Buckfast Bees

[Norton]

eg: Galtee breeding group.

 

[Phil280]

Hi there.

These are the figures from 2004....in 7 years hybrid genes can contaminate a large area especially if the protection zones are not clustered but spread out.

The 7% A.m.m. are the local bee in the more mountainous areas like Tyrol, Salzburg and parts of Carinthia. It is natural that there are zones of cross-breeding between A.m.c. and A.m.m. where population areas overlap.
A.m.m. does not thrive well in the warmer east and south...which is why it evolved right there in the mountains in the first place. It copes better with the alpine climate than A.m.c.
In the east and south A.m.c. is more dominant over A.m.m. , which is why A.m.m. normally does not occur there. Simple.

I put nature before money! Period!
And no, there is nothing wrong with making money with beekeeping UNLESS you are introducing an alien species into a functioning ecosystem for the pure sake of making MORE profit.
It works totally fine with local bees...as Dr. Stefan Mandl with his over 7000 certified organic colonies proves.

I don't care how nice the bees seem and how successful they may be with their Buckfast bees...IMHO it is wrong!
It is an uncontrollable modification of an ecosystem.
People that don't understand the basics of how drones pass their genes on and what great responsibility goes with beekeeping, should not be keeping bees but should buy chickens instead or get an aquarium.
It is like a farmer sowing genetically modified crops(which is bad in any case) although he knows that all the farmers around him are farming organic - and cross-pollination is a known fact.
For me it is no better than dumping toxic waste into a river.

If it were up to me to decide, I would make it illegal to keep any honey bee in Austria that is not native. I would do the same in any county.
History has shown that importing bees from all over the world is the worst thing that can be done. Why is it so hard to learn from mistakes?

I know it is difficult to near impossible to persuade beekeepers that have $$ in their eyes to think rationally and I don't blame Buckfast breeders for not wanting to...it is their business and they want to sell their bees.

For all you bee keepers and bee keepers to be(e): Breed from your own stock and if you need to purchase...for you own sakes - get local bees from a local colleague.

Maybe, in times where it is becoming more important where products come from, it would be worth printing "produced by native bees" on the label to get things going!

(end of rant...)

Greets
Phil

 

[Phil280]

Hi there.

@Chris

nor did they evolve in the landscape or climate they find themselves in today.

And that is where you are wrong. Since the ice age the bees have moved from the (now) Mediterranean and spread out all over Europe ...which took a very long time.
During this process the bee races evolved and dominated the areas best suited for them. That is why today a geographical map exists that shows which honey bee lives in what area ...the habitat it evolved in!

Creating and breeding strains from local bees to make them easier to cope with has nothing to do with taking bees from totally different habitats of Europe, Africa and the Middle East to create a genetic cocktail and letting it lose on local honey bees.

Selecting from local colonies can never have the same effect as introducing a new "race"...which is not what I would call it....it's a trademarked product.

Greets
Phil

 

[Hivemaker.]

Creating and breeding strains from local bees to make them easier to cope with has nothing to do with taking bees from totally different habitats of Europe, Africa and the Middle East to create a genetic cocktail and letting it lose on local honey bees.
Selecting from local colonies can never have the same effect as introducing a new "race"...which is not what I would call it....it's a trademarked product.

We have a good selection of local colonies in the UK to select from,Ligustica,Buckfast, Amm from France, Belgium,ect. Carnica from everywhere, like Hawaii,New Zealand,Slovenia,Germany ect. Queens from Australia and loads of other places,and importing has been going on since early Vitorian times,so plenty of genetic material to choose from.
They are all local one's now.

 

[Chris B]

Hi there.

@Chris


And that is where you are wrong. Since the ice age the bees have moved from the (now) Mediterranean and spread out all over Europe ...which took a very long time.
During this process the bee races evolved and dominated the areas best suited for them. That is why today a geographical map exists that shows which honey bee lives in what area ...the habitat it evolved in!

