Cambridgeshire BKA talk by ITLD

[PeaBee]

Maybe, but still a saving for the same queens. Also they get posted twice, once to BMH then on to the customer.
Why not ship direct?
Why deal with the middle man?
Not sure why Murray doesnt sell direct when producing so my queens. If we need to stop relying on imports, why not supply what we need.

I would imagine because Murray's business is focused on bulk honey production and the queen unit supports that. To start dealing with small orders from amateurs would be massively time consuming. He has a page advertisement in the BFA magazine so deals business to business, but I guess BMH is better placed to deal with the customer service needed to answer queries etc with small numbers and possibly inexperienced customers.

 

[Newbeeneil]

I would imagine because Murray's business is focused on bulk honey production and the queen unit supports that. To start dealing with small orders from amateurs would be massively time consuming. He has a page advertisement in the BFA magazine so deals business to business, but I guess BMH is better placed to deal with the customer service needed to answer queries etc with small numbers and possibly inexperienced customers.

I saw the ad in Beefarmer and sent an email a few days ago enquiring after 10 Queens. As yet I've not had a reply but did not appreciate that he was now only supplying via BMH.

 

[Into the lions den]

Blimey.

That set of notes....which only misses the point slightly in a few minor ways...is about 10 times as long as my prep notes and those themselves are more than I ever prepare for a talk (nervous of working zoom with its lack of interaction).

I know it went on for a LONG time, but every topic is very nuanced and actually almost any one of these topics can be an hour on its own, and swarm control could fill a whole chapter of my never to be written book (there are too many already). If p[lanning on doing any of our little tricks and you do not fully understand PM me for clarification....would not like to think of someone screwing up their bees through trying to copy what I said and not picking up an important part of it which inevitably could not be covered in so brief a talk (seriously...that was essentially just essentially an introductory taster on each topic).

I hope taking all these notes while having dinner with your long suffering husband (all partners of beekeepers are long suffering!) is not going to be cited in impending divorce proceedings! I certainly would not impede my dinner...especially the inevitable sticky toffee pudding to listen to ME droning on...and on...and on. Yes. you do deserve a medal for doing it.

Quite surprised at the reception the talk got...by my own standards I know it was a little flat with less laughs than usual.....looking forward to getting back to the face to face talks later in the winter...though I did do one in Perth recently that filled their hall and went well. FWIW that was more my normal. No notes whatsoever so completely off the cuff, going where the audience wants to go, no questions taboo even if hostile, and finish up with toys..like OA vaoourisers and frames and wax for them to embed after the main talk is over. Always take a few interesting things with me for post talk fiddling about.

As those of you watching would see, Jolanta was online from her own home rather than the office. She would have joined in more but is still recuperating...slowly..from contracting covid, and is very tired and exasperated at how empty it has made her head.

Have had feedback here, on twitter, and most of all by emails and yexts. Thank you all for a really great set of feedback. Was amazed at the lack of significant drop off in numbers attending even as we got close to the 2 hr mark.

There are a few questions popping up on here that I should respond to.....will try to do so today.

Will do responses to individual posts.

 

[Into the lions den]

I saw the ad in Beefarmer and sent an email a few days ago enquiring after 10 Queens. As yet I've not had a reply but did not appreciate that he was now only supplying via BMH.

This topic has come up a bit.

Running a bit behind with email replies as we are still extremely busy and Jolanta is also unwell. Your response will come and yes, she will supply you.

BMH do not have exclusivity. However we are hoping that all new customers for small numbers of queens will go by that route. There seems to be a rule of thumb that the fewer queens a customers takes the more likely they are to take up a lot of Jolanta's time, with the regular calls for advice on a wide range of queen related topics. Lawrence is very good at that with his videos and support mechanism...and he earns his mark up.

We will NOT be declining to supply any existing customers, and all BFA members can come direct, however, for reasons of Jolanta and her team being ultra busy, we will be directing new clients at retail level to those reselling our queens and endorsed by Jolanta herself...which for now only means BMH. If anyone else claims to be offering you Jolanta lines, and have had reports of this, please contact us to ask.

We will be launching a website in the short term that will explain all this and also offer a lot of content giving guidance on how to look after them and achieve safe introduction.

Every half hour she or her team spend filling orders and answering calls impedes the main work of selection grafting, after care, running 50 colonies and over 2000 mating boxes in 2022. She has a target of 4000 queens for next year..plus 1500 nucs...quite unprecedented in UK terms, and this does not include any of the queens early season from Italy raised from her breeder mothers sent over there, where are clearly marketed separately and at a different price point.

Retail work is a specialised niche that we struggle with but is other people's bread and butter.

We do not sell our honey in small amounts, traded in bulk only, via a single trader.
Equipment sales are to bee farmers and associations only and in pallet quantities.
Queens mostly to trade.

We have to keep focus on our primary goal, which is running a large (in UK terms...not internationally) bee farm. The queen unit is part of the picture and its top aim is our own stock improvement, and the selling of queens is a supplementary activity. Supplies from us are prepared by the main teams, we have no retail staff and so lots and lots of small orders can be a distraction. This may change once the website and online ordering are available.
People like BMH are very good at what THEY do and it suits both parties to work together.

