Honeybee colonies down 53%

[Luminos]

According to Garden Organic's December newsletter:

"Wild honeybees are already virtually extinct in the U.K whilst managed honeybee colonies have plummeted by 53% in just 20 years".

Discuss...

 

[Chris Ibbo]

Well that sounds pessimistic! Where did they get there stats from?

 

[tonybloke]

they lost their way when they switched from being the HDRA, henry doubleday research asociation ( I was a member back then) with a big publicity media makeover to become 'garden organic' LOL

as for the story..........................'round objects' comes to mind

 

[Chris Ibbo]

A bit of pumped up scare mongering is what it sounds like. Im sure ive read a report somewhere that bee numbers in the wild are a concern, but the numbers of kept bees is well within the limits of the ebbing and flowing numbers in the uk. Ill try to remember who did the report.

 

[Finman]

.
Bee keeping has dramatically declined in the UK and in the past one hundred years there has been around a 75% decrease in the number of bee hives. There are an estimated 274,000 honey bee hives in the UK; the majority of these hives are kept by approximately 44,000 amateur keepers. Around 200 bee keepers manage bees on a professional basis and are members of the Bee Farmers Association; collectively they manage around 40,000 colonies. The remainder are small-scale producers.

http://www.sustainweb.org/foodfacts/bee_industry/

 

[richardbees]

a load of old toss!

I should be ashamed but I seldom contribute to surveys and I know of a minimum 10 hives in the back garden of a long term squat occupied by illegal immigrants.

 

[Chris Ibbo]

I was under the impression that there was a boom in bee keeping due to the wars when you were given extra rations for keeping bees. Which would mean that this drop in kept bees is just a return to normal numbers. My concern is that we should be doing more as bee keepers as a whole, to make bees more resilient so they can survive better in the wild. This surely is a better ideal as then it doesnt matter how many bees are kept?

 

[dpearce4]

.
Bee keeping has dramatically declined in the UK and in the past one hundred years there has been around a 75% decrease in the number of bee hives. There are an estimated 274,000 honey bee hives in the UK; the majority of these hives are kept by approximately 44,000 amateur keepers. Around 200 bee keepers manage bees on a professional basis and are members of the Bee Farmers Association; collectively they manage around 40,000 colonies. The remainder are small-scale producers.

http://www.sustainweb.org/foodfacts/bee_industry/

We had a talk from fera this week at our BKA and they came up with those figures to.

 

[sunshinemedic]

Not so around my area. The numbers of hives and beeks have gone through the roof in the last 5 years.

 

[Skyhook]

Very dramatic when put like that- but possibly not far off. On the first point, it seems probable that wild colonies are pretty much a thing of the past due to varroa.

On the other point- I attended a talk recently by Mike Brown from the national bee unit who thought it was probably correct that colony numbers were down by around 50%. He put it down to loss of forage, illustrated by a field of grass with not a single flower in it, where wildflowers used to be the main source of nectar. I have also read figures in old book that was posted on here, suggesting that clover was the principal source in England- before grazing was all monoculture rye.

 

[Chris B]

They are 7 years out of date.
1985 to 2005 was the timeframe analysed by a study by Reading Uni.
Over that period they are probably about right.

I think Garden Organic should rename their newsletter to "letter".

 

[Hivemaker.]

Here are few more.



http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8625&highlight=bee+decline+uk


http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21549&highlight=bee+decline+uk

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6928&highlight=bee+decline+uk

 

[Little John]

We had a talk from fera this week at our BKA and they came up with those figures to.

Yeah - but where do Fera get their figures from ? From the BBKA.

BTW, have a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder

" ... in late 2006 and early 2007 the rate of attrition was alleged to have reached new proportions, and the term "colony collapse disorder" began to be used to describe this sudden rash of disappearances (sometimes referred to as Spontaneous Hive Collapse or the Mary Celeste Syndrome in the United Kingdom).[1][27]"

[27] is http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7360832.stm
where you'll read that the so-called 'Mary Celeste Syndrome' refers to the decline in wild Bumblebees, and not hived Honeybees !
Sure, there are a few attempts there at creative journalism to infer that Honeybees are likewise affected - but without any actual supporting evidence.

Still, journalists have got to come up with something to fill their pages or websites with - else they'd be out of a job.

/cynical

LJ

 

[Skyhook]

Little John, to clarify- Mike Brown was not talking about any crisis wiping out colonies, but a decline in the number of colonies kept due to decisions made by beekeepers to give up or reduce numbers, not least in light of declining returns resulting from reduced forage availability.

 

[Finman]

Yeah - but where do Fera get their figures from ? From the BBKA.