Creating and breeding strains from local bees to make them easier to cope with has nothing to do with taking bees from totally different habitats of Europe, Africa and the Middle East to create a genetic cocktail and letting it lose on local honey bees.

Selecting from local colonies can never have the same effect as introducing a new "race"...which is not what I would call it....it's a trademarked product.

Greets
Phil

Phil, I don't know about Austria, but over the last 1000 years the British Isles have changed from large forests and through different phases of agricultural use. Today's landscape has changed dramatically in the last 60 years alone. It's no longer what our native bees evolved in.

 

[Scutellator]

People that don't understand the basics of how drones pass their genes on and what great responsibility goes with beekeeping, should not be keeping bees but should buy chickens instead or get an aquarium.

Well, maybe then we all should go to raise chickens or start to work the eart. And who will decide whose understandings are correct and whose are wrong. Before 60 years ago the peoples didn't had an idea about the number of the drones which the queen mates to and jet, they kept bees. Since the science constantly discover new facts and turns upside down many theories that has been held as true (and still are, despite the facts), so HOW you can be so sure that you know anything at all.

If it were up to me to decide, I would make it illegal to keep any honey bee in Austria that is not native. I would do the same in any county.

We all know the Carnica fans LOVE to do that.
You just don't need to import foreign material to ruin purebred strain of bees, so please don't make an excuses.
I don't think that there is a Buckfast breeder who is not ardently concerned with the continuous hybridisation and the slipping through our fingers of many valuable strains, simply because there were not taken measures. Then, the best he can do is to save some of its genes by integrating them into a strain.
Native bees need protection, but that doesn't mean everyone to pay the price for that. Would you give up your car and start driving a carriage only because we have to save the horses?
The purebred races no matter how good they are, have no place in progressive beekeeping, the best they can be used is for combination breeding (not just for cross- breeding).

And by the way - the bees do not EVOLVE.

I feel myself personally responsible for many of the aforesaid comments with lack of basic knowledge about the Buckfast theory.
It had to be already done by now, but because it is not, such comments appear and will continue to appear until is not explained.

So WHAT IS BUCKFAST ANYWAY?
Let me ask the first question

If a Buckfast queen is mated to Buckfast drones what will be the result?

Really? Even if not bred by the Buckfast principles?


Regards
Donnie

 

[mbc]

Phil, I don't know about Austria, but over the last 1000 years the British Isles have changed from large forests and through different phases of agricultural use. Today's landscape has changed dramatically in the last 60 years alone. It's no longer what our native bees evolved in.

I dissagree. The landscape has changed dramatically from the time the land bridge to europe dissapeared but mostly due to climate and not mankind. It will change greatly in the furure too and that will be due to climate and not mankind also IMHO. Any change we make is a blip compared to nature and so our landscape in its changing form is exactly( or nearly so) what our native bees evolved in.

 

[beebreeder]

Back to the subject of The Buckfast Bee. It's somewhat similar to hives, in that as beekeepers we all have our prefered hive and thats the one we use, different to others but its our choice. The same applies with Bees, we all have our preference whatever we choose for our own reasons, one thing that has not been mentioned is the fact that the Buckfast by the very way it was conceived is a far more dificult race to keep pure, if you have a specific race of bee then it has given characteristics unique to that bee,like the Carnis, the grey grizzly, and you know if you still have carnis because its twice the work keeping them from swarming. The buckfast is a system and the queens can even be of differing colour but they are still buckfast, to me they are our native bee as AMM was all but wiped out, and the Buckfast is the bred replacement, now its time to put my tin hat on LOL

 

[Crg]

The best bee for your area is the local bee...that is why it evolved there...in simple words - that's why nature put it there.

That's a nice thought, but (like many other myths spread around by some UK Beekeepers) it should be obvious by just looking around at the list of invasive species that it's not true.

Nature works with random genetic mutations and selection.
Only if a mutation shows up in a population is selection able to take place on it.

It's entirely possibly for genetic changes better able to take advantage of a particular environment to arise elsewhere, but not exist in the local population.

