Import of NZ bees into UK

[Norton]

PH wrote:

If you think about it how much distance do you actually need? 10 miles really.

yes this about the distance you need to be safe.

 

[mbc]

I try to let threads run along on their own for as long as I possibly can as I think the hands off approach is far better for healthy debate.

As this thread is now turning into a ping-pong match between two posters I am going to step in and make contact with both members using the private message facility and try and resolve the problems.

Admin.

Spoilsport !

 

[DanBee]

I understood that Ron Hoskins' group were using AI for developing their breeding stock. Is that correct?

 

[RoofTops]

When I first heard him speak about 5 years ago he was using AI to create the line he wanted but the "production" hives were all mated normally. He is trying to flood the area as I understand it by giving nearby groups queens he has raised.

 

[Friar Tuck]

This is what Ron told me....

Hello Owen,
I am trying to raise £4000 to buy twenty 5-frame nukes, powerful lenses and dissecting microscopes etc.
I aim to put about 2000 bees with one of my queens and pass to beekeepers near Swindon to continue the work I am doing from their garden.

Once the nuke gets strong they will be able to transfer the bees to a hive of their own and return our equipment to be restocked and "loaned" to beekeepers on a wider circuit to do the same.

They will be required not to treat in any way and not to cull drones, even after they keep the bees. This way by flooding the area with drones from these hives we should increase the gene-pool area for . We can but hope that having seen the possible benefits ,these beekeepers will purchase their own lens and 'scope to continue seeking hygienic bees to breed from.
I suspect it may be a couple of years before we get as far as Devizes

Ron


And


Hello All,

I promised most of you that I would keep you informed of progress with our bee project. I have added a couple of people who have also shown an interest .

We have now opened a bank account, it came into operation this morning, in the name of Swindon Honeybee Conservation Group. We now have a become quite business-like in that we have "formalised" the group. Besides opening the bank account we have a proper constitution, a committee; with Clive Harris as the treasurer. Clive is also treasurer of Swindon Beekeepers Assn.

All this has been necessary to put the group on a proper footing to seek and handle donated and grant monies.

We are seeking donations and grants to raise at least £4000. T his morning I was able to pay in cheques to the value of £590 that had mainly been cheques made out to me so I had to transfer the money through my own account. I actually opened the account with £500 of my own money.

I would like to thank the generosity of those that have already sent cheques; those of you that have told your friends of our needs and those of you that have promised to send a donation once the account was up and running. It now is.

The original article in the Evening Advertiser was the only publicity I sought, simply to get financial help locally but it went crazy when the mass-media got hold of it, way over the top and almost embarrassing. I was approached to be on so many radio and TV programs that in the end I had to refuse. I did speak on R4, R5, R2, Scottish, Irish, Spanish (English) and New Zealand radios, and on just about every English TV channel. Live interviews on BBC Breakfast and GMTV were avoided when they realised they could not get their large satellite transmitter lorries through the woods near my apiary.

To hear the way they all promoted my work it came across that my bees will save the world? It would be nice to think so, but though the bees are certainly a bit special I must still raise sufficient funds to get them spread around Swindon, then further afield. Realistically, it will take several years, lots of hard work by many beekeepers, plus a bit of help from nature and the weather. Once that early stage is complete things will start to speed up.

I have had enquiries to supply queen bees to UK beekeepers and even as far away as Romania. Our aim to cover Swindon & District first then gradually increasing the area will mean many will have to wait for a while. I will breed several hundred queen honeybees next year all being well.

I’ll Keep you all up to date with progress but other than planning, procuring equipment and generally getting things ready not much will be happening before next April when the new beekeeping season gets underway.

If anyone would like to stop by and have a chat then please feel free. The apiary is in Stanton Park, just north of Swindon, post-code *** ***. Ring me first on ************** to make sure I am there. I am usually always there on Saturdays, 10 till 2.0, weather permitting and spend a lot of time there most days. I'll make you a coffee.

Thank you all again

Ron

 

[peteinwilts]

suggest removing phone number and apiary location! This is a publicly viewable forum and (sadly) sure not everyone that looks here has the best intentions..

