Import of NZ bees into UK

[fox403]

I have just getting into bee-keeping, and reading as many books and as much info as possible on this site and decided I want to keep the amm and the reason is as far as we know its native to uk its not a more productive bee or as sweet natured as your hybrids but its belongs here ...if we as beekeepers keep diluting the genes down with imports it will be to late for amms to recover this is not just co-op but for all of us to do the right thing

Sent from my MB525 using Tapatalk

 

[Somerford]

Fox - couldn't agree more !

ITLD - could you indicate where the bees to go with the queens will be sourced from. Presumably they aren't local to the areas mentioned ?

S

 

[johna]

All this attack on someone who appears to be transparent with his statements Somerfield.Do you expend the same vitriol on Mike R-----s and his enterprise ?. he imports 1000's of queens and must surely pose a greater threat??

 

[Somerford]

1. I have already answered this. Only queens are coming from NZ this year..

And presumably this will recur yearly as you requeen or are you setting up a localised breeding programme ?

2. Your turncoat is the exact oposite. They are only letting the Co-op know about opposition, not about the posts that are not fully supportive of your position. Still do not know who it is btw. Will be visiting Manchester soon, might find out then..

It is inevitable that big business has it's feelers everywhere....I should know I used to work for the biggest of them !

3. Stuck record. I have explained in detail why these bees. The pics might shed some light on it if you still believe only in the saintly A.m.m. they want to encourage beekeepers to start. These gentle bees are to assist with that on visits and demos. they are not for sale outwith the venture. yes, there are lots more of the queens coming in to other people, but none of the ones in the Co-op venture will be for sale outwith it. Getting people started and showing them it does not HAVE to be done with grumpy bees MUST be a good thing and as such is wholly in accordance with the spirit of plan B. .

Where have I said I believe in the A.M.M.? I believe in halting further imports of foreign bees with genes that are different from our own, from climates that are different, from areas that may or may not have worse diseas control than our own. I think I have been pretty clear about this. I don't think one should mix up the aims and objectives of Plan B and try to make your project's aims somehow tally with them on the pretext about calm bees. The facts remain that the bees will not be British and therefore not representative of the bees they will likely keep in the future.

Large volume of bees? It will not be 10% of the imports this spring that *I* know of................no idea the overall total, but it could be 10,000 plus? Forget the official figures, they are just the tip of the iceberg..

Now we're talking. I, like many others, have long suspected this....and I appreciate you being candid in your previous posts.

4. Me taken the Co-ops shilling? or maybe they have taken mines??? lol.................sling mud if you wish. I have a thick hide and am impervious to it..

I was merely pointing out to other readers the side of the fence and which camp you're with !

5. Your anti foreign stance is very plain. However in the world you live in today your borders are from the Baltic to Cyprus, from Portugal to Romania. It is not UK/England/Gloucestershire/Cirencester/4 Anystreet. At least from outwith these shores you should have a health certificate. Unnotified shipments have the same status health wise as internal UK shipments. That is NO official health status..

err - now you are totally wrong here. I employ foreign people, drive a foreign car, am not a member of the BNP or UKIP. My last job involved much travel to the Indian sub-continent, and importing of goods from 3 Asian countries. But I agree, UNNOTIFIED shipments are under the radar....and highly illegal, at least your shipments are certified, but that doesn't make it right!

6. Yes, I know you are organising a campaign. The Co-op knows it, and I *assume* it is your campaign that two members of the media have been in touch about. I await their next follow up, as it seems more likely they will end up running a positive story, as happened with the Scottish unit. You are indeed apparently raising awareness of the project. Good. The worst publicity one can get is no publicity at all..

Interesting - I have yet to speak to any media/journalists or even write an email....they have got this from someone else...I am not the only one here who is banging the drum Murray !

Quite plainly you have a fixed mind about all this and are not really here to find out............your claim to have 'pieced together the whole picture' back at post one, and jumped to conclusions based on rumour, heresay, and assumptions mixed with scant facts really says it all. You did not have the full picture, and now I am offering it to you, you do not want it. If you think I am the kind of person who takes ANYONES shilling then you are again working on assumptions in the comfortable isolation of never having met me, not seen how I work, and seemingly no wish to. ( 'Nothing to gain' comment in response to the offer to visit.).