 

[Crg]

Dear PH, the forum is rather flat at the moment and personally, I was quite looking forwards to your response to Nortons attack but I have to say, I'm disappointed.

If PH is in the wrong it seems he just blocks rather than comes back with a good response.

It'd be great if he could come back with a well thought out argument, but I can't see that happening.

When discussing simple ideas such as creating a breed, I've linked to articles or definitions which he seems to be steadfastly ignoring.
I've even privately messaged him suggesting certain material such as page 30 of "Background to Bee breeding" by John H. Atkinson which would hopefully fill in some blanks that he seems to have.

To me, trying to argue whether Buckfast bees are a good thing or not, while not understanding some of the basics, is pointless and of no benefit to anyone.

 

[Carsten]

I love your diskussion about the Buckfast. We had the same back in the 80's.

The Danish Beekeepers Association makes a quality controle of commercial queen rearers and privates. It is a kind of competition. Every year Queen rearers send x-queens to DBA and they are distributed to chosen hosts(12-15). All kind of tests are performed, hygene,nosema,caracter etc. and by the end of season all information are send back and compared. Sorry to say, Buckfast has always been the winner.

 

[Crg]

Bees have been around much longer than beekeepers have and certainly, some diseases may test the species but certainly in the end the bee will evolve and survive.

The length of time something has existed as a species doesn't give any guarantees that it will continue to survive.

"Triceratops had been around much longer than beekeepers have and certainly, some diseases may test the species but certainly in the end the Triceratops will evolve and survive."

Instead the Buckfast bee was born which is where the real serious start of mongrelisation started in the UK IMO,

It had already started happening, and would've happened, just look at other countries.

Why? Er, because they're native, ergo, they are best suited to cope with the climatic conditions etc. That is not to say that they won't be severely tested by diseases and such like, as any strain in any country would be.

Just like the Red Squirrel is best suited to cope with the UK environment, not the Grey?

IMO it is lazy to import bees.

If people bred better bees in this country, and they were more available, there would be less imports. This is true no matter what bee you want to keep.

It is a romantic idealism.

Surely romantic idealism is making claims such as the native bee is better adapted to the UK?

Or making sweeping statements that because bees have been around longer than us, that somehow that means their survival is guaranteed?

And it is removed from nature and natural law.

Is breeding AMM that is docile and non swarmy working against nature and natural law?

If there would be a ban, then beekeepers would be forced to work with their bees.

No, people would smuggle them without disease checks. That's what people do. Expecting anything else is just romantic idealism.

For me, I don't like the Buckfast bee.
Maybe great initially for beginners, but that's all for me.

There's possibly some truth to them being great initially for beginners.
Dealing with the amount of honey I get from them is becoming a chore.
At least when you're a beginner getting honey is exciting.

Beekeeping is not perfect. Work with your bees. Yes you will get bad temper and bad traits but you can gradually select to eliminate them.

So rather than leave it up to nature, you perform you own selection?

 

[Swarm]

Trouble is, mankind has meddled with nature for years, the biggest menace on the planet. Whether or not you'd want to, there's not much that can be done about it now.

Crg,
I can see the point you are making but using Triceratops as an example is not the best is it? Since a global catastrophe brought about the demise of the dinosaur. Barring that event, who is to say it would not evolve and survive?

Similarly with the Red Squirrel, disease carried by the Grey rather than the animal itself destroyed the Red population.

Whatever we have now, we have to learn to live with and that also includes the many pests we have inadvertently spread around the globe.

 

[Crg]

I can see the point you are making but using Triceratops as an example is not the best is it? Since a global catastrophe brought about the demise of the dinosaur. Barring that event, who is to say it would not evolve and survive?

Some dinosaurs did evolve and survive. I was making an example of one rather large and obvious species that was around for a long time, and for some reason died out.

There's is an almost endless list of species, both historical and recent that aren't around any more.
The various reasons for their demise is also quite a long list.