 

[Hivemaker.]

Yes Ron did use II,but not sure if he still does this anymore himself.
Murray has already stated all drones will be culled from these colonys,so not much problem from them. There were already lots of colonys on these farms i assume,bet they never culled all of the drones,so perhaps an advantage to Ron and others now.

 

[Friar Tuck]

suggest removing phone number and apiary location! This is a publicly viewable forum and (sadly) sure not everyone that looks here has the best intentions..

Yeah the email was CC'd to well over 100 other people.. but fair point..
shame i cant edit the post now to late the button has gone.
If admin wants to remove it thats fine with me..

 

[Somerford]

Yes Ron did use II,but not sure if he still does this anymore himself.
Murray has already stated all drones will be culled from these colonys,so not much problem from them. There were already lots of colonys on these farms i assume,bet they never culled all of the drones,so perhaps an advantage to Ron and others now.

IMHO, I don't think that is really possible....600 colonies....3000 drones per hive ? With limited time to inspect a colony they believe that they can cull each drone ?

Highly unlikely !

S

 

[Somerford]

Two points raised by this post and your last.

This one first. So, apparently the volume of drones I will be sending out will be too many? Now, in terms of 'drones coming from Down Ampney' what exactly is different from before? Despite your repeated assertions to the contrary, the actual volume of bees on that estate will not be seriously greater than before. You have been told repeatedly that the total involved will be scattered on a significant number of sites. Fwiw I generally operate in groups of 20 to 24, though this can rise or fall in relation to available forage.
One further point on the bees that will be with them. It is part of my spec that any packages MUST be drone seived. No drones at all allowed. Thus the package workers will die out in a short time and leave no genetic mark whatsoever inthe area.

Secondly you have re-erected the straw man of New Zealand bees. Standard New Zealand bees have just about zero significance to this thread as NONE of these are involved. The imports everyone has talked about from there are Italian stock, and to be honest the reports of bad wintering performance, too much brood out of season, esp late autumn, and very little honey are just about spot on in my limited experience of these. However this is not the bee under consideration, so please, desist linking them.

Off at 4AM, and will be on site at Down Ampney tomorrow, Hereford on Saturday, and giving a talk in Herefordshire on Sunday, so will be off the thread and unable to answer questions until I return on Monday.

I think you are trying to blind us by technicalities....whether 300 are inn one apiary or 15 groups of 20 over the estate, the numbers are still the same !

And your point ref how one names the incoming queens....well they are coming from NZ, they were bred and born in NZ, therefore I'm afraid to all intents and purposes, they are NZ, whether or not they have german heritage and to me to call them anything else is a fabrication of the truth of their origin.

I hear and understand your comments on drone seiving....but the queens heading up the new colonies will produce drones that have their genetics....and I really can't see you seiving a full grown colony every other month..

I'm sorry, I do not agree with your assertions.

regards

S

 

[Somerford]

Somerford - I see you're back on the thread. .

I'm not sure what gave you the idea I had disappeared....

From my post #340...


One has to accept that ITLD and Dan will never come round to our way of thinking - after all they'll stop at nothing to keep their businesses going - ie producing honey, and one can't put ethics before profit can we ?!!

Well it's true. both you and ITLD are at odds with the issues I have raised on this thread. If you were to come around to our way (ie. no imports) then I suspect you would have admitted it sooner. You haven't, therefore my arguement stands for the time being.

You are both commercial beekeepers, and my stance and view that importing bees to produce honey when we have perfectly adequate bees in the UK, suited to our climate, is not ethical, especially when you consider the impact said imports have on the surrounding areas (genes etc). Therefore my assertion that to continue to pursue this in spite of differing views, is in my view, unethical, and I would back that by saying that to claim it's English honey is misleading when packeged by the Co-Op (ITLD's Apiaries I am talking about here).

And we talk about drone seiving - and destroying said drones...well I don't think that's right, or necessary if one was to use British Bred Bees. A bit like shooting male calfs really !

