Import of NZ bees into UK

[peteinwilts]

FACT - we continue to routinely import bees from around the world that could be infected with one or other diease/pest we don't currently have

It is common knowledge that it is estimated that less than 1/2% of the worlds species has been described by science. The majority are bacteria, good and bad.

BIO security on a live animal can only check for KNOWN diseases and parasites.

How many bees does it take to start an epidemic.... 1 ... IMHO I would prefer our grumpy local bees than charming foreign ones and take a risk...

 

[RoseCottage]

ITLD,
I, like many others, would like to welcome you to the forum and hope that after this thread dies you will stay around and take part in the life of the forum. There are over 2,000 beekeepers registered I think on this system and many with decades of experience, even a man running 600 hives could benefit from, as well as add to, the discourse...

I am not one with decades of experience but that doesn't mean my questions are always foolish...

As a member of the forum's silent majority I have been reading this thread from the beginning and have watched the discussion develop; points bubble up and subside.

There seem to be some genuine outstanding concerns about the introduction of so many foreign imported queens (and even more if these were packages):

1. The behaviour of the 2/3rd year hybrids that will come from the offspring of these queens mating with already established populations. There appears to be quite a body of opinion that these hybrids will be aggressive and prove unnecessarily difficult to handle.

2. The perceived hypocrisy of the Co-op in, on the one hand, claiming to support the British Bee (however ill defined that may be) and then sanctioning a large scale introduction of non British sourced queens. Clearly there is a conflict of goals unless the goal is merely to be able to publicise 'green' credentials (exploiting the opportunity that publicity around the honey bee has presented) to flog more product without genuine concern for the British Bee.

3. The ability to actually check that imported livestock are genuinely free of new threatening diseases or parasites. On such a large scale people can reasonably question the consistency and quality of health checks. I work in the field of national security and understand that as volume increases the quality and consistency of security audits decreases. Sadly it only takes one or two lapses to establish a new disease vector.

I have empathy with your goals but also for those around your area who will be impacted by this venture and the wider apiarist community. I would really like to understand better your mitigation to points 1 and 3 that is if you accept them of-course. Do you intend to requeen each year from fresh imports? Do you intend to bring imports in on a timeline that genuinely allows for the individual examination of queens and their packaging?

Kind regards,
Sam

 

[Into the lions den]

Nicely avoided that question first time round. So let me ask again. What exactly did you mean? Were you trying to lay a red herring? Mention of casts instead of 'swarms' immediately rings alarm bells for me, especially when the poster then ignores the request for clarification.

RAB[/QUOTE]

I sent a long and full explanation of this but I cannot see it having appeared. Is there a limit on post length? Seems maybe only half of an effort at addressing your points appeared. Not going hunting it all again at quarter to one in the morning.

Suffice to say we know exactly what happened with these two colonies. Knocked right over and no livestock on the farm and no vehicle track nearby. Probable vandalism attack causing queen death and thus emergency cells, whilst colonies were still small. Two small swarms the size of pint pots on bushes adjacent to the site.....and from the rest of the colony being as it was we KNOW only one cast or caste had come out.

 

[Into the lions den]

ITLD,
I, like many others, would like to welcome you to the forum and hope that after this thread dies you will stay around and take part in the life of the forum. There are over 2,000 beekeepers registered I think on this system and many with decades of experience, even a man running 600 hives could benefit from, as well as add to, the discourse...
.......................................................................
600 hives? I really do not want to say how many we actually run, and we already use over 200 locations each year.
.........................................................................
1. The behaviour of the 2/3rd year hybrids that will come from the offspring of these queens mating with already established populations. There appears to be quite a body of opinion that these hybrids will be aggressive and prove unnecessarily difficult to handle.
...........................................................................
Yes, I understand the opinion very well. So much for opinion however. I have had probably 10's of thousands of these crosses in my time. Sorry, but they are not aggressive. they lie mid way between the parent stock and the local bees in almost every way.
...........................................................................
3. The ability to actually check that imported livestock are genuinely free of new threatening diseases or parasites. On such a large scale people can reasonably question the consistency and quality of health checks. I work in the field of national security and understand that as volume increases the quality and consistency of security audits decreases. Sadly it only takes one or two lapses to establish a new disease vector.
............................................................................

People will question it even if it is one bee. All attendant workers, and all packaging go to the lab for checking, there are no permitted exceptions and this is compulsory. If we do not comply we get big trouble. no direct experience of sending them in in England yet, but if it is the same as in Scotland then the checking and testing is very thorough. fwiw, they sometimes DO check for viruses. Nothing found last year that was not here already.

...........................................................................
Do you intend to requeen each year from fresh imports?

Only for those colonies that MUST be kept for demo purposes, and even then only if there is any reversion to native tendencies. Our past experience gives us a couple of years before this becomes an issue.