Similarly with the Red Squirrel, disease carried by the Grey rather than the animal itself destroyed the Red population.

There are other reasons you could put forward for the grey out competing the red.

If native was always better adapted we wouldn't have so many invasive species causing problems.

 

[the naked beekeeper]

Quote:
Originally Posted by the naked beekeeper View Post
Bees have been around much longer than beekeepers have and certainly, some diseases may test the species but certainly in the end the bee will evolve and survive.
The length of time something has existed as a species doesn't give any guarantees that it will continue to survive.

"Triceratops had been around much longer than beekeepers have and certainly, some diseases may test the species but certainly in the end the Triceratops will evolve and survive."


lol. And if a massive meteorite hit the Earth today, then more than bees would be tested! I said they would overcome diseases and pests..not global chaos and disaster.

There are no guarantees, but the fact that it has endured successfully for so long and faced more tests than you or I will ever know, gives a pretty strong indication that it would have to be something very major to wipe the species out.

Quote:
Originally Posted by the naked beekeeper View Post
Instead the Buckfast bee was born which is where the real serious start of mongrelisation started in the UK IMO,
It had already started happening, and would've happened, just look at other countries.

Yes. I said it was the real serious start. The fact that BA had a jolly around the world, funded by the abbey, to indulge him in his passion added serious trend and momentum to the idea and favour behind importing bees and altogether playing with the gene pool on a global scale. It had happened and would have happened regardless. But BA's jolly around the world added serious trend to it and exacerbated the importation of bees and wish to gain a better bee by looking abroad.

Quote:
Originally Posted by the naked beekeeper View Post
Why? Er, because they're native, ergo, they are best suited to cope with the climatic conditions etc. That is not to say that they won't be severely tested by diseases and such like, as any strain in any country would be.
Just like the Red Squirrel is best suited to cope with the UK environment, not the Grey?


The 'UK environment' has been radically altered in favour of the grey squirrel.
Not only has the habitat of the red been taken away (coniferous forest) but any that has been replaced, has been to the favour of the grey squirrel (deciduous) and the detriment of the red, not to mention the introduction of a non-native disease along with the grey has massacred it.


Introduce a pest to the bee and it will struggle...buckie or AMM....and we see that with varroa. Again..it is a foreign pest, not native to us and is one more cock up brought about by the stupid beeks importing bees. I await SHB to come to our shores.....Bayer and etc are rubbing their hands.

Similarly, alter the habitat to the detriment of the bee and it will suffer.
We too have seen that. A loss of wildflower pasture and hedgerow and an increase in cereal agriculture and cattle grazing.....however, IMO the AMM if left unmanaged would outperform the buckies. Why? Because they fly (forage and mating) in lower temperatures, they keep their brood tailored to the flow. And always with honey and pollen (the bees lifeblood and sustenance) surrounding the brood and never more bees than can be fairly sustained within their resources and the weather.

Buckies?....brood brood brood....feed feed feed...left unmanaged and unfed, their lack of propensity to deal with the English weather means they will starve themself out of house and home in good time.

It's no coincidence that Denmark are the manufacturers of Ambrosia and pollen stimulants....

In an exceptional year, I expect the buckies to come up with the biggest honey crop. But I also expect them to need lots of feeding and for that exceptional year to be few and far between.


We're talking about bees here, not global disasters killing dinosaurs and not diseases and loss of habitat reducing red squirrels. and favourable habitat being planted for greys. A reduction of natural habitat and non-native disease would threaten any species.
As it happens, where the original habitat (Caledonian forest) exists, the reds do very well. Such a change hasn't been as severe to the bee, they are arguably more adaptable than many species, squirrels or whatever, they can construct a home (habitat) in most cavities and their is still forage, although a reduction in forage is measurable, I still expect native bees to be more successful than buckies.

Keep it on track.


Quote:
Originally Posted by the naked beekeeper View Post
IMO it is lazy to import bees.
If people bred better bees in this country, and they were more available, there would be less imports. This is true no matter what bee you want to keep.

