, with direct open feeding the dangers are not just possible infected bees but any one feeding honey stores risks that of being laden with virus spores.
Only when they publish such outrageously bad information in articles that (in theory) they should have control over. Would you expect anything else ?I may be completely wrong on this one, but I have noticed a tendency on here to jump on, in particular, the BBKA in a kind of feeding frenzy. I should add that I am a member, but not a supporter, of the BBKA, in the same way I am a member of this forum.
On the subject of volume, whilst I accept that a feeding station may attract many bees, a large tree may well contain a far greater amount of "feed" over a much greater time frame than a couple of kilos of sugar in an open feeder.
I think you misunderstood what I meant by volume. I mean that 2 thousand bees feeding on a litre of syrup are much more likely to pass on disease to multiple others than 2 bees feeding on a millilitre of nectar in a flower.I accept what you say, but would respectfully suggest that the presence/absence of disease in a contacting individual is the limiting factor, rather than the volume of contacts. For example, my whole family were down with Covid over New Year, but I am pretty sure we were not in contact with hundreds of infected individuals, it only took one. I guess what I am saying, is if there is disease in an area, it may eventually spread to other colonies, although I accept that the spread may be quicker if large numbers of contacts are made quickly.
On the subject of volume, whilst I accept that a feeding station may attract many bees, a large tree may well contain a far greater amount of "feed" over a much greater time frame than a couple of kilos of sugar in an open feeder.
I may be completely wrong on this one, but I have noticed a tendency on here to jump on, in particular, the BBKA in a kind of feeding frenzy. I should add that I am a member, but not a supporter, of the BBKA, in the same way I am a member of this forum.
I don't think anyone is advocating the open feeding of honey, however I am aware that many experienced members of this forum are in favour of using "old black comb" in bait hives, which must surely increase the risk of transmission of disease spores
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