Import of NZ bees into UK

[Somerford]

the official stance...

I found this elsewhere....but notable that on Page 8 the stance is clear....the BBKA doesn't believe Bee Imports are acceptable...

Bee Health Strategy – Detailed comments from the BBKA

Page 8.....

Paragraph 34 (2) Effective biosecurity at all levels minimizes risks from pests,
diseases and undesirable species Effective biosecurity is hampered by the need to provide “open borders” both within the EU and from third countries. Beekeepers have long campaigned for improved border controls, but have been consistently been told that this is not possible. We do not accept this; sovereign EU governments may impose limitations on grounds of nimal health. As a matter of policy, BBKA does not support the import of queens or ackage bees from outside the UK.

2008




I have tried to add the link to the entire document but the forum doesn't like the link !

regards

S

 

[Skyhook]

Every beekeeping association in the British isles is against imports but the Coop are riding roughshod over them all.

Dil

Like it or not, we live in a free market economy. The solution to stopping imports is for british producers to satisfy the market.

 

[Skyhook]

Every beekeeping association in the British isles is against imports but the Coop are riding roughshod over them all.
Dil

Like it or not, we live in a free market economy. The solution to stopping imports is for british producers to satisfy the market.

I tried to edit the above post after looking at the other forum, but missed the deadline-

Cut and paste from 'the other place', referring to the same subject-


A bit of a shame really. For me, it highlights the fundamental failing of of BIBBA, so far as I am aware, it has never managed to co-ordinate to sufficient levels to produce even 50 queens for sale, never mind 600.

Instead of constantly telling people how good the bees are they (in my opinion) need to completely reset their priorities to producing larger numbers and selling (or giving them away to club apiaries) and demonstrating how good they are by people handling them.

For all the BIBBA talk about the good attributes of AMM, they get people interested, who want to buy their own AMM queens to accelerate the process (and indeed many people are not into queen rearing), who become alienated when they find they can't acquire any of the queens and BIBBA loses yet another potential member.

This is something that puzzles me about the Swindon Bee project- why Swinbee, having apparently produced a strain with desireable traits, is not churning out queens by the thousand and offering them to local bka's, and any other suitable outlets. Surely this would be a better way to ensure the success of the genes than worrying about a few hundred hives- which can't be a big percentage of the wiltshire population?

 

[Somerford]

To quote your own strap line, Skyhook - "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that" !

Ron has only just got to the stage of rolling out his scheme...via funding from the BBKA. It is two fold - both encourage drone offspring from the queens supplied and to see whether they show the same traits of hive cleanliness and varroa mite attrition without the need for chemical intervention.

Unfortunately, finances are an issue, hence the need for a grant, but I'm sure that, should this initial project be a success, then the Swindon BKA will be very active in dedicated queen production.

I don't disagree with your comments ref. BIBBA....we do need some semblance of organisation if the genetics Ron favours are to be distributed more widely..

S

 

[peteinwilts]

This is something that puzzles me about the Swindon Bee project- why Swinbee, having apparently produced a strain with desireable traits, is not churning out queens by the thousand and offering them to local bka's, and any other suitable outlets. Surely this would be a better way to ensure the success of the genes than worrying about a few hundred hives- which can't be a big percentage of the wiltshire population?

Apart from the initial hardware, what other finiancials are required?

 

[peteinwilts]

Apart from the initial hardware, what other finiancials are required?

apart from building a VERY large wall between Swindon and Cirencester!

 

[Friar Tuck]

This is something that puzzles me about the Swindon Bee project- why Swinbee, having apparently produced a strain with desireable traits, is not churning out queens by the thousand and offering them to local bka's, and any other suitable outlets. Surely this would be a better way to ensure the success of the genes than worrying about a few hundred hives- which can't be a big percentage of the wiltshire population?

This is what Ron told me....

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.

Ron

That sound to me like like Ron is trying to churn out queens, but has limited funds

 

[BobH1]

For me, it highlights the fundamental failing of BIBBA

But isn't BIBBA just a group of hobby-beekeepers? Where do they get their resource from?

Is this a business opportunity for you Skyhook? A business producing queens that you approve of?

 

[RoofTops]

I wish Ron all the best but he is always going to struggle in a place like Swindon. Just too many beekeepers and as this thread illustrates so well - beekeepers as a group can never agree about anything.