Exceptions to the above are local people (not for honey) who can drop in and buy bees or equipment, and existing customers. Not going to chop off anyone used to coming direct.

 

[Newbeeneil]

This topic has come up a bit.

Running a bit behind with email replies as we are still extremely busy and Jolanta is also unwell. Your response will come and yes, she will supply you.

BMH do not have exclusivity. However we are hoping that all new customers for small numbers of queens will go by that route. There seems to be a rule of thumb that the fewer queens a customers takes the more likely they are to take up a lot of Jolanta's time, with the regular calls for advice on a wide range of queen related topics. Lawrence is very good at that with his videos and support mechanism...and he earns his mark up.

We will NOT be declining to supply any existing customers, and all BFA members can come direct, however, for reasons of Jolanta and her team being ultra busy, we will be directing new clients at retail level to those reselling our queens and endorsed by Jolanta herself...which for now only means BMH. If anyone else claims to be offering you Jolanta lines, and have had reports of this, please contact us to ask.

We will be launching a website in the short term that will explain all this and also offer a lot of content giving guidance on how to look after them and achieve safe introduction.

Every half hour she or her team spend filling orders and answering calls impedes the main work of selection grafting, after care, running 50 colonies and over 2000 mating boxes in 2022. She has a target of 4000 queens for next year..plus 1500 nucs...quite unprecedented in UK terms, and this does not include any of the queens early season from Italy raised from her breeder mothers sent over there, where are clearly marketed separately and at a different price point.

Retail work is a specialised niche that we struggle with but is other people's bread and butter.

We do not sell our honey in small amounts, traded in bulk only, via a single trader.
Equipment sales are to bee farmers and associations only and in pallet quantities.
Queens mostly to trade.

We have to keep focus on our primary goal, which is running a large (in UK terms...not internationally) bee farm. The queen unit is part of the picture and its top aim is our own stock improvement, and the selling of queens is a supplementary activity. Supplies from us are prepared by the main teams, we have no retail staff and so lots and lots of small orders can be a distraction. This may change once the website and online ordering are available.
People like BMH are very good at what THEY do and it suits both parties to work together.

Exceptions to the above are local people (not for honey) who can drop in and buy bees or equipment, and existing customers. Not going to chop off anyone used to coming direct.

Many thanks Murray,
My post was not meant to stimulate a reply like yours. You and your team are much too busy as it is!
Keep doing what you obviously do so well and when you get your retail side sorted I'll have those 10 Queens!

 

[Into the lions den]

Many thanks Murray,
My post was not meant to stimulate a reply like yours. You and your team are much too busy as it is!
Keep doing what you obviously do so well and when you get your retail side sorted I'll have those 10 Queens!

LOL...its not a response with any tone of frustration in it, just factual...hope it has answered the same question from several people..actually over 20...who have come back to me on this very point on various media.

Even BMH have contacted me overnight and no doubt they have had some info about the talk and the response. Thats my next email!

 

[Erichalfbee]

There are a few questions popping up on here that I should respond to.....will try to do so today.

Will do responses to individual posts.

Thanks from all of us for taking the time to do that.

 

[Ian123]

Blimey.

I know it went on for a LONG time, but every topic is very nuanced and actually almost any one of these topics can be an hour on its own, and swarm control could fill a whole chapter of my never to be written book (there are too many already). If p[lanning on doing any of our little tricks and you do not fully understand PM me for clarification....would not like to think of someone screwing up their bees through trying to copy what I said and not picking up an important part of it which inevitably could not be covered in so brief a talk (seriously...that was essentially just essentially an introductory taster on each topic).

If you write a book I’m buying it!! It’s not really the volume of books written it’s more the author. Let’s face it even David Beckam and Roger P have written many and let’s face it we’ll soon have 1 about Blenheim survivors!

 

[madasafish]

Yes he's a natural no matter what he says about engaging on Zoom. It was nice to see Jolanta too. I have two queens ordered. Can't wait to give them a whirl

I bought one last year and another this. Excellent.

 

[Hedgerow Honey]

Yes he's a natural no matter what he says about engaging on Zoom. It was nice to see Jolanta too. I have two queens ordered. Can't wait to give them a whirl

At the moment we have over a hundred of Jolanta's finest in colony's. We trialled around thirty against what we normally use and found negligible differences.
The main drivers for the change was a change in the business of our longstanding supplier and the difference in cost per unit, which over around two hundred a year soon adds up.
Bred thirty odd from last years for ourselves, which I assume would make them F2 ish. These so far are proving OK. They are calm on the comb, built up quickly and some even gave us ivy honey, we did flood the mating apiary with similar stock.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thanks John. I like trying new bees and go in open minded. Too lazy to improve my own so happy to let somebody else do it.

 

[Into the lions den]

At the moment we have over a hundred of Jolanta's finest in colony's. We trialled around thirty against what we normally use and found negligible differences.
The main drivers for the change was a change in the business of our longstanding supplier and the difference in cost per unit, which over around two hundred a year soon adds up.
Bred thirty odd from last years for ourselves, which I assume would make them F2 ish. These so far are proving OK. They are calm on the comb, built up quickly and some even gave us ivy honey, we did flood the mating apiary with similar stock.

