Bee imports continue to rise

[alldigging]

Have just fielded a phone call about the above post. How do I KNOW that the import figures are not rising? Well to be honest as far as I know there are no recorded statistics on 'under the radar' imports BUT from my contacts in Italy and France they think the number is actually going down but that TRACES are being done on far more of them than before, when the importer often did not want the hassle and opted for no paperwork...less red tape at both ends. Thus my information must be categorised as anecdotal.

the stats are listed by year on bee base.

you can't count the uncountables.

 

[Into the lions den]

Not sure what you are going to gain with early imports of Queens or packages?
On another thread you said you have 3000 production colonies(?). If your winter losses are say 10% that's 300 colonies you need to make up in spring. Surely you can make these up just as quick if not quicker from your own over-wintered nucs rather than import queens or packages?
By anticipating the winter losses it would be more sustainable to raise your own nucs as replacements?
By importing queens to increase your stock rather than to improve your genetics I presume the motivation is purely financial?

I suspect you are unaware of what goes on at our place as the last sentence especially is totally off target.

For our own unit that's exactly what we do. You can see the pictures of the nucs and mating unit on my twitter feed. We have not used packages in our own unit, bar a FEW clients failed to stump up for or were 'no show' at collection time, for a few years now.

BUT

The bringing in of the packages especially was started off as a 'common good' project where I used my connections to get all those in difficulty locally bees at a fair rather than inflated price. Not everyone can sink 100K into a project and even then, if you are obliged to fulfill a pollination contract (some of our overwintered nucs are sold to such people) and have a clause that means its costly if you don't meet the contract...then you need bees PDQ in April or May to meet that demand. Spring packages can build up on the OSR, and sometimes even give a super or two of honey. The demand has continued, but has shifted more to the SE of the country, where pressures for earliness are strongest.

Then there is the issue of WHY there are these spikes in demand. Its usually because of a big die off, which periodically happens across the country (and other countries too, its not just a UK phenomenon). When it happens to the main colonies in a unit it happens to the nucs too. They are a great tool which makes up the losses before they happen in more years than used to be the case, but as in the last main post....nuc success broadly correlates with colony success.....so local dependency when there is a local die off is a risky place to be.

However, an early queen DOES have a load of advantages. As a 2017 example..we took over running a stack of empty hives (Langstroth and all our overwinter nucs are on BS frames for now) so had to get them up and running asap. We took TWO bars of brood (mostly sealed) and bees and a bar of stores from some of our existing Lang hives at the start of May and put them into 5 bar poly nucs and fed them. We used queens raised for us in Piemonte, mainly but not exclusively from our own breeders, and introduced one to each nuc. In only a week the two bars of foundation had been drawn and they were across the box so got promoted to full hives. Fed again. By the end of May most of these required to be doubled (then fed again...that's a serious gap time here). Of the 96 on that group 85 went to the heather in late July as triples and gave about 35Kg of heather honey. Cant be done *just that way* with queens much later. Changes it from an activity that costs into one that pays, and the bees are great and healthy too. Into winter right across the box.

The same exercise repeated four weeks later resulted in an average at the heather of 9kg but still very good hives into winter.

 

[Into the lions den]

the stats are listed by year on bee base.

you can't count the uncountables.

Quite so and that's rather the point. The official figures are useless. A decade ago the proportion just being driven across devoid of paperwork was a majority, and according to French sources possibly TEN percent had TRACES. Today that has risen to be the majority. This year I am aware of only ONE consignment *allegedly* coming over without TRACES, but then my info itself is only a small fraction of what goes on.

With the changes in the discipline and indeed self discipline of those in the trade over the last decade, and SHB has triggered a sharp change in practices, not any clampdown, it means any trends identifiable in the NBU statistics are largely meaningless.

 

[Eyeman]

I suspect you are unaware of what goes on at our place as the last sentence especially is totally off target.

Not trying to wind you up- sorry if I caused offence.
Just that the likes of Michael Palmer has adjusted his practice so that he relies on local stock to sustain his operation. Perfectly understand if guessing the winter losses is too unpredictable.

 

[Uncle Betty]

if you are obliged to fulfill a pollination contract (some of our overwintered nucs are sold to such people) and have a clause that means its costly if you don't meet the contract...then you need bees PDQ in April or May to meet that demand. Spring packages can build up on the OSR, and sometimes even give a super or two of honey. The demand has continued, but has shifted more to the SE of the country, where pressures for earliness are strongest.

Then there is the issue of WHY there are these spikes in demand. Its usually because of a big die off, which periodically happens across the country (and other countries too, its not just a UK phenomenon). When it happens to the main colonies in a unit it happens to the nucs too. They are a great tool which makes up the losses before they happen in more years than used to be the case, but as in the last main post....nuc success broadly correlates with colony success.....so local dependency when there is a local die off is a risky place to be.

Fascinating insight, thank you.

 

[Into the lions den]

Perfectly understand if guessing the winter losses is too unpredictable.

In this area it has varied from between 12% and 60% per year over the last decade. Twice in the last 40 years it has been nearly 80%, but this was before we had the nuc project, and one of those was followed by a winter almost as bad...caused by bad summers. 85/86 the 86/87 was especially bad...and most of us in this area would be long gone without imports. One guy had 9 left from 1100 and another had 4 from 450. Neither of them bad beekeepers. There were virtually no local bees available to buy.

Without a properly functioning bee market they would be gloriously bust long before they could get back on their feet. Times of gross misfortune like that are a time to be supportive, and not shaft them with exorbitant prices in their moment of need.

Winter loss rate is in fact possible to get an approximate idea of in autumn, as here the loss rate is highest in bad heather years and best in good ones. But September is a bit late to start making up nucs and in any case if the bees are not physiologically fit for winter then you have a problem for colonies and nucs alike.