Agreed.
So it is lazy to import them.
Improve your own bees and keep non-native diseases out at the same time.
If you can't do it in your own time, then network with other beeks and work together.

Quote:
Originally Posted by the naked beekeeper View Post
It is a romantic idealism.
Surely romantic idealism is making claims such as the native bee is better adapted to the UK?

I believe it is.



Or making sweeping statements that because bees have been around longer than us, that somehow that means their survival is guaranteed?

Barring a global catastrophe, then as good as.

Bees have been through more than you and I will ever know.

Quote:
Originally Posted by the naked beekeeper View Post
And it is removed from nature and natural law.
Is breeding AMM that is docile and non swarmy working against nature and natural law?

Are you putting words into my mouth?
Where did I say I bred bees which are docile and non-swarmy?

I like calmness yes, but I will tolerate some bad temper if there is reasonable cause for it.
Breeding the most successful bee is with natural law.
One that doesn't need constant feeding.
One that does get a good honey crop...more honey=better chance of survival.
One that can take advantage of flows, even in poor weather.

Non-swarminess is not the highest on my list of selection traits.
A healthy and successful bee is. And I believe swarming to be a sign of a healthy colony.

Quote:
Originally Posted by the naked beekeeper View Post
If there would be a ban, then beekeepers would be forced to work with their bees.
No, people would smuggle them without disease checks. That's what people do. Expecting anything else is just romantic idealism.

Maybe some. Sure. I'm realistic. But how defeatist to not implicate something because some might break the rules! Best do away with the police force eh? There is always some crime, somewhere. Romantic idealism.

Or how about introducing educational programmes advising beekeepers and the public of the dangers of importing bees.
Although that will probably never happen as Bayer et al want to make money from selling more drugs.
I'm a positive person, looking for positive solutions. If people were that easily put off something, by the few who go against the grain, then nothing would get done. If something bad does happen, by virtue of a few breaking the law, then there is more chance of isolating it.

I'm not an eco-warrior or native ecologist, species expert, I haven't the opinions or cures for any other such species-related problem in nature, but with bees, this is where I stand.

You don't want to do anything unless it's pefect and flawless?
That's the buckie syndrome...the search for the best bee ever by combining every trait you ever wanted, from different species around the globe and trying to assimilate it into a species and then integrate that species into a climate it has no experience of...and thus would slowly decline if left unmanaged.

BA did not want a healthy bee per se. He wanted one that when managed in an apiary, had the potential with the manipulations and coercement of the beekeeper, to give massive honey yields. An uber bee for mankind. A mechanical cog. A vehicle he can steer where he wants. You take the steering wheel away (us) and the car will hit the wall.
That is not what I am about.


No bee is perfect.
Just work with your local bees. And improve them.

Everyones idea of what 'improve' means is different...improve to me, is selecting the most successful across all levels, with minimal management.
The ones best suited to your conditions. The healthiest. The ones who can get a good average crop in all years and weathers. The ones who supercede. The ones who never brood more than their resources and keep honey and pollen back for a darker day. The ones with least disease. The ones who don't need feeding and can fend for themselves.


The dangers of importation are there for all to see..to all bees.

Aside from that, increased imports leads to increased mongrelisation. Leads to more undpredictable results. Leads to more need to import 'pure' strain bees from abroad. Leads to an altogether scattergun approach to bee selection and improvment. I'm practical and a realist. You work with what you've got to improve it. If that happens to be AMM, then great. First and foremost, I want healthy and productive bees, who can do the job more or less in any given British summer. I don't move bees to crops, I don't feed unless an emergency. I don't want to manage them all that much. Supercedure is a trait I approve of. Let the bees do the work for you. IMO AMM do the work for you, more or less in any given British Summer.

Quote:
Originally Posted by the naked beekeeper View Post
For me, I don't like the Buckfast bee.
Maybe great initially for beginners, but that's all for me.
There's possibly some truth to them being great initially for beginners.
Dealing with the amount of honey I get from them is becoming a chore.
At least when you're a beginner getting honey is exciting.

