Bee imports post IWD

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Originally Posted by foghornleghorn View Post
Why do people buy packages? Is it cost vs over wintered nuc
Lower disease risk as there is no brood.


It is akin to factory farming where producers raise 1000s of calves to be weaned in factory conditions inside sheds... automatically fed , watered and waste cleared away... and then sold on in weeks to the "grasiers" who bring on for meat, or into dairy... and even exported .. ( will not even touch the veal and halal markets)
Big business and a cornerstone of farming today.

If you are a honey farmer and do not either have the time, aptitude or ability to raise your own queens and stock bees, then the only option is to purchase packages and queens.

Not many hobby beekeepers seem buy in packages, when nucs of bees are generally available locally.

However it is the practice of many suppliers to make up nucs from packages.... for the hobby market.


Yeghes da
 
An interesting question. I guess many imports/exports are simply not reported.

Mines are all reported and all have undergone severe inspection and yet they don't always show up. Any wrinkle in the system..and the reasons can be many and are not normally sinister...and they don't show on the official table.

Wondering if some of the reporting is political and Brexit related......why focus on the EU and not 'third countries'?.
 
Originally Posted by foghornleghorn View Post
Why do people buy packages? Is it cost vs over wintered nuc
Lower disease risk as there is no brood.


It is akin to factory farming where producers raise 1000s of calves to be weaned in factory conditions inside sheds... automatically fed , watered and waste cleared away... and then sold on in weeks to the "grasiers" who bring on for meat, or into dairy... and even exported .. ( will not even touch the veal and halal markets)
Big business and a cornerstone of farming today.

If you are a honey farmer and do not either have the time, aptitude or ability to raise your own queens and stock bees, then the only option is to purchase packages and queens.

Not many hobby beekeepers seem buy in packages, when nucs of bees are generally available locally.

However it is the practice of many suppliers to make up nucs from packages.... for the hobby market.


Yeghes da

Interesting mix of fact and nonsense.

About why bee farmers buy packages you plainly don't have a Scooby doo's. You just want to be offensive to a generally highly competent group of people who need packages for a whole range of reasons, very few of them to do with lack of ability or aptitude.

You also don't seem to know how many of the packages end up with hobbyists.....its a rather high proportion. Almost all just want nice bees and despite the loud 'noises off' from the Amm aficionados, they are quite content with the bees supplied, and express their satisfaction with what we give them.......told you before but you regularly blank it...these are not Italian bees in terms of being ligustica or not. The vast majority are either Buckfast or carnica. More than half OUR supplies last year were headed by queens raised for us from our own stock.

However...the last little paragraph hits a rather sore nail right on the head. It would be a big surprise to learn just how many 'British' nuclei...even those with 'locally adapted' claims are in fact sometimes not local at all. Yet they generally do very well. I guess no-one told the bees they were not locally adapted......
 
Google "Dave Cushman IOW". He overlapped with beekeepers who lived through the IoW event and drew some interesting conclusions.

Ditto Beowulf Cooper, who drew similar conclusions, but I think you may need access to a book he wrote, not sure it is online.


Over the past week I've tried to nail down solid evidence (as in numbers, etc.), for the importation of bees after the Isle of White Disease (IWD), in the first couple of decades of the 20thC it's been claimed that up to 90% of AMM died out (some claim as much as 99%, Brother Adams claimed 100%, but this is now considered to be too extreme).

I have come up with several articles that make claims on imports from the continent replenishing apiaries, but no actual figures and certainly nothing even close to hard evidence on the subject.

I'm suspecting that the best I'm going to get is statements made by beekeepers, etc. with first hand experience of bee importation, ie: from their diaries or articles written in their Associations Newsletters, etc. I would settle for that!

Does anyone have any details on this? Or know how I would go about trying to track this information down?
 