BTW, have a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder

"
LJ

This all is false. Nothing like this have not been observed:
Wiki: "European beekeepers observed similar phenomena in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain,[2] and initial reports have also come in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a lesser degree[3] while the Northern Ireland Assembly received reports of a decline greater than 50%.[4]

Multiple possible causes of CCD have been identified. In 2007, some authorities attributed the problem to biotic factors such as Varroa mites and insect diseases (i.e., pathogens[5] including Nosema apis and Israel acute paralysis virus).[6][7] Other proposed causes include environmental change-related stresses,[8] malnutrition, pesticides (e.g.. neonicotinoids such as clothianidin and imidacloprid[9][10][11]), and migratory beekeeping. More speculative possibilities have included both cell phone radiation[12][13] and genetically modified (GM) crops with pest control characteristics.[14][15]

==============================

That all is collection of believes

Official CCD informer is MAAREC, the consortion of 6 universities.
https://agdev.anr.udel.edu/maarec/2011/02/07/summary-of-honey-bee-losses-for-de-and-md-2010/

in EUROPE COLOSS project handles now these issues.

USA is only country where CCD has beed indentified and the reason are still unknown.

 

[Karol]

Official CCD informer is MAAREC, the consortion of 6 universities.
https://agdev.anr.udel.edu/maarec/2011/02/07/summary-of-honey-bee-losses-for-de-and-md-2010/

Hmmmm! Not sure I'd put too much emphasis on MAAREC. Why did they discount the 2007 CCD losses from their statistics? The sample size is also very very small for a survey.

USA is only country where CCD has beed indentified and the reason are still unknown.

I think the probable reason for that is that the 'selective' definition of CCD links it to a mass effect rather than a set of hive symptoms and therein lies a serious problem because it diminishes the ability to make differential diagnoses.

 

[Finman]

I think the probable reason for that is that the 'selective' definition of CCD links it to a mass effect rather than a set of hive symptoms and therein lies a serious problem because it diminishes the ability to make differential diagnoses.

Typical CCD is such that workers are gone from hive, there is brood, a hand full bees and a queen. This a definition from USA.

Serious problems. COLOSS project in Europe started to examine, what happens in Europe? Bees have 32 known pest and diseases.

When CCD news fist came, in every country experts went to tell to reporters that they know what is happening. Like one beekeeper told that he lost 10 hives to CCD in London. In Scpotland mankind was dieing.


Canada has not met CCD but it has had severe winter losses for varroa.

.

 

[Haughton Honey]

I have also read figures in old book that was posted on here, suggesting that clover was the principal source in England- before grazing was all monoculture rye.

We're very fortunate around here to have white clover as possibly our main source of nectar during the season - plenty of dairy farmers (this is principally a dairy area) had lots of clover in their cattle forage.

 

[alanf]

According to Garden Organic's December newsletter:

"Wild honeybees are already virtually extinct in the U.K whilst managed honeybee colonies have plummeted by 53% in just 20 years".

Seems to be the same unsourced scaremongering nonsense thrown out on Countryfile not so long ago.

www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17351

What we do know is that BBKA history pages say that there were 80,000 beekeepers and 396,000 hives in 1953. That's England and Wales, probably their estimate of the peak post-war. We know BBKA membership fell to 9,000 in 2001, rose to 20,000 in 2010 and they claim 23,000 now. If half the 80,000 in 1953 were BBKA members, it is a substantial three quarter reduction in beekeepers 1953 to 2001 but numbers may have doubled since then,

The 1953 numbers are affected by sugar rationing, beekeepers could claim sugar rations and anecdotally many were claiming for empty boxes but they are likely to be the best numbers available. A widely quoted DEFRA estimate is 250,000 hives in the UK which has been quoted for ten years or more. Various bee farmers (including ITLD in posts here) think that is a politically convenient figure and hives were probably some way under 200,000. Recent interest and a definite increase in beekeeper numbers, albeit many in the 1-4 hive range, mean there are almost certainly more colonies now than ten years ago. England and Wales numbers counted in September are included in the 2011 SE Region honey survey. These are NBU inspector figures, they have some ground based credibility, even if from a single angle. 25,000 beekeepers in beebase, + 25% unregistered, average 5.07 colonies per beekeeper or 158,437 colonies. Impossibly precise given the broad estimates going in, the actual numbers could easily be ten percent or more either way.

"managed honeybee colonies have plummeted by 53% in just 20 years". If nobody can produce an estimate with any precision now, how likely are figures in 1992 to be any better? 53% is no more than spurious accuracy based on unlikely guesses in 1992 and 2012. That's not far off complete fiction.

Sad thing is that many have sympathy for organic and other environmental issues but the organisations that do exist regularly blow holes in their own credibility by just making stuff up.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Not so around my area. The numbers of hives and beeks have gone through the roof in the last 5 years.

same here , and not many are in a beekeepers association, saw a local school flea market selling cut comb in used margarine tubs, no insurance, no lable, no weight ,she was polish and only spoke a little english