The Perthshire Jolanta queens we sent you are not going to have shown their full spectrum of characteristics given the dates of supply. They would not have had hatching worker bees until into August which, while they can still do a bit at the heather, is still in build up phase rather than mature.

Piemonte raised Jolanta queens are mated over there to Buckfast drones and, dependant on the quality of pre exisiting supplier you have, may not, as a result, show a huge advantage over another good breeder of Buckfast...however you are still putting 50% good genes into your pool on the female line and 100% on the drone side...so you might not see the change for a generation or two going by that route.

Only assess them after a full season..unless of course there is something glaringly wrong with them...and if there is we want to hear about it!

 

[Hachi]

....

Covered in Murrays post.

 

[Into the lions den]

Just thought about this overnight....perhaps the posts related to MY talk should be moved to the relevant thread and not hijack as thread about a talk from another association, and obscure exchanges about a talk by a presenter way up the peck order of international speakers. Chatter about another talk over the top of a Marla Spivak event is not great. CABK did well to have such a speaker and would have liked to hear it myself.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Just thought about this overnight....perhaps the posts related to MY talk should be moved to the relevant thread and not hijack as thread about a talk from another association, and obscure exchanges about a talk by a presenter way up the peck order of international speakers. Chatter about another talk over the top of a Marla Spivak event is not great. CABK did well to have such a speaker and would have liked to hear it myself.

Done

 

[Apiarist]

Bottom bee space hive needs more cleaning 40% more work vs top bee space, prefers top bee space

? does this mean that Bottom Bee Space has more propolis at the top, and this is the extra cleaning that is meant?
My bees start propolising me if I stand holding the frame long enough while looking for that Queen! My bees propolise everything, it does my head in!

 

[elainemary]

@into

? does this mean that Bottom Bee Space has more propolis at the top, and this is the extra cleaning that is meant?
My bees start propolising me if I stand holding the frame long enough while looking for that Queen! My bees propolise everything, it does my head in!

Murray said bottom bee space requires the frames to be perfectly flush with the top of the box I.e any propolis compromises this requiring more scraping the frames. With Top bee space it’s less essential due to the gap between the top of the frames and the flat excluder. I get around this by using a queen excluder with a rim on bottom bee space hives, so effectively giving top bee space on top of the frames. Crush very few bees when reassembling too.

Find sites next to lots of trees have more propolis, the bees like it but agree it can be a pain when they stick boxes together and along the side bars / runners. I use Vaseline to help reduce this on side bars, which makes it easier to slide the frames along. Poly Nucs especially.

 

[user 20297]

@into
Murray said bottom bee space requires the frames to be perfectly flush with the top of the box I.e any propolis compromises this requiring more scraping the frames. With Top bee space it’s less essential due to the gap between the top of the frames and the flat excluder. I get around this by using a queen excluder with a rim on bottom bee space hives, so effectively giving top bee space on top of the frames. Crush very few bees when reassembling too.

Find sites next to lots of trees have more propolis, the bees like it but agree it can be a pain when they stick boxes together and along the side bars / runners. I use Vaseline to help reduce this on side bars, which makes it easier to slide the frames along. Poly Nucs especially.

Since bee-boxes most frequently don't have the requirement for an excluder to be placed above them, that logic seems flawed.
Assumng that in any given situation, bees are just as likely to propolise or make burr-comb on the top bars of any hive format, any squishing potential must be equal between top or bottom bee-space.
Wouldn't any action which provides an additional void increasing space above frames be counterproductive, as it will encourage an increase in the production of surplus wax or propolis.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Since bee-boxes most frequently don't have the requirement for an excluder to be placed above them, that logic seems flawed.
Assumng that in any given situation, bees are just as likely to propolise or make burr-comb on the top bars of any hive format, any squishing potential must be equal between top or bottom bee-space.
Wouldn't any action which provides an additional void increasing space above frames be counterproductive, as it will encourage an increase in the production of surplus wax or propolis.

Ask Murray. He’s the one who moves thousands of boxes a season

 

[ericbeaumont]

bottom bee space requires the frames to be perfectly flush with the top of the box

It's rare for this to be the case.

Top bars - in poly, new or old wood - usually sit below the rim by a few mill. This is either by contraction, poor assembly or historic instructions.

For example, Thorne box assembly measurements result in top bars below the rim. To accommodate metal ends on top bars? As so few people use ends these days, why persist with this misleading measurement?

Correct beespace would result if boxes set frames flush, but this doesn't happen in the real world of variability and so the ends of top bars are glued to the box above.

You had that sinking feeling when lifting a box to discover the frames below are glued to it? Guaranteed to irritate bees and waste time and sweat.

If you think BBS National is bad, try mixing in unmodified BBS Nationals, which have no rebate at the base of the box to give beespace. At least thirty mill of box wall will be glued to the top bar below.

They're lovely old EH Taylor boxes, at least 60 years old, but they've got to go.