Do you intend to bring imports in on a timeline that genuinely allows for the individual examination of queens and their packaging?

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. What do you want the actual queen herself checked for? She is however looked at by ourselves at introduction time.

 

[Into the lions den]

Hi ITLD

Once you have your 400 (?) colony's set up at Down Ampney, how will you be preventing their swarming instict?

Our swarm control method is quite involved but does work well. Could be typing for about a day and a half to go into all the details. you do not prevent their swarming instinct anyway, you control it and use it to your advantage.

Are you planning on building further colony's

On these locations no.........this is the ceiling numbers for the Co-op unit in the entire area.

, or are you going to be selling NUC's,

definitely not.

or destroying them?

Why would we need to destroy anything? Only archaic methods result in open ended number increase. The swarm control splits will be reunited back to their parents, making the system a requeening system as well as swarm control.

Obviously, the bees are going to want to breed... Last year swarming in the area was exceptional. After a warm couple of weeks in April came a very cold May. Then came a hot morning and all the colony's swarmed after being unable to inspect due to the weather being too cold. This happen to numerous people I know, and would have no idea how you would prevent it.

We inspect anyway. Only stop in actual falling rain. Just have to do it.

I would also be very happy to challenge your swarm control with the use of a few trees on the perimeter of the farm.
... I am afraid I would have to requeen, and\or pass her back to you though...

Same response as we got in the north last year, and in the unlikely event of you finding one I would be delighted to have it back! <G> However, if our experience elsewhere is anything to go by more will WANT it than decline it.

The welcome to associaitons is a genuine one. you really ARE welcome to come. Closed minds may have, as one put it 'nothing to gain' from such a visit, but many will get a lot of enjoyment from it.

 

[Hughesie]

Peeps

2000 beekeepers on this forum if 600 sold a Nuc to the co-op problem sorted

simples

 

[Poly Hive]

An offer not to miss out on, and a master class in prospect.

PH

 

[Into the lions den]

Peeps

2000 beekeepers on this forum if 600 sold a Nuc to the co-op problem sorted

simples

Kind offer. However who is going to give me 600 (or however many producers were involved) inspectorate issued health certificates, each relating not only to the colonies they come from but also every apiary within a 6 Km radius? (NZ does! Licences to ship bees out to Europe are VERY hard to get there.) I could not take that kind of chance on disease, its arrival would be a certainty, plus the bees would be of unknown genetics, temperament unknown, and on all sorts of a rag bag of frame sizes.

Not practical, not safe.

This is a polystyrene Langstroth operation, one size of boxes only (deeps), everything new, everything sterile. Even the foundation is imported from new Zealand due to its guaranteed EFB free status.

Get this status from ANY UK source? Nope, not even myself.

 

[DanBee]

Come on reel your neck in a little Dan

...

Do you disagree with any of the above ? this is what this thread is all about (oh and the effect on the local gene pool)

Varroa arrived here through movement of colonies, no doubt about that. It is endemic now. Jumping up and down about what should and shouldn't have happened 20-30 years ago is not going to change anything. It is akin to the Americans hand-wringing about how Africanised bees came to be. It happened. Deal with it.

One of the theories of how varroa arrived is that it was planted by a disgruntled employee at a large beekeeping outfit. Whether that is true or not, you can never legislate for such an event happening again, just like you can't legislate against illegal movements of bees.

The less conspiratorial theory is that varroa arrived on swarms; once we had the kick up the arse that it was here and people started looking, it suddenly popped up simultaneously at a number of ports around the south & east of the UK, IIRC. How would you suggest swarms on container ships be tackled?

What I have real confusion with is that YOU appear to have the most to lose should this fine island become infected with one or more of the many pests and diseases we are all worried about....and you appear to be oblivious to this, or seem not to care.

We are faced with the risk of Asian hornets, tropilaelaps, and SHB. All the others we already have - they are out there, they flare up, some beekeepers see them, some do not. This is my point. The risk from imports is not the diseases we already have!

Asian hornets will come in outside of bee imports; there is some speculation that they have already been spotted in the South East having arrived under their own steam. Tropilaelaps will likely come in on bee imports. SHB may come in with bees, or may come in with fruit/veg imports. Consider the first and last point: they will come in regardless of bee imports.

Only somebody in an ivory tower would take the view that all movements of insects can be controlled by an army of men with clipboards. Anyone with a shred of realism will understand that it is a matter of when not if they will arrive.

Stopping bee imports/exports is a simplistic and knee-jerk reaction. At best it will buy time, but once the pest is established this will be an irrelevance. In the meantime, we lose out on the benefits of queen raising in better climates. It has been said time and again that the UK cannot produce enough good queens at the right time of year to satisfy demand. This example of the Coop simply underlines this fact. Until there are sufficient home-grown breeding/raising/rearing operations that can satisfy the level of demand, timing, and health assurances that ITLD describes, then there will always be circumstances for importing queens.