Biggest advantage of packages is convenience, instant restocking of deadouts, instant pollinating units, quick production colony with a new year queen requiring no swarm management.
I make them up myself for my own use with my own native queens heading them, I've even been tempted to buy in some of the queenless packages itld offers to go with my own overwintered queens( I didnt go ahead as it would be a bit hypocritical considering my views on imports and bio security, but I can see the potential benefits).
 
Interesting mix of fact and nonsense.

About why bee farmers buy packages you plainly don't have a Scooby doo's. You just want to be offensive to a generally highly competent group of people who need packages for a whole range of reasons, very few of them to do with lack of ability or aptitude.

You also don't seem to know how many of the packages end up with hobbyists.....its a rather high proportion. Almost all just want nice bees and despite the loud 'noises off' from the Amm aficionados, they are quite content with the bees supplied, and express their satisfaction with what we give them.......told you before but you regularly blank it...these are not Italian bees in terms of being ligustica or not. The vast majority are either Buckfast or carnica. More than half OUR supplies last year were headed by queens raised for us from our own stock.

However...the last little paragraph hits a rather sore nail right on the head. It would be a big surprise to learn just how many 'British' nuclei...even those with 'locally adapted' claims are in fact sometimes not local at all. Yet they generally do very well. I guess no-one told the bees they were not locally adapted......

:calmdown: Attack is often a way of defense.:calmdown:

My reply was to attempt to explain why so many packages of bees are imported, most are purchased by honey farmers to increase or replace stocks but as you pointed out many also are made up into nucs for sale to hobbyists.

I have no intention of being offensive or question the ability of any sector of beekeepers or in fact race of bee they wish to keep.

Until such a time that we can have a sustainable future without importation
there is going to be a need to import bees to meet the requirements of UK beekeepers

To increase stocks of bees for commercial purposes takes time.... honey farmers generally do not have the resources or time to go into large scale bee production or queen rearing for them selves, although many now are producing bees in greater volume for their own use and for sale, this in my opinion is a good thing.


Mytten da
 
Biggest advantage of packages is convenience, instant restocking of deadouts, instant pollinating units, quick production colony with a new year queen requiring no swarm management.
I make them up myself for my own use with my own native queens heading them, I've even been tempted to buy in some of the queenless packages itld offers to go with my own overwintered queens( I didnt go ahead as it would be a bit hypocritical considering my views on imports and bio security, but I can see the potential benefits).

:iagree:

EXACTLY the same place I find myself in !!!

Yeghes da
 
Google "Dave Cushman IOW". He overlapped with beekeepers who lived through the IoW event and drew some interesting conclusions.

Ditto Beowulf Cooper, who drew similar conclusions, but I think you may need access to a book he wrote, not sure it is online.

Hi

I think you may be referring to this web page
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/iowdisease.html
on the Dave Cushman website, but this is an article written by Roger Patterson, who started beekeeping in 1963 ("When I started beekeeping as a teenager in 1963..." ), which by that time the IoWD had fizzled out - the cause of this 'fizzle', from what I can gather, was because the susceptible bee stock had died out. But yet Roger Patterson, from reading his article, seems to think that he has first hand experience of (components) of the IoWD by his reference to his bees (or his beekeeping) being resistant to Acarine (traditionally claimed to be the primary villain in IoWD), without realizing that by 1963 the bees he would be keeping, by the very virtue of their survival, would have to have been resistant to the Acarine (if it was the primary cause of the IoWD).

I have yet to get hold of Beowolf Cooper's writings on the subject (but I can make a good guess on what they will say), at the moment I am reading up on Bailey's and Br. Adams writings on the subject.
 
Because both understand the needs of UK beekeeperers?

Very humorous attitude if you speak like adult to adult.
That importing must be stopped? Is that so called need?

The issue is an old debate as long as I remember in my country. And somebody needs to command other's needs.

But some professionals buy hundreds of packages and sell them to hobby beekeepers. IT is allowed.
.

I bet that importing of bees has existed on British Isles since Ice Ace.
 