And do you have to feed them afterwards?
Is there much honey left in the BB?
Do you feed them to spring stimulate?

Whatever the answer, keeping my bees is not about gaining and extracting every last drop of honey.
I want happy, successful, heatlhy bees.
I want a surplus.
But I want the bees to overwinter on their own honey.
I want them to be able to have it even in a poor summer.
I want them to be able to deal with British nectars and honeys such as ivy and heather.



Quote:
Originally Posted by the naked beekeeper View Post
Beekeeping is not perfect. Work with your bees. Yes you will get bad temper and bad traits but you can gradually select to eliminate them.
So rather than leave it up to nature, you perform you own selection?

I let the bees breed naturally. But I choose, by selecting the most successful ones, which colony will give me my potential queens.
Those bees which are successful by natural law yes. Good honey getters. Nice arch of pollen and honey. Good flyers. Supercedure. And no I don't mind if they try to swarm..that is a positively good sign to me of a healthy bee!!

Healthy bees swarm to reproduce!

 

[mbc]

I tend to agree apart from healthy bees do swarm to reproduce.
An interesting thought experiment would be to imagine a British Isles without people for a few years ( about a dozen should do it IMHO ). The resulting surviving bees would almost certainly resemble AMM ( in my area definitely ).
The way I see it, if this is true, which I strongly suspect to be the( hypothetical ) case in most of Britain, then trying to keep any other sort of bee is swimming against the tide for any sort of sustainable beekeeping.
Even if this is nonsense, just imagine what a beautiful place it would be !

 

[Hivemaker.]

Buckies?....brood brood brood....feed feed feed...left unmanaged and unfed, their lack of propensity to deal with the English weather means they will starve themself out of house and home in good time.


No in fact they don't keep raising brood, and the Danish one's seem to shut down brooding rather too early for my liking, and they pack the brood box's out with stores,so they don't eat themseves out of house and home either,don't forget they were bred to live in exposed places like on Dartmoor,only the ones that could over winter well up there in rather harsh conditions were selected. And of course mate under the same conditions.

 

[the naked beekeeper]

I tend to agree apart from healthy bees do swarm to reproduce.
An interesting thought experiment would be to imagine a British Isles without people for a few years ( about a dozen should do it IMHO ). The resulting surviving bees would almost certainly resemble AMM ( in my area definitely ).
The way I see it, if this is true, which I strongly suspect to be the( hypothetical ) case in most of Britain, then trying to keep any other sort of bee is swimming against the tide for any sort of sustainable beekeeping.
Even if this is nonsense, just imagine what a beautiful place it would be !

That was a typo.....I mean't non-healthy bees will not swarm to reproduce!

A healthy colony will be able to split itself off and build up again...I did mention it earlier in my post, several times in fact, just to prove it was a typo!! So yes...I see swarming preperations as a sign of a healthy colony.

 

[Crg]

lol. And if a massive meteorite hit the Earth today, then more than bees would be tested! I said they would overcome diseases and pests..not global chaos and disaster.

and the follow post from me pointed out there are many reasons for a species demise. I find it surprising that it needs pointing out.

There are no guarantees, but the fact that it has endured successfully for so long and faced more tests than you or I will ever know, gives a pretty strong indication that it would have to be something very major to wipe the species out.

That's not really true. There is millions of years you can look back at for examples.

But BA's jolly around the world added serious trend to it and exacerbated the importation of bees and wish to gain a better bee by looking abroad.

Yes, he does seem to have had a good jolly around the world looking for genetics nature had provided.

Why? Er, because they're native, ergo, they are best suited to cope with the climatic conditions etc.

As I have pointed out, this is as you call it "romantic idealism". You've completely ignored what I've pointed out, either because you haven't thought about it, don't understand it, or are just choosing to ignore because it's not what you want to believe.

Selection of mutations can only occur if they happen. Nature isn't sitting there thinking - "hmm.. you know what if I just change this gene here, that'd be great."