You are taking the moral high ground to promote an unrealistic position. You cannot stop all bee imports/exports even if you wanted to - there will always be smugglers, chancers, swarms, and mistakes. You cannot stop insect movements by improving border checks. You just seem to want to jump up and down and bang your drum and make some noise...

 

[Into the lions den]

Hi there ITLD

I was thinking of wandering up to see you sometime soon - are you at your base on Saturdays? I need to spend some money - not on bees but equipment. I've avoided commenting on this so far, but ....

Yes, the bees were lovely bees. The gentlest bees I've ever seen, and when placed on new foundation from packages will be healthy stocks for a year or two.

Good morning Gavin! Nice to hear you chime in, and btw as a pragmatic person I was not including you in the category you mention.

I am around this Saturday, decided to give a day to dealing with stuff on here plus drilling out some frames for crosswiring so they can go through the rapid sterilising plant when it is up and running. Not around the next two Saturdays, next week i am in Herefordshire sorting outt he orchard locations and giving a talk at a regional meeting at a place called Symonds Yat..which I still have to find. My friend TomTom will sort that out.

I'm assuming that these bees are from the same source as the ones I saw.

Not exactly. Very similar though, different breeder, same supplier of II mothers.

If so, they may have been bred in N Europe before being shipped to NZ, but their evolutionary home is SE Europe, so they are not 'dark bees of N European origin' in the way most people would understand it.

In terms of ultimate origin then actually the Alps. More Austria than anything else. However they are actually a strain from and bred for northern Germany, and already used in their thousands in the UK, the leading bee farmer in England uses little else.
Ruttner's multivariate analysis decades ago and recent DNA sequencing shows that these bees are at the opposite end of an evolutionary branched pathway from the native stocks which still dominate the genetics in parts of the UK. The hybrids will be vigorous and the derivatives rather variable.

I accept that as being the situation to some extent, they are still very much closer to our bees than many of the races and do get susumed into the background very quickly.

The books - and experience of several contemporary beekeepers - suggest that Carnie x native cross derivatives can be amongst the nastiest of bees around. I know that you don't believe it to be true, but that is what others say.

Just never seen it happen that way. A lot seems to flow from the opinions of an author from quite a long time ago, who wrote from the perspective of a person hostil to non native bees. Opinions from certain people seem to get the status of facts, when they remain just what they started out as, opinions. I did tell you what I considered to be the origin of your nasty black crosses. ( An unrecorded import of A.m.iberica, real and I know exactly who and when, and these actually are nasty bees.)

This initiative is really quite far from the sustainable beekeeping idea that the Co-op like to promote.

Oh, and I wouldn't regard this forum as being the home of dark bee officianados.
As I said in another response, this was the way it was styled by one of the people inviting a visit to contribute. Plainly wrong as there is a wide range of disparate opinion showing up of varying degrees of substance. I did already apologise for saying so and do so again, the invitee mislead me, albeit only slightly.

There are other fora with more enthusiasts, and my first forays onto this one saw me tangle with Mike Roberts over his supply of carnies to a croft in a sensitive area of Varroa-free native bees in Wester Ross - and I was criticised by several posters then!

Love him or loath him, but Mike would almost certainly have had no idea about that areas status, and the fault mostly lies with the purchaser. All the vendors could voluntarily carry a warning to the effect that there are still varroa free areas in the UK (ever fewer and not really in bee friendly zones, bar perhaps the Isle of Man) and that new beekeepers should consult their local inspector about whether they are in such an area before buying bees from outwith the area.

all the best

you too, maybe see you later

Murray

 

[theengraver]

Hi
Im against imports of queens that go here there and everywhere!

But this set up seems to me to be a carefully managed project run by people with many many years of experience and skill. At the end of the day this is business to produce honey on mass.

If it was some numpty with a big bag of cash who one day said i think i will be a large honey producer then there may be a problem.

The CO-OP spends vast sums of money building a corporate image and employ people with the skills they need to do The will have carried out risk assessment and many 1000s of hour due diligence.

• There will be no decease or problems with these bees
• There will be no swarms running riot
• It will not effect any local beekeepers
• The World as we know it will not come to an end due to this project

Why Because this is not some sad old man sitting in a shed trying to keep bee on a large scale
it is a company that has an annual turnover of £14 billion, employs 120,000 staff and operates over 5,000 retail trading outlets a company like this
Don’t make mistakes that can tarnish the brand image.