Last edited:
If you are a honey farmer and do not either have the time, aptitude or ability to raise your own queens and stock bees, then the only option is to purchase packages and queens.

More of your joshing....ehh.
 
More of your joshing....ehh.

:winner1st:

Attempting to reason why we need to import bees.

UK Beefarmers get very little support either from the EU or UK Government, and are as far as I can see, not treated in the same way as other farmers.
Even my local sheep producer gets financial help with AI from HM Gov!...
... I think he gets a free hook to hang his trousers on!

Until such a time that we can produce the quantity and quality of bees within the UK to satisfy our own requirements, a sustainable future without importation... we will need to import bees.

I am certain that there are many beefarmers and honey producers in the UK that could , given the time, financial support and aptitude, breed good quality and sufficient quantities of bees ....

As for now, as ever since IoW or whatever the cause of devastation to our bee stock was... we shall be importing packages and queens.

Point made... by ITLD a lot of packages are used to make up nucs to sell on to hobbyists.

No need to go in for rant.... or character destruction... reasoned argument is good enough!

Yeghes da
 
:winner1st:

Attempting to reason why we need to import bees.



Until such a time that we can produce the quantity and quality of bees within the UK to satisfy our own requirements, a sustainable future without importation... we will need to import bees.

I am certain that there are many beefarmers and honey producers in the UK that could , given the time, financial support and aptitude, breed good quality and sufficient quantities of bees ....



Yeghes da

Over 90% out of UK beekeepers are 2 hive owners. Then they start to breed and rear their own Queens. Only what they need is financial support.
 
Over 90% out of UK beekeepers are 2 hive owners. Then they start to breed and rear their own Queens. Only what they need is financial support.

Even if some of the 2 hive owners could raise their own stocks it would plug a hole in the market.
The remaining 10% a few of whom are beefarmers could and probably would be able to meet the UK demand for bees... if given the financial support that other sectors of the farming community get.

It probably will not happen!

Chons da
 
Anyone expecting the UK government to fund agriculture MORE after Brexit has rose tinted glasses on (that is the polite version).
After we cease paying the EU our annual £19B (gross). the current UK subsidy for farmers will be funded entirely by the UK Government - at the same time paying the EU some £35B for the privilege for leaving.

And ALL farming subsidies will be phased out by 2027 and replaced by " link farmers’ payments to environmental standards."
https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-presents-post-brexit-plans-for-agriculture/
 
Even if some of the 2 hive owners could raise their own stocks it would plug a hole in the market.
The remaining 10% a few of whom are beefarmers could and probably would be able to meet the UK demand for bees... if given the financial support that other sectors of the farming community get.

It probably will not happen!

Chons da

To be continued....
 
Last edited:
The remaining 10% a few of whom are beefarmers could and probably would be able to meet the UK demand for bees... if given the financial support that other sectors of the farming community get.

It probably will not happen!

Chons da

oh! well every day is a school day.. didn't realise I was a Bee 'Farmer' :)

I only have 20 colonies, but I agree with your point, I have started producing queens, mostly for my own purposes but have sold at a reasonable price a few this year too, I think that even allowing for only being a Hobby beekeeper I could if so wished produce at least 100 per year of a decent standard.

It wouldn't take that many to be doing it to generate sufficient numbers, I suppose that the issue is the standard produced, unless I bought in very expensive breeding stock for I.I Drone and queen mother purposes they wouldn't be up to the required standard for a commercial bee farmer but sufficient for most Hobbyists.
 
I could if so wished produce at least 100 per year of a decent standard.
It's not the numbers it's the timing. Could you produce 100+ queens in April early May when the greatest demand is?
No you couldn't....
That is the problem.
 
It's not the numbers it's the timing. Could you produce 100+ queens in April early May when the greatest demand is?
No you couldn't....
That is the problem.

yep, I have said the same on a FaceBook post, I've little experience in this field but the only possibility I could come up with was Queen Banking over winter, not sure how this would work with winter clustering etc?
 

Latest posts

Back
Top