Import of NZ bees into UK

[Into the lions den]

Presumably there is a minimum sensible quantity. If an association bring a combined load, will it be possible to trace each persons stuff through individually?

Absolutely yes...........metal tagging system on all batches going through the system.

The system will be able to do somewhere in the region of 200 boxes of combs a day, and this could be ramped up. If an association can scrape together even 50 boxes that will be enough.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

ITLD, I bow to your superior knowledge on commercial bee breeding. I freely admit it's not a subject I know a lot about. But, surely, there must be a way that the UK can move toward self sufficiency in this regard? Isolated breeding programmes, AI etc - might need some serious financial / government backing for it to work though.
I just think that if we are saying there is no way we can effectively breed enough queens and that importation is the only way then it means british beekeeping is in a fairly perilous position - to be reliant on the global market for anything is pretty risky.

 

[Into the lions den]

But, surely, there must be a way that the UK can move toward self sufficiency in this regard? Isolated breeding programmes, AI etc - might need some serious financial / government backing for it to work though.
I just think that if we are saying there is no way we can effectively breed enough queens and that importation is the only way then it means british beekeeping is in a fairly perilous position - to be reliant on the global market for anything is pretty risky.

I am not saying that it CANNOT be done........it all depends on what each client requires of the breeders service whether they would see it as acceptable or not. The parameters of performance, and thus the measure of failure or success will very much depend on the end users perceptions and desires.

There will be years when all goes swimmingly, then there will be years like 2 yrs ago AND 3 yrs ago, when we did not get a single queen mated in June........try running a viable queen unit with that happening. Other parts of the country will all have their own issues. ( fwiw, one of my Italian breeder friends on Sicily lost three weeks out of his schedule of queen supplies due to a plague of bee-eaters...........so we all have our issues and we are all fellow travellers on the same road.)

So, some year all will be fine and the unit will make money, other years when it wil simply crash out of business. Use II (I prefer Sue Cobeys designation) if preferred........but gee........the PRICE that will need to be charged to be viable doing that is extreme, and introducing II queens is a far more disciplined process than introducing open mated ones.

If you are waiting for a couple of queens you can wait for them to roll up, then go out and do your splits or whatever. If you have 200 or more rolling up you have to be started at least a week before. The word you are being let down usually came only a day or so before (and sometimes many days after) scheduled and confirmed delivery date. not good, yet it is not the breeders fault.

 

[Tom Bick]

We can breed all the queens we need it just takes the will to do it and plenty of people do just that. The majority of hobby beekeepers don’t because they have perhaps not been taught it and look on it as to complicated and beefarmers that prefer to buy do so on a financial reasons.

A lot has been mentioned about AMM on this thread and I see that as a specialist stock and think of it as so and if people want to save it great and even bring it back I am all for that it has been mentioned we have plenty in Scotland so no problems.

To me we have to work with what we have now and that is with selective breeding from local stock this way we wont need complicated structures 10mile exclusion zones and in time the selective breeding will enhance the local stock.

But then I don’t have the experience as others and move in this world as a hobby beekeeper

 

[Friar Tuck]

We can breed all the queens we need it just takes the will to do it and plenty of people do just that. The majority of hobby beekeepers don’t because they have perhaps not been taught it and look on it as to complicated and beefarmers that prefer to buy do so on a financial reasons.

A lot has been mentioned about AMM on this thread and I see that as a specialist stock and think of it as so and if people want to save it great and even bring it back I am all for that it has been mentioned we have plenty in Scotland so no problems.

To me we have to work with what we have now and that is with selective breeding from local stock this way we wont need complicated structures 10mile exclusion zones and in time the selective breeding will enhance the local stock.

But then I don’t have the experience as others and move in this world as a hobby beekeeper

 

[gavin]

Oh, and I doubt I would join BIBBA even if you pulled my toenails out.......

Another person with direct experienc of them described the situation there as 'Cliquish, parochial, introverted, backward looking'.....and a whole lot more besides.

Murray's a big fellow but I don't hesitate to pull him up when he strays! You could use that description of many beekeeping organisations, in the past and even now. However the members I've got know (I became one myself last year) are very far from that description. Except perhaps parochial in some regards, but in a good way! One of the functions of the organisation is to be parochial, even if its reach is international.

For those who bemoan BIBBA's lack of an off-the-shelf Amm internet queen delivery service, that isn't what it is about. It is about promoting local bee breeding - self-help groups and exchange of information.

I'll bring my toenail extraction kit next time I stop by.

Gavin

 

[oliver90owner]

This discussion of a frame cleaning service is a bit of a digression from the original thread (might even have been someone laying a red herring in the thread - I have not looked back to see the actual point of interjection).

My take on it is this:

It was set up after a huge problem with EFB in Scotland.