Over long periods of time [sub]species in an environment should become more adapted, but that doesn't exclude other [sub]species developing elsewhere that would develop better adaptations.

The 'UK environment' has been radically altered in favour of the grey squirrel.
Not only has the habitat of the red been taken away (coniferous forest) but any that has been replaced, has been to the favour of the grey squirrel (deciduous) and the detriment of the red, not to mention the introduction of a non-native disease along with the grey has massacred it.

Similarly, alter the habitat to the detriment of the bee and it will suffer.
We too have seen that. A loss of wildflower pasture and hedgerow and an increase in cereal agriculture and cattle grazing.....

So the grey squirrel is favoured by changes we've made, and the same has happened to bees. But the native bee is best adapted to the changes we've made, but the red squirrel somehow isn't?

however, IMO the AMM if left unmanaged would outperform the buckies. Why?

Again this is just something that you want to believe, but in reality isn't the case. Buckfast has been selectively bred to suit the current environment.

Buckies?....brood brood brood....feed feed feed...left unmanaged and unfed, their lack of propensity to deal with the English weather means they will starve themself out of house and home in good time.

I've never experienced that ever, it appears to be another one of those things you want to believe.

It's no coincidence that Denmark are the manufacturers of Ambrosia and pollen stimulants....

Is it because they bred AMM?

In an exceptional year, I expect the buckies to come up with the biggest honey crop. But I also expect them to need lots of feeding and for that exceptional year to be few and far between.

I've got a good crop every year I've kept bees in the UK. I've also found that my bees tend to pack the brood nest full of honey. Most people I know don't keep Buckfast, yet they talk about feeding from August onwards.

I still expect native bees to be more successful than buckies.

Then your expectations are incorrect.

Keep it on track.

If you're going to repeat baseless statements that you've heard somewhere and don't appear to have thought through, I'm going to rebut them.

Improve your own bees and keep non-native diseases out at the same time.
If you can't do it in your own time, then network with other beeks and work together.

This is the UK, beekeepers don't work together. In fact they work against each other, they build arguments on incorrect information and ignore logic.

Surely romantic idealism is making claims such as the native bee is better adapted to the UK?

I believe it is.

I'm glad we agree on something.

Or making sweeping statements that because bees have been around longer than us, that somehow that means their survival is guaranteed?

Barring a global catastrophe, then as good as.

Or disease, or competition from another species, or the list is fairly endless.
99% of species that have ever existed are extinct... it's not good odds is it?

Are you putting words into my mouth?
Where did I say I bred bees which are docile and non-swarmy?

It was a question to you. Many people who are breeding AMM for those qualities.

Breeding the most successful bee is with natural law.
One that doesn't need constant feeding.
One that does get a good honey crop...more honey=better chance of survival.
One that can take advantage of flows, even in poor weather.

Ah, excellent! Glad you think the Buckfast complies with natural law
We're finally getting somewhere.

Maybe some. Sure. I'm realistic. But how defeatist to not implicate something because some might break the rules!

It's not defeatist. It's realistic to say that demanding there shouldn't be imports, yet not providing people with alternatives is not going to work.

Although that will probably never happen as Bayer et al want to make money from selling more drugs.

Paranoia is not a good thing to have, it can cloud your judgement.
I keep Buckfast bees and I don't buy anything from Bayer, or any other drug company for my bees. I don't have to.

I'm not an eco-warrior or native ecologist, species expert

There is a lot of truth in that.

I haven't the opinions or cures for any other such species-related problem in nature, but with bees, this is where I stand.

If this is the case, and you want to make a difference, it might help to think things through a bit more.
Repeating stuff that isn't true, is not going to help your cause.

 

[The Cumbrian]

But the native bee is best adapted to the changes we've made, but the red squirrel somehow isn't?

As I understand it Reds require a certain amount of coniferous trees in their diet.

A little like saying Bees can only thrive if there are sufficient Geranium Sp in their foraging area.