Importation of bees

[B+.]

K. "Beehive field", according to Google translate. Very apt.

Google translate can make some hilarious blunders sometimes

 

[Nige.Coll]

Google translate can make some hilarious blunders sometimes

It's how the government is now completing trade negotiations.

And yes I did vote for brexit.

 

[Nige.Coll]

I( think there would be quite some difficulty in accessing papers about the performance of other species. Has anyone here actually tried working with other species? Do not recall seeing many wild dorsata colonies around the forests, or people keeping dinky little florea colonies in their neat little suburban gardens......

but then...by using the name of the bee he did he is talking about ONE subspecies/race. The western honey bee includes all the various types commonly used.

The petition is thus incompetently and contradictorily worded. Invalid even before the first signature.

Your queens have obviously made an impression on a mate of mine, he is swapping to carniolan from your lines, you gave him a queen to play with last year after he had purchased some packages.
On the downside he will be buying less honey from me lol.
I'll stick to my feckblast for the time being as I'm more than happy with what they do,
You should stop promoting your jolenta queens as you're hurting my honey sales haha.

 

[Swn58]

yes, but they're still spider crabs regardless of what label you give them - doubt anyone will start liking them just because they're given a different name, they're not appealling because they are just an awful faff to dress with no easily extractable white meat. It would take half a dozen of the beggars to make a small sandwich

Re naming them Cornish King crab!
I have been eating them for years.... fiddly maybe but tasty!... French seem to boil em up for flavouring fish stew
Also the local flatfish is being given the name Cornish sole....
I prefer dabs meself.

In London dog fish or spurdog was always called Rock or Rock Salmon.... prohibited catch now!

Yeghes da

Yes.....consumers can be strange about names.

Coming back to bees. I produced "Brummy Honey" from my Birmingham colonies last year. It flew off the shelves in town, with customers loving the 'Brummy' reference. I sold some to a convenience store, near my farm bees in Warwickshire, within the Birmingham postcode. It hardly sold at all, because those customers did not like the 'Brummy' name!

 

[mbc]

Ruttner In "Breeding Techniques and Selction for Breeding of the Honeybee" Quoted:
average yields honey per hive
1941-50 22Kg
1951-60 33
1961-70 43
(page 50)
And on Page 77 showed a chart of increases in 5 yearly averages of yields 1961-83 of 6.7kg

This was as a result of replacing the German Black Bees with Carniolans and selective breeding of them.

Edit:

The UK average - based on BBKA surveys is around 30 lbs (Not KG).

Germany has more than three time the number of hives that the UK has
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/inf...-apiculture-programmes-overview-2020-2022.pdf

I've read Ruttner and respect his work but I'm still waiting for "The Germans have 50 years of unbroken statistics proving exactly the reverse of his claim."
The Germans took a hard nosed decision to go down the route of choosing a subspecies to improve and to work exclusively with that to improve their bees. I believe they made the right choice for them with the carniolan bee and have lead the world with their breeding efforts.
As no one has conducted such thorough work with Amm who's to know where their productivity limit lies, my own averages are certainly on an upward trend but then I'm under no illusion I can achieve a fraction of what an entire nation of beekeepers kept under strict control, backed by centralised institutions with almost boundless resources have managed over many decades.
"Proving exactly the reverse " as in your statement would require a nation to have a well resources breeding effort focused on Amm over the same time and then to compare results, sadly we're lacking this part of the puzzle.

 

[Apple]

Yes.....consumers can be strange about names.

Coming back to bees. I produced "Brummy Honey" from my Birmingham colonies last year. It flew off the shelves in town, with customers loving the 'Brummy' reference. I sold some to a convenience store, near my farm bees in Warwickshire, within the Birmingham postcode. It hardly sold at all, because those customers did not like the 'Brummy' name!

View attachment 24352

Our Cornish honey does very well in Cornwall and even further afield where Cornish is the buzzword for good quality

Except in Devon only just across the Tamar where we also have a number of apiary site... we label that Devon honey... sells in Plymouth, but rarely in Cornwall....
Well I suppose Cornwall is a cream on top sort of place!

Chons da

 

[Brian Bush]

It seems we have 2 threads that are working around the same question.
Would it be possible to clarify some of the statements being made on the forum in general and this thread in particular?

I suggest that one of the moderators sets up ‘poll’ with some or all of the following questions.

• I have purchased bees that have been imported or have an imported queen.
• I have never knowingly purchased bees that were imported or had an imported queen
• I am in favour of importation of bees and queens
• I am in favour of importation of NUCs
• I am in favour of importing package bees.
• I am in favour of importing only queens
• I am opposed to all bee imports
• How many hives do you have?
• Which subspecies of bee to you keep? Tick all that apply
• Local mongrel
• Apis mellifera mellifera
• Apis mellifera carnica,
• Apis mellifera caucasia
• Apis mellifera cecropia
• Apis mellifera ligustica
• Buckfast
• In which country, outside or in the UK do you keep bees?
• Northern Ireland
• Scotland
• Wales
• England
• In England which region
• North West
• North East
• West Midlands
• East Midlands
• East Anglia
• South West
• South Central
• South East

I know that people tend to lie a little when it comes to these polls but it might provide a clearer image of the profiles of beekeepers on the forum.