Not that it was set up, but the catalyst was a bl**dy disaster for the Scottish beekeeping industry and hobbyists alike. Closing the door after the horse has bolted is the old analogy.

We might yet be using the same analogy with some of these imports from wherever.

People never learn, or only in hindsight, it seems. Money certainly speaks louder than ethics. Just because it is legal does not alter the ethics one jot.

RAB

 

[Hivemaker.]

Queen rearing could be done on a large enough scale to make us self sufficient,but as Murray points out it would have it's pitfalls in some seasons if current year Queens were required in large quantitys,and early,the south would be more reliable than Scotland for this regards weather,but not always.
Queens could be over wintered in large numbers in small nuc's,again better in the south,but more expense involved.
Regards II, i mainly agree with Murray,plus quantity of queens produced would not be enough, unless lots of breeders were doing it,lots of Glenn apairies,and lots of expense.....
http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/apimondia_1.html

Hope no one decides to start importing bee eaters.

 

[Friar Tuck]

Just because it is legal does not alter the ethics one jot.

RAB

It is legal for 59 year old to have sex with a 16 year old... That dose not make it right

Ban the import of bees into the UK ! IMO

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Hope no one decides to start importing bee eaters.

Not native to New Zealand are they? (joke)

 

[RoofTops]

So after 75 pages are we coming round to the view that rearing enough queens in the UK is not practical, due to factors such as the weather, prevalence of disease, near impossibility of establishing enough isolated mating sites to generate the numbers required?

I knew that on page one.

 

[dilys]

For those who bemoan BIBBA's lack of an off-the-shelf Amm internet queen delivery service, that isn't what it is about. It is about promoting local bee breeding - self-help groups and exchange of information

Gavin's right. I would recommend that anyone who wants to breed local bees should join up and take advantage of the technical expertise and help that BIBBA offers. If you select from your local bees that have the most AMM genetics you will find that natural environmental pressures will work with you rather than against you. Start local breeding groups and swap genetic material. If you need stock, buy them from a local group. With strength in numbers BIBBA can become a powerful force rather than a small number of dedicated people trying to swim against a tide.

There are bee farmers who can rear their own bees and never need to import anything. Bee farmers who import choose to because of their business model and not from necessity. Of course, once they have stirred up all the local genetics in their area they find themselves on a treadmill and have to continue to import in the short term in order to keep their bees decent. They could get off the treadmill if only they would take a long-term and sustainable view. I would not want some commercial operation forcing me onto such a treadmill by moving large numbers of exotic bees to my area.

It's really disappointing to find the Co-op, of all operations, taking the easy way out at the expense of the bees, the environment and other beekeepers. They might try to buy people off by dishing out financial help but nothing short of using local bees will be sufficient to recover their credibility.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

So after 75 pages are we coming round to the view that rearing enough queens in the UK is not practical, due to factors such as the weather, prevalence of disease, near impossibility of establishing enough isolated mating sites to generate the numbers required?

I knew that on page one.

Oh, I'm sure we can get at least another 10 pages out of this one!

You have a point but (and there's always a but), queen rearing in the quanities needed may be expensive but with investment (co-op?) we could at least move in the right direction.
And, I'm not sure I agree that the UK can't support enough isolated mating sites - it would just need a bit of logistical work (and beekeepers working together - shock horror!) to arrange it.

 

[Friar Tuck]

rearing enough queens in the UK is not practical, due to factors such as the weather, prevalence of disease, near impossibility of establishing enough isolated mating sites to generate the numbers required?

I knew that on page one.

Please tell me this is not true ?

 

[greatbritishhoney]

If you need stock, buy them from a local group.

Dilys, I'd love to do that but I doubt there are any AMM breeding groups near me (although I may be wrong).
From a personal point of view, I'd join BIBBA tomorrow if they could point me in the direction of someone who could sell me some AMM queens sourced reasonably locally so that I could start flooding my apiary with AMM drones.
They may be able to do that, I don't know.

 

[Poly Hive]

I for one very much doubt it is true.

The Germans use islands and how many have we got? Just look at the map for goodness sake.

What Murray said about matings sounded dire but he is quoting his experience in that time in his location. What happens to be true for one part of the uk is rarely generally correct.

For some 10 years I was in close contact with a location some 100 miles to the north and west, and their weather was very rarely the same as mine.

Our climate is not as such a climate but a series of mini climates.

PH

 

[Into the lions den]

It was set up after a huge problem with EFB in Scotland.
RAB

ACTUALLY..........the design for the core part of the plant had been worked on by me well before the outbreak as a means of turning round melt out and rewax of our own frames....................but it was going to be hard to fund it myself and i had other fish to fry at the time.