 

[Swinbee]

I tried to edit the above post after looking at the other forum, but missed the deadline-

Cut and paste from 'the other place', referring to the same subject-


A bit of a shame really. For me, it highlights the fundamental failing of of BIBBA, so far as I am aware, it has never managed to co-ordinate to sufficient levels to produce even 50 queens for sale, never mind 600.

Instead of constantly telling people how good the bees are they (in my opinion) need to completely reset their priorities to producing larger numbers and selling (or giving them away to club apiaries) and demonstrating how good they are by people handling them.

For all the BIBBA talk about the good attributes of AMM, they get people interested, who want to buy their own AMM queens to accelerate the process (and indeed many people are not into queen rearing), who become alienated when they find they can't acquire any of the queens and BIBBA loses yet another potential member.

This is something that puzzles me about the Swindon Bee project- why Swinbee, having apparently produced a strain with desireable traits, is not churning out queens by the thousand and offering them to local bka's, and any other suitable outlets. Surely this would be a better way to ensure the success of the genes than worrying about a few hundred hives- which can't be a big percentage of the wiltshire population?

In reply to Skyhook ...I would love dearly to be churning out 1000's of queens but this would cost £000's for mating nukes and other equipment, (want to finance it?) My pension won't run to that yet.
Perhaps it will after April when I get a substantial rise in my state pension for my 80th Birthday ... 0.25p per week.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

In reply to Skyhook ...I would love dearly to be churning out 1000's of queens but this would cost £000's for mating nukes and other equipment, (want to finance it?) My pension won't run to that yet.
Perhaps it will after April when I get a substantial rise in my state pension for my 80th Birthday ... 0.25p per week.

Ron, if it's just a case of cash I'm sure there would be plenty of like-minded beekeepers willing to donate. If you PM me with details of your project and how people can donate I'd be happy to publicise it with my customers and with my local BKA (Montgomeryshire).

 

[Skyhook]

But isn't BIBBA just a group of hobby-beekeepers? Where do they get their resource from?

Is this a business opportunity for you Skyhook? A business producing queens that you approve of?

Nice idea, but I think its a job for those with a slightly larger set up. I have no particular axe to grind for Amm, I was using the quote to illustrate the idea that increased domestic production would be required to displace imports.

 

[Skyhook]

In reply to Skyhook ...I would love dearly to be churning out 1000's of queens but this would cost £000's for mating nukes and other equipment, (want to finance it?) My pension won't run to that yet.
Perhaps it will after April when I get a substantial rise in my state pension for my 80th Birthday ... 0.25p per week.

At risk of teaching my grandmother.... would it not be possible to produce more mated queens than nucs with the same value of equipment?

 

[Swinbee]

Skyhook, In my case I am not just a breeder of queens; I am attempting to breed hygienic queens that need testing for their hygienic potential before allowing them to be used as breeder queens in the public domain. To this end is my plan to involve more beekeepers in the evaluation, the non-hygienic queens will be culled and replaced. My participating beekeepers will be conducting near-daily assessments and I will be taking grafts from the very best. At the end they will be keeping a hygienic queen and bees when the nuke expands to fill all frames. This way I am not only encouraging other beekeepers to see it is possible to dispense with chemicals but will have an increased gene-pool area.
The nukes will be re-stocked and put out to more beekeepers thereby increasing the gene-pool area.
All participants will be encouraged to increase drone production and never use any form of varroa control. I have been chemical free for nearly 12 years and I do not lose bees.
It would be nice if I were able to say that every queen I breed was hygienic but realistically, with the father drone input from multi-mating we all know that is not feasible. Even my grandmother must agree with that?
My problem with the NZ Carniolan bees being dumped in my vicinity is the fear that their 300 colonies are going to produce a lot more drones than my 3 drone producers. I let my select drones free half hour before releasing the virgin queens at 3.30 anticipating that most drones on the wing at that time will be mine -- not guaranteed even though my apiary is remote. With 300 hives on my doorstep I don't stand much chance of getting a high percentage mating with my drones, even at 3.30.