I do not know how to set up a poll on the forum myself and I am always concerned that there may be some inbuilt personal bias.

Perhaps others could suggest important questions to be included?

 

[Gilberdyke John]

The person I was referring to was masterbeekeeper he made no such stipulation!

I thought your "order request" must have been tongue in cheek considering the content of the post from MB How much to sell nucs for

 

[Brian Bush]

I thought we had accidentally established in an other post that JBM was either a myth; a legend or possibly an oracle.

Definitely an Oracle in my opinion. He may become a legend in years to come and eventually he may be classed purely as a myth.
He is IMHO an excellent moderator.

 

[Apple]

Definitely an Oracle in my opinion. He may become a legend in years to come and eventually he may be classed purely as a myth.
He is IMHO an excellent moderator.

Creep!

 

[Brian Bush]

Creep!

No Just an honest dreamer!!!!

 

[Erichalfbee]

It seems we have 2 threads that are working around the same question.
Would it be possible to clarify some of the statements being made on the forum in general and this thread in particular?

I suggest that one of the moderators sets up ‘poll’ with some or all of the following questions.

• I have purchased bees that have been imported or have an imported queen.
• I have never knowingly purchased bees that were imported or had an imported queen
• I am in favour of importation of bees and queens
• I am in favour of importation of NUCs
• I am in favour of importing package bees.
• I am in favour of importing only queens
• I am opposed to all bee imports
• How many hives do you have?
• Which subspecies of bee to you keep? Tick all that apply
• Local mongrel
• Apis mellifera mellifera
• Apis mellifera carnica,
• Apis mellifera caucasia
• Apis mellifera cecropia
• Apis mellifera ligustica
• Buckfast
• In which country, outside or in the UK do you keep bees?
• Northern Ireland
• Scotland
• Wales
• England
• In England which region
• North West
• North East
• West Midlands
• East Midlands
• East Anglia
• South West
• South Central
• South East

I know that people tend to lie a little when it comes to these polls but it might provide a clearer image of the profiles of beekeepers on the forum.

I do not know how to set up a poll on the forum myself and I am always concerned that there may be some inbuilt personal bias.

Perhaps others could suggest important questions to be included?

you don’t have to be a moderator to set up a poll.

 

[Into the lions den]

Have nothing official to go on about a change or ruling.....but this morning have had 3 major cancellations..totalling 150...of the UK packages. Customers said they had been given assurances from their supplier of Italian bees that it was going ahead.

As far as I know from official channels this is not correct and that a state of indecision on the N I route remains the state of play.

Might just be cold feet by the customers too.....

 

[Newbeeneil]

Thanks for the update Murray.
The plot thickens ..............

 

[mbc]

Have nothing official to go on about a change or ruling.....but this morning have had 3 major cancellations..totalling 150...of the UK packages. Customers said they had been given assurances from their supplier of Italian bees that it was going ahead.

As far as I know from official channels this is not correct and that a state of indecision on the N I route remains the state of play.

Might just be cold feet by the customers too.....

Interesting, how early were you prepared to offer these home grown packages?

 

[Into the lions den]

Interesting, how early were you prepared to offer these home grown packages?

Third week of May. Want to be sure all the old overwintered bees are away. Doing one load each of third and fourth weeks. Also a part load in early June when the first guaranteeable home raised queens are available.

 

[mbc]

Third week of May. Want to be sure all the old overwintered bees are away. Doing one load each of third and fourth weeks. Also a part load in early June when the first guaranteeable home raised queens are available.

Cool, do you already have shaker boxes, funnels, package boxes, and a feed system lined up?
Are you going to "smoke them up"?
Sorry for all the questions and taking the thread on a tangent but I've done a few packages myself in a pretty amateur way, I'm fascinated by the whole process.

 

[pargyle]

Yes.....consumers can be strange about names.

Coming back to bees. I produced "Brummy Honey" from my Birmingham colonies last year. It flew off the shelves in town, with customers loving the 'Brummy' reference. I sold some to a convenience store, near my farm bees in Warwickshire, within the Birmingham postcode. It hardly sold at all, because those customers did not like the 'Brummy' name!

View attachment 24352

Have they reopened the border between Warwickshire and Brum then ? They used to have checkpoints South of Solihull and barbed wire round Leamington Spa ....

 

[Into the lions den]

Cool, do you already have shaker boxes, funnels, package boxes, and a feed system lined up?
Are you going to "smoke them up"?
Sorry for all the questions and taking the thread on a tangent but I've done a few packages myself in a pretty amateur way, I'm fascinated by the whole process.

Pretty well, yes. I helped them doing it a couple of times out in Italy so know how to do it to avoid old bees drones virgins etc...comb drawers mainly really. We may or may not smoke them up...sometimes it is not required.

 

[user 6127]

Yes.....consumers can be strange about names.

Coming back to bees. I produced "Brummy Honey" from my Birmingham colonies last year.

Yam Yam Jam next?