I also wrote...which appears to have been ignored...

Well, put it this way...I remember well the vivid buring pyres around 1999/2000 with foot and mouth, I continue to hear about dairy farms on standstill due to TB, I listen to friends who produce 16000 eggs a day and empathise with their concerns about bio-security, I ponder the wisdom of a 'level playingfield' in the EU when some players clearly don't either play by the rules or even admit there is a rule book.

regards

S

 

[Crg]

That is my short experience of the NZ type, i miss their temperament, but could that laid back chilled out almost dopey behaviour, be a sign of weakness ?

People with really aggressive mongrel colonies also can lose a lot of their hives. Docile and weak and not linked.

 

[Scutellator]

....and my stance and view that importing bees to produce honey when we have perfectly adequate bees in the UK, suited to our climate, is not ethical, especially when you consider the impact said imports have on the surrounding areas (genes etc).

That is very funny . Which bees exactly are PERFECTLY suited to your climate? The ones who had died by the acarine? A am sure they were saing exactly the same about them back then as you today.

Importing bees is not ethical? A would rather say keeping mongrels is not ethical. How about that?
Both of them have impact on non selected bees ONLY.


If you want highly inbred bees in your hives it is your problem, cause perfectly closed population is not as good idea as you might think at first sight. Just take a look at the ligurian bee (A.m. ligurica) in Cangaroo Island.

The bee it is not a sheep, goat or cattle, and could not be bred that way.

 

[Finman]

.
Our researcher visited just in Bulgaria and told that only one race is allowed in Bulgaria. It is Macedonian.
State keeps beekeeping development in strict hands. He told too that Bungaria has not mite tolerant bee strains.

 

[chycarne]

Scutellator, the cows goats sheep etc are not bred that way, all breeding lines do some research about where they come from to ensure nothing gets inbred. My only arguments have been against importing as we cannot control properly what comes in. I dont want imported bees in my area but I do import bees to my area from areas I have selected ie West Wales, Northern Scotland and indeed anywhere locally more than 15 miles from our origional source bees. my stock will be mongrels of various sorts, but will come from "good" amm lines. we should all select the best bee type possible with a mind to keeping older types around. as with other animals and plant crops the old lines carry useful genes. My only arguemnt is with Bohazard and the fatc that people will do their thing for their needs and turn a blind eye where convenient or selfishly needed. therefore I know my argument will fail, imprts will happen and more problems will accordingly arrive, all I am saying is when they do dont expect me to not say told you so...

 

[Finman]

.
Not more than 15 miles ! Cannot serious. DIY regulations.

My migrate my hives 20 miles and I prefer to bye queens from north 300 miles away.

 

[Crg]

If one was to sequence the genes of the available queens, I wouldn't be surprised if alot could be traced back to one or two originally imported into NZ....and therein lies the problem. To prevent genetic defects, you need to have diversity

So you're imagining something without any research whatsoever, then building an argument on what you've just made up? That's completely pointless.

Don't be so lazy. It's not hard to find out details of what genes are imported into NZ.

 

[mbc]

Murray has already stated all drones will be culled from these colonys,so not much problem from them. There were already lots of colonys on these farms i assume,bet they never culled all of the drones,so perhaps an advantage to Ron and others now.

I missed this statement, sure itld stated the packages which will start these colonies off will have no drones but to suggest this has any bearing on later drone stock in the area is missleading nonsense. Tut, tut, Hivemaker.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I missed this statement, sure itld stated the packages which will start these colonies off will have no drones but to suggest this has any bearing on later drone stock in the area is missleading nonsense. Tut, tut, Hivemaker.

Tut Tut As much as you like MBC...lol...lets see what else Murray has to say,and were the previous colonys on the coop farms headed by Queens supplied by Ron,or imported Queens...do you know?

 

[mbc]

So you didnt imply no drones would enter the equation from this latest innundation of imports ?
I've come round to thinking this project by the co-op and itld has been thought out and is being implemented as responsibly as possible ( though I'm still against imports ! ) but this doesnt meen missinformation should go unchallenged