Once the EFB outbreak surfaced a lot of discussion on how to help the industry took plce, and it was apparent that the govt. were not going to assist unless we showed how we were also going to help ourselves. After a bit of toing and froing my concept of the sterilising plant was put on the table, and took the fancy of those in charge of the purse strings. A scheme was developed under LEADER funding, and the rest will soon be history.

The plants existence was introduced by myself, merely in passing as part of a list of things beekeepers in the south will be able to access through the new unit. It was others who then mentioned or asked about it and a FEW posts took place.

Not a red herring, but plainly of interest to some members.

Your level of suspicion seems to know no bounds. But then, as I have no ethics, and am working with people with no ethics, selling my hard won product to people with no ethics, a member of an associaition with no ethics, and associating with people with no ethics then you of course must have a point. So be it.

I leave it to those who, out of ethics of course, twist everything said, ignore facts in preference for fiction, and accept no outcome other than their own, to decide the ethics (and motivations) of both myself and others they have never met.

Am I worried by this?.....................

 

[Hivemaker.]

So after 75 pages are we coming round to the view that rearing enough queens in the UK is not practical, due to factors such as the weather, prevalence of disease, near impossibility of establishing enough isolated mating sites to generate the numbers required?

I knew that on page one.

Yourself maybe.......but not all of us,nothing really worth doing is easy,but can be done. New Zealand do it,so could we.

 

[Tom Bick]

Yes, caustic soda.

However it is more than a one trick pony. You, or your transport arrive on site with your load of boxes of combs (it takes the whole comb, so no need for chopping out and scraping at base, the plant does it all for you). The boxes of combs are unloaded into an internal store with biosecurity (never know what might lurk in then thar combs).

Your transport then gets steam cleaned...very thoroughly.

Combs are deboxed and stacked in racks. Boxes go to be sterilised at this point to meet the frames at the other end.

Combs in racks go into tank 1.........boiling water...........and steam jets coming through the water melt everything out, even oldest blackest combs.

At this point all the slop (wax coccoons etc) are sluiced off and go into a steam wax press system, and nearly all the wax is recovered (beekeeper can take away later, or trade in).

Frames then go into a caustic boiling tank for 2 minutes only (it is enough, and any more softens the wood)

Then out and into another boiling water tank.

Finally a quick whish over with a steam cleaner, then returned to the boxes they came from. Boxes removed to a second store, also bio secure, and for cleaned gear only. Finally loaded back on the sterilised truck for taking away.

Can also be supplied back ready with wax installed for immediate use.

Everything carefully tagged for safe identification of owners items.

Full time staff wil be running all the admin, booking system etc.. Mainstream simple supplies will also be available, at reasonable prices. The existing polystyrene hives will also be on sale through this system. Bee feeding, etc etc.

Main users expected to be larger individual beekeepers and associations.

To encourage association membership and bee base registration there will be incentives to do so.............it will be cheaper to join and use the service than to use the service if not an association or beebase member.

Other services may follow.

When I first read this my thoughts first thought great for the professional’s reasonably automated process with less labour to run it, the more the items put through it the better it runs and also efficiently the last box getting the same treatment as the first, a good job.

But to think that it can provide a service for associations is not good news to me if an association is not maintaining very strict hygiene standards in its apiary’s at all times and teaching such things that they need the service of this plant is very wrong indeed. It puts an image of stacks of old brood boxes stacked up full of old comb awaiting to a time when they have sufficient numbers to make the trip worthwhile and not a good thought or teaching practice.

 

[Into the lions den]

Yourself maybe.......but not all of us,nothing really worth doing is easy,but can be done. New Zealand do it,so could we.

Of course it CAN be done............but not without huge changes and massive costs...all set against a political background of EU membership and the single market. No matter how passionate you are NO government is going to pull out of either for the sake of black bee enthusiasts, (or even general anti import proposers)who are only a subdivision of British beekeeping anyway.

Legal imports will be around for the rest of my lifetime, and soon may incude Turkey. Turkish bees were among Bro. Adams favourites.........remember hearing him lauding A.m.anatolica. Not a fan of his btw, but lots are to this day.

So, yes, a significant UK based production could be set up, but the queens will COST. Now, do I want a queen bred in say Kent with no definite pedigree and no health certificate, or one bred in , say Germany, which has both and is much cheaper? Not sure a secret ballot of all members might give the answer that the loudest forum members would want to hear.

New Zealand can do it? Well if you have any familiarity with them and their beekeeping they have a seriously strong 'can do' mentality, and the *business* focus required to drive it forward. It is driven by the professional sector. But then............the climate................so superior to our own. The northern tip of North Island is subtropical and rarely gets so cold the bees cannot fly. Makes it easy.....my friend just came back from there and saw ONE guy putting out 2000 carniolan mating nucs in one day, and they were knocking out the same number almost every day at the time. ( Almost all destined for Canada and Europe, inc UK, btw)