Import of NZ bees into UK

[Hivemaker.]

I took it as Murray wrote it....>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.

 

[chycarne]

Finman, look at a map, the local buys are a little close but the best we can do at present, the rest are over 100 miles - working on some attempt is better than no attempt at all. We havent gone back to the same suppliers and those we are buying from have not supplied each other but are either self bred or from much further afield... 15 miles mean they are unlikely to be our bees... and the sellers are generally fixed sites... so yes DIY but the best we can do at least we are logging our lines and using some thought. Again this is our starting view point... when we have a number of hives all different "enough" then ...

 

[Tom Bick]

The work that Ron Hoskins is doing is important and should be supported and perhaps a great opportunity for the coop after all Ron Hoskins has received great press coverage to date. So in an ideal world -

1, The Coop fund Ron Hoskins in his research, equipment and queen rearing

2, ITLD or other beefarmer heads the colonies with queens from Ron Hoskins

The coop gets its English honey with the added benefit of all the wonderful publicity, Ron Hoskins with good backing advances his research at a pace and the beefarmer well I hope he/she will be happy providing the coop give him a good price on the honey.

 

[gavin]

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.

Murray also said many pages back:

Quieens themselves are not examined on arrival, but done at point of shipping in NZ, and all attendant workers and their cages etc must be sent in immediately to the UK lab, it is compulsory.

So it seems that he is sourcing NZ packages of mixed genetics and supplying pedigree NZ queens to these packages which I assume will be those dark Carniolan bees that cross to local dark bees to give sometimes angry hybrid derivatives.

Ron was once an Amm man, so it wouldn't surprise me if his stocks lean to Amm still.

Tom, your solution is the ideal one but if Murray and the Co-op are persuaded that SE European bee genetics via Germany and NZ give (for a season or two) gentle healthy bees then I doubt that the plan will alter.

Gavin

 

[Somerford]

Tom - how good it would be to live in an ideal world ! I fear this has gone too far to be re-planned along the lines you suggest, but they are good plans.

S

 

[Skyhook]

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.
S

I'm sorry. I've lost track of what it is you're objecting to- and I think you have too. I understood you were objecting to the effect on the gene pool; in which case what's important is the origin of the strain, which I understand to be northern Europe. The fact they were raised in NZ is irrelevant. I had a Shetland sheepdog bred in Wiltshire, but it was still a Shetland sheepdog.

If your objection was biosecurity that would be different; but I think that has been dealt with.

 

[mbc]

I took it as Murray wrote it....>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.

Quite.
Leaving any male progeny of the new queens free to filander wherever.

 

[Somerford]

Skyhook - I don't think the issue of bio security has been dealth with at all. Our doors are still wide open to imports of bees, nothing has changed, hence my concerns are still valid.

I refer to the bees at NZ as that is where they are being imported from. Would you prefer we call them Mid-european alpine F1 ? In my mind they are one and the same...imported bees, are they not ?

I'm sure your shetland sheepdog is not a risk to bio-security and unlikely to alter the local gene pool where-ever he/she is kept (unless he has free run of the local dog pound!)

S

 

[Somerford]

Quite.
Leaving any male progeny of the new queens free to filander wherever.

Exactly. My point all along. How can it be anything but this ?

S

 

[Hivemaker.]

Quite.
Leaving any male progeny of the new queens free to filander wherever.

I suppose so yes,along with the other 20,000 or so imports...been going on for over 150 years,like it or hate it,not much we can do about that is there.

 

[mbc]

I suppose so yes,along with the other 20,000 or so imports...been going on for over 150 years,like it or hate it,not much we can do about that is there.

Other things which do the general population no good ( booze and fags ) are taxed to the hilt without hurting trade agreements.
Maybe with a bit of political pressure, bee imports could follow suit. No more mass imports of cheap queens ( legally ) while specific imports of queens with perceived beneficial genetics could keep our borders open.
Certain posts in this thread have wound me up but generally its been thought provoking and possibly eye opening about what could be possible in terms of pressure in the right place to change whats been going on for the last 150 years.
Essentially, importing queens for ones own benefit is a selfish action without regard to the efforts of others.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I agree with You MBC, also start queen rearing on a large scale to supply the demand.

 

[BKF Admin]

Originally Posted by ITLD
Quieens themselves are not examined on arrival, but done at point of shipping in NZ, and all attendant workers and their cages etc must be sent in immediately to the UK lab, it is compulsory.

It may be compulsory but I know of one importer who never sends any samples.
They just ship the queens on to the public while leaving all attendants in the cages and does not mention to buyers they need to send a sample.

 

[Somerford]

That's rocket fuel stuff, Admin.....and very very worrying too

S

 

[peteinwilts]

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.

IBRA have done scientific study's into the spread of bee diseases, particularly in New Zealand and have found even a simple disease is spread very fast due to the lack of genetic variability.... This is publicly available material, and you are right... it is not hard.

This is why ITLD said (about 20 odd pages ago!) that he is more concerned for his bees catching something from the local population of bees.

 

[Norton]

Unless of course you do some lateral thinking: That the drones of selected imported queens AND the drones of the daughters of these imports may actually IMPROVE the overall gene frequency of desirable characters in local populations. It could be said that the drones of local UNSELECTED stocks are damaging the desirable genetic material that is imported in free matings in subsequent generations. The fact remains however that AMM and Carnica are bad, bad, combinations - both Amm X Carnica and Carnica X AMM- unfortunately........
It is a M and C line cross and does not appear to be avoidable in producing aggressive offspring. It's a fact of beekeeping life.
Greetings from Crete!!!
Norton

 

[Haughton Honey]

What's wrong with booze and fags?

 

[DanBee]

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.

Weasel words, Somerford.

 

[DanBee]

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.

And if we apply the same logic to their daughter queens and colonies:

Well they were bred and born in the UK, therefore I'm afraid to all intents and purposes, they are UK, whether or not they have NZ heritage and to me to call them anything else is a fabrication of the truth of their origin.

 

[DanBee]

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.

Interesting logic, and this is a problem that the Amm ideal often stumbles upon. I understand why people chase "pedigree" bees, and support the idea of conserving diversity, but it all gets awfully mixed up with "local" and "native" which are very different concepts.

If it's OK to go from Cornwall to Scotland looking for bees that are the "right" type, why not go the same distance and select from Holland, Belgium, Northern France, North West Germany even? After all, Amm used to be known as the "dark northern european bee", and indeed many such bees were brought in from France & Holland after the IoW disease a century ago.

You might like to read some of the early publications of Beowulf Cooper and the like, from the days of the VBBA. The story portrayed now by BIBBA is not entirely what he and his peers saw or pursued in the 1960's. Some differences are subtle, some are more blatant. I was leafing through my Dad's file of correspondence from his membership of VBBA in the early 1970's, and stuff back to the mid 1960's that he inherited from his mentor. Very interesting to compare with the current BIBBA publications, "mission statements", etc.