In post #1, I shared what I had been told and that was right at the time....I was prepared to stick my neck out and raise the issue. So some of the facts have changed, I accept that, but I still do not accept the fundamental issue at stake - that of bee imports in these times when we should be doing all we can to secure our bio-security.

A good number of people are coming back to me privately on this scheme now, mostly wanting to find out more, and several wanting to come to visit.

I head off on my travels tomorrow afternoon. Lots to do. Will still answer questions though.

Drive safely

I look forward to an apology about my supposed 'anti foreign' stance!

Somerford

 

[greatbritishhoney]

I too agree that ITLD has allayed some of the fears originally raised, but there are two points that, I am happy to admit, I doubt my mind will ever be changed upon:
1. That mass importation of any livestock is a good idea. There are countless case histories of this going disastrously wrong in the past. I'm sure Warwick Kerr would have said interbreeding African bees with European bees was perectly safe.
2. That the Co-op is doing the "right" thing here. Let's face it, they will have had plenty of top level discussions about whether the potential negative publicity will cause them any problems with their bottom line. They will have concluded that the majority of the public won't care, therefore it's OK. My problem with this has always been that supermarkets (not just the co-op) portray themselves as champions of whatever the cause of the day is but are happy to abandon / bend their principles if it gets in the way of profit.
They'd all be stocking GM food tomorrow if they thought the public would stomach it.

Personally I think the co-op will be a little worried now about potential bad publicity and they will be putting considerable efforts into a slick publicity operation to smooth it all over. What else would you expect them to do?

 

[Into the lions den]

ITLD - could you indicate where the bees to go with the queens will be sourced from. Presumably they aren't local to the areas mentioned ?
S

Not 100% decided yet. All depends on the health certificate, how reliable I think that is, and the cost. They are after all only the starter bees, after 6 weeks all the bees will be descendants of the queen. I have several offers. I will not buy bees without a reliable health certificate.

I can assure you absolutely it is not New Zealand. Air freight cost is extreme.

 

[nonstandard]

..........I am glad that the Co-Op now have someone reading this thread, as well as a 'Spy-In-Our-Midst' forwarding everything....I wonder who that is ??! Bl**dy turncoat..............

Somerford

At risk of further inflaming sensitivities, it is a public forum, open to all and viewable without membership; are you surprised that someone has been keeping the co-op informed?

Are you sure that the 'turncoat' was doing it to damage your argument, it is possible that they wanted to ensure that the co-op were fully aware of how their project may potentially affect local beekeepers?

(Rhetorical questions BTW )

 

[BobH1]

All depends on the health certificate ... I will not buy bees without a reliable health certificate.

This is the key point, isn't it. We can agree with Somerford as much as we like, in theory. BUT until someone in the UK or Europe can supply this number of this quality of certified healthy bees or queens, then they are going to be imported.

 

[fox403]

but wouldnt most of us be happy if the co-op turned around and said we will do are part ,,,take as many breeding stock of amms as we can get hold of this year push this to the pubic with bbka and every other club behind them smiles on all faces yes profit will not be as big as they hope for,, but sell alot more and alot let hassel

 

[fox403]

can see it as a huge!! selling point british endanged bee being helped by the co-op

 

[Norton]

I'm sure Warwick Kerr would have said interbreeding African bees with European bees was perfectly safe.

We don't know if he said this. But the genes were released in error by a technician who misunderstood what to do. So, he did initially try to keep the AHB as a separate entity. It was an experiment that went horribly wrong and Kerr said many years later that he often contemplated suicide because of all the trouble it caused.