The only effects this project will have on the UK is produce Jobs and Tax revenue that the country needs right now

 

[peteinwilts]

• There will be no decease or problems with these bees
• There will be no swarms running riot
• It will not effect any local beekeepers
• The World as we know it will not come to an end due to this project

sweeping statements... even ITLD says he will be minimising the chance of the above, and knows that it is impossible to say never.

... are you a betting man?!?

 

[Headnavigator]

2. The perceived hypocrisy of the Co-op in, on the one hand, claiming to support the British Bee (however ill defined that may be) and then sanctioning a large scale introduction of non British sourced queens. Clearly there is a conflict of goals unless the goal is merely to be able to publicise 'green' credentials (exploiting the opportunity that publicity around the honey bee has presented) to flog more product without genuine concern for the British Bee.

This is the point that sticks in my craw - much of the rest seems a 'fait accompli', unfortunate as that may be, but I do feel that this hypocrisy shouldn't go unexposed and unchallenged.

Not directly your problem ITLD, though you are being used as the major participant. Nothing to do either with avaiability or otherwise of suitable British stock, simply big business making money out of unscrupulous marketing.

 

[dilys]

.. a company like this
Don’t make mistakes that can tarnish the brand image.

I fear they have just made one. Whatever they argue it can't possibly be true that importing foreign bees is compatible with their other bee initiatives.

 

[theengraver]

I fear they have just made one. Whatever they argue it can't possibly be true that importing foreign bees is compatible with their other bee initiatives.

I dont think the opinion of a few will dent there image there are many small groups that protest against many large companys with very little effect

 

[Into the lions den]

Not directly your problem ITLD, though you are being used as the major participant.

If I felt I was being 'used' I would give it a bodyswerve. This is an equal partnership. You could equally argue that it is ME who is using THEM.

Nothing to do either with avaiability or otherwise of suitable British stock, simply big business making money out of unscrupulous marketing.

Honestly, I have been sitting in on this project since its inception. REALLY, it is not the way you portray it. If you think they have not had all this debate internally several times over at the behest of their own membership, then you are mistaken. The decisions are not callous and cold, the have been arrived at after a long process. They want to be able to offer British honey produced on their own farms, of consistent supply and quality, under a transparent and auditable production system, able to be sold in their 'Produced by us' range. No-one else (and several others were approached) was able to offer them what they wanted on a national scale.They will continue to buy in the produce of other beekeepers on Co-op land for now but the food standards and traceability implications of using a wise range of disparate producers make the future hard for them. In all the dealings with them I have never once had any cause to question their ethics. Far from it. They have asked a lot of informed and probing questions and are asking for procedures and safeguards that no other landowner or honey purchaser has ever asked for. They want to set the benchmark and to do it properly. It is impossible to please everyone however, as is quite plain.

 

[peteinwilts]

ITLD: Are you a member of BIBBA??

 

[Into the lions den]

As far as I know, no imports of bees on frames are allowed so I was merely musing on the technicalities of offering NZ bees on nat frames.

The import of bees on combs, even whole hives, from within the EU only, is perfectly legal. ( If unwise.)

It happens. A LOT of it happens. Under the Balaii directive it is illegal for one member state to exclude the animals or animal products of another member state on the basis of a pest or disease that is already present in the destination state. Health certificate issue by the authorities at point of origin required, forwarded direct (not with the bees or their shipper) to the authority at destination. End of story. If you want to ban all that you have to ask the UK govt to rip up its trade agreements, and for the sake of bees that is not going to happen.

2010. The Pyrenees. Friend of mines, employing one of my staff from 2009. Price for NUCS (5 bars) to UK reached stupid levels. Split up several hundred colonies into nucs..........all collected by a variety of UK beekeepers and resellers...1500 units........and remember this is ONE outfit, several were doing it in France and Spain....all destined to the UK. Number of recorded imports? So far as I know NONE of the 1500 turned up in any records.

In the single market the only role of the authorities at the docks/airports is to ensure that the transporter knows what they are doing and that they are being treated properly. the health function is between the originating and destination local authorities. It is different for non EU imports, and apart from NZ, only queens are allowed, where an inspection is carried out at the Animal reception centre at Heathrow.

We live in the real world and utopian ideas are very nice but this trade is huge, and no matter where you are in southern Britain there will be imported stock near you NOW.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Regards testing imported Queens for viruses,i was interested in this so asked them while on the phone a couple of weeks ago,not Mike Brown as he was away,but his next in command...and he is obviously a liar,as he stated they do not test them for viruses.

 

[hedgerow pete]

ITLD,

i know its a lot to ask and i can see it being turned down whole sale but since you are only the one part of the project any chance of asking the coop to join in on the debate.

to be honest i think the whole debate is now going around in circles for every comment pointed at you we seam to get one coming back at us, which is only rightly fair i might add.