Fact or fiction?

[MJBee]

Quote:- The British Beekeeping Association has said that disease and bad weather is wreaking havoc in hives. Unquote

Is this statement fact or scaremongering?

 

[Chris B]

It's more like an exaggeration.

But it's not a quantitative statement so hard to prove or refute it.

 

[oliver90owner]

Is this bad summer weather of recent years (poor mating flights) or are they referring to the recent run of cold weather?

Yes, unqualified statements are about as useful as a choclate teapot. No time base, no data, no use.

Regards, RAB

 

[Finman]

Quote:- The British Beekeeping Association has said that disease and bad weather is wreaking havoc in hives. Unquote

?

That sentence taken from its background does not say much what is the idea.

 

[BKF Admin]

Bad weather Finman,thats temperatures as low as minus 12c !
I await your reply

 

[Poly Hive]

Looking at the clip that they sent out the chaps bees looked to me to have starved. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7740811.stm

Very odd colony set up too.

PH

 

[Finman]

Bad weather Finman,thats temperatures as low as minus 12c !
I await your reply

We would say that the winter was exceptionally warm.

In these conditions our hives survive splended.

 

[Stiffy]

Quote:- The British Beekeeping Association has said that disease and bad weather is wreaking havoc in hives. Unquote

Is this statement fact or scaremongering?

Have looked at clip which has left me wondering if he has inspected his hives since last summer as at least one still had 3-4 supers on!

I suspect that BBKA are continuing with their theme that all is bad in the bee world. My tutor spent so long telling the class how bad things where, we started questioning why we on the course at all.


As I have just (nearly) been through my first winter I am delighted that my hives appear to have survived and most are strong enough to make me start to worry about early swarming. Now theres a sign of spring arriving......... worrying about swarms!

 

[MJBee]

I agree PH - what raised my eyebrows was the way the BBKA comment implied that all the UK's bees were affected, ie scaremongering.
Mike

 

[Finno]

Clip/new item dates from Nov 2008

P F

 

[Finman]

2 years ago

Honeybees may be wiped out in 10 years

By Jasper Copping
Published: 12:01AM GMT 20 Jan 2008

In London, about 4,000 hives - two-thirds of the bee colonies in the capital - were estimated to have died over last winter. Of the eight colonies inspected so far this year, all have been wiped out.

The losses are being blamed on Colony Collapse Disorder, a disease that has severely affected bee populations in America and Europe, and a resistant form of Varroa destructor, a parasitic mite that affects bees.

Professor Francis Ratniek, a bee expert at Sheffield University, said: "If there was to be a bee collapse the effect on Britain would be huge.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3322359/Honeybees-may-be-wiped-out-in-10-years.html

 

[Black Comb]

If bee population is getting smaller, what is filling all those additional hives that Thornes, Maisemore etc have sold over the past 2 - 3 years?

 

[Poly Hive]

Slight change of topic but what hacks me about the British part of the BBKA name is precisely that comment above.

If the British Beekeeping association says xyz it applies to the UK as a whole when patently it does not.

If they are reduced to pandering the rubbish on that clip then I am almost (but not quite) sorry for them.

I wonder if the committee knows what rubbish the publicity officer is putting out in their names?

PH

 

[roche]

I rather suspect the publicity officer puts out what they are told to put out by the committee...