 

[BobH1]

alot let hassel

Don't you believe it! I can't speak for the CO-OP, but if I was them this would have been one of the business options considered (and clearly rejected!) I don't think the public can tell the difference between a wasp and a bee let alone the different types of Apis Melifera. As far as the public are concerned these bees were born in Britain, collected their honey in Britain and are British.

can see it as a huge!! selling point british endanged bee being helped by the co-op

Are the British bees endangered? The CO-OP could be seen (and probably will be seen) by the public as doing a "good thing" bringing in several hundred queens with ancient British ancestry and thus increasing the number of bee colonies in the UK.
And I personally am quite happy that the British gene pool has been enhanced by this number of such placid bee stock. (There's lots of talk about second generation hybrids being agressive. True some will be - this it what you might expect with F2 hybrids. A lot won't be as well. The genes will improve the placidness of the British bee ultimately.)
Discussions on this forum have done much to satisfy me about any issues I had on the risks to the health of the British bee population as a result of this exercise.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

We don't know if he said this. But the genes were released in error by a technician who misunderstood what to do. So, he did initially try to keep the AHB as a separate entity. It was an experiment that went horribly wrong and Kerr said many years later that he often contemplated suicide because of all the trouble it caused.

I totally agree, and I think it proves the point that what seems like a perfectly "safe" venture can go wrong despite the best efforts and best intentions of those involved. Although I want to make it clear that I'm in no way suggesting that this NZ bees project is dangerous on that scale (or at all for that matter), just that the process has inherent risks irrespective of the control measures put in place.

 

[Tom Bick]

And I personally am quite happy that the British gene pool has been enhanced by this number of such placid bee stock. (There's lots of talk about second generation hybrids being agressive. True some will be - this it what you might expect with F2 hybrids. A lot won't be as well. The genes will improve the placidness of the British bee ultimately.)
Discussions on this forum have done much to satisfy me about any issues I had on the risks to the health of the British bee population as a result of this exercise.

Obviously we don’t know that at this time and it looks as though it has not been tested for any great length, but if we go on past experience with this phenomenon that on occasion 1st or 2nd generation of queens from hybrids are aggressive then from my experience with one hive calling them aggressive is not the right word and DAMNED RIGHT DANGEROUS is closer to the mark.

 

[Poly Hive]

If you read back these quiet bees are stated as being quite reasonable when crossed, so there is already a pool of knowledge regarding that issue.

I mentioned bad temper on the cross, as when I had YELLOW bees from NZ many years ago on the cross they were nasty to say the least.

PH

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Have a look at the co-op's latest video...

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7K23rUjczI[/ame]

It's very interesting and all laudible stuff. But this is the kind of professional marketing you're up against if you think you can change opinion here.

Just for the record, in case anyone is wondering, I've not been in contact with the press and am not involved with any campaign. I am, however, mentioning the subject to everyone I know.

 

[BKF Admin]

In my experience from a practical point of view all the N.Z crosses I have managed have been 10/10 for aggresion.

If the queens are from the same N.Z strain I have worked with then it is a ticking time bomb and will do more harm than good.

 

[chycarne]

I have to admit I am concerned. Previous efforts to do the right thing have led to disaster the insecticidal oil seed rape, weedkiller resitant wheats spring to mind. However on the plus side the new rice being drought and flood resistant is good. Bluebells both British and Spanish are idividually weak in various ways but the hybrid is very strong and "too" vigerous" Bees are the same some strains will be great some will be blanking dangerous. it is up to us to select and breed that which we want. it was previously suggested on here that the forum tried to do its own strains the clamour of willing volunteers was deafening - in a silent way. I did offer to hlpe and one or two others were interested but...We will reap what we sow, if we dont try- then this will be the only way that the bees survive. We either have non speacilists doing it for profit, or we do it, it is up to you.

 

[Tom Bick]

We will find out soon. Took a few grafts off the best of them, and have maybe 80 or so queens overwintered in Canada boxes. No indication that they are any different to any of our other crosses off similar stock. Intermediate between themselves and our local blacks. Spring will tell.

Poly Hive this is post 296 the only one I know of regarding the testing of 1st and 2nd generation Queens I think it is self explanatory in that I quote " Spring will tell" About the same time the shipments arrive.

 

[Skyhook]

People are talking as though NZ bees are a separate exotic strain. Am I missing something? I have heard people talk about NZ italians, NZ carnolians, ITLD says his are from an alpine strain. Surely these are no different genetically from the ubiquitous italians, carnolians etc that most people have already? I understand the biosecurity argument, but it seems that these are being imported 'by the book'; so I'm not sure what makes this more of a target than the other 95% of bee imports that will happen this year, as has happened every year since Isle of White disease, when AMM was almost wiped out, and beekeepers restocked with italian yellow bees.