 

[Skyhook]

It would be nice if I were able to say that every queen I breed was hygienic but realistically, with the father drone input from multi-mating we all know that is not feasible. Even my grandmother must agree with that?
My problem with the NZ Carniolan bees being dumped in my vicinity is the fear that their 300 colonies are going to produce a lot more drones than my 3 drone producers. I let my select drones free half hour before releasing the virgin queens at 3.30 anticipating that most drones on the wing at that time will be mine -- not guaranteed even though my apiary is remote. With 300 hives on my doorstep I don't stand much chance of getting a high percentage mating with my drones, even at 3.30.

Sorry, from articles I've read I thought you used AI. Would this not get round the problem? with virgins from a resistant breeder colony and drones from another, surely the number of generations needed would be greatly reduced? Even without the new apiaries, there must be many other colonies in your area.

 

[Swinbee]

Sorry, from articles I've read I thought you used AI. Would this not get round the problem? with virgins from a resistant breeder colony and drones from another, surely the number of generations needed would be greatly reduced? Even without the new apiaries, there must be many other colonies in your area.

Skyhook, Sure you are right, I could spend lots and lots of time using A.I. but why should I when I have been getting over 60% success with my present method.
These 300 units of NZ Carniolans are not wanted here, not only by me. The previous bee farmer used to bring 80 colonies in when the co-op crop needed pollinating in the early spring, He did the job, got very little honey and moved the bees on before they presented a problem to local beekeepers. 300 colonies is overkill made worse by their heritage,

 

[DanBee]

Folks - can we please move on from this "300 colonies at Down Ampney" comment because it appears to be wrong. Several times ITLD has stated that the 300 colonies will be split across multiple Coop farms.

The Coop has a map of farm locations here. The next nearest farm at Tillington is about 70 miles from Swindon.

So far no figures have been mentioned for colony numbers at Down Ampney.

 

[oliver90owner]

DanBee,

You are obviously missing the thrust of the posting, OR are trying to deflect serious comment. I can see you would like the topic moved far away. Well, there appear to be more wanting the project moved far away as well! Like back to NZ! Or let Den keep them on his own patch and stir up a few more Scottish beekeepers! (BTW was 'Den' a long-past eastenders character - had a prefix, IIRC)

600(?) colonies to do the job that 80 did? (maybe the 80 struggled a bit).

I like your wording to move on - 'appears to be' is the phrase you used. You could well be right and it 'only appears to be', therefore needing far more scrutiny.

I am uninterested in Down Ampney, wherever that may be. The issue is that of importing so many packages, as I see it. Bio-security at it's worst. The other issues (genetics, and ignorance of other initiatives (varroa tolerant bees project)) surrounding the project simply exacerbate the situation.

RAB

 

[Chris B]

I can perhaps shed a little light on this colony density question as I keep bees on another Co-op Farm and I'm sure there are parallels.....

On the Co-op map the Stoughton Estate is shown as a single dot. In reality there is a large central farm (4 miles from one end to the other) but also about half a dozen satellite farms all within an 8 mile radius of the central site, all run by the same farm manager and farm workers. It provides me with about 15 apiaries, all a mile or more from the nearest neighbour.

 

[Into the lions den]

Sorry, from articles I've read I thought you used These 300 units of NZ Carniolans are not wanted here, not only by me. The previous bee farmer used to bring 80 colonies in when the co-op crop needed pollinating in the early spring, He did the job, got very little honey and moved the bees on before they presented a problem to local beekeepers. 300 colonies is overkill made worse by their heritage,

I have tried to engage with you in private to address these figures but perhaps you have not received the messages. I have told you privately exactly how many colonies will be going in at Airfield farm (40), yet you persist with the 300 version.

When I first visited the site last year (late on, November I think) the other bees were there. On Friday they were there. I roughly counted about 70. I asked the farm manager about them, and no, they do not 'bring them in when the crop needs pollinating', they are there nearly all the time. (His words, not mines, and he runs the place.) They even went so far as to plant borage to provide nutrition for the 'resident' bees. Please note this is FARM information, not from the incumbent beekeeper.

'Moved the bees on before they presented a problem to local beekeepers' is something completely new not been introduced to the thread before, and I DO respect the previous beekeeprs, but I doubt that the motivation for moving was anything other than a sensible management matter and not an altruistic one as portrayed in that statement. However, it is ALSO the case that these new bees will be away mid summer, off at the start of July to the heather at a location yet to be decided and will not return till late September or even October.