Importation of bees

[Ian123]

The rugby is not going well by the way....for the English that is

 

[mbc]

The rugby is not going well by the way....for the English that is

English pack totally outplayed, da iawn yr Alban!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The rugby is not going well by the way....for the English that is

which is nice................

 

[Ian123]

Oh your all funny now, I’m going to get up early and watch England bowl the Indians out. I’m guessing you’ll be rooting for them as well jenks

 

[madasafish]

Who cares if Scottish public school boys beat the English ones? Only public school boys or those who regret they never went to a public school. . (I write as an ex Scottish public school boy)

I give BIBBA full marks for promoting local Q rearing. It (almost) makes up for 50 odd years of promoting black bees but having none to sell to anyone.

And anyone trying to get someone else to join an enterprise by offering 50% of the profits - when the UK weather dictates there will be some years when there will be no profits - is an optimist. (Reminds me of : a certain politician named Boris)


Me a cynic? Never.

 

[user 20297]

Here's a petition being promoted on Facebook
https://www.change.org/p/environmen...S6I57vtw4BZotWdKNmaW8M74r7gKVgAjQ8vczZ43EG4Qs

This ban hasn't come about for environmental or bee-welfare reasons, or for presumed economic benefits to our own industry. It has happened because of incompetency and oversight by HM. Government. So the responses on Facebook and this forum by people with broadly environmental concerns is a something which diverts attention from the stupidity and lack of concern for the electorates' needs shown by the current UK administration......and it's not only affecting beekeeping.

If people have concerns about the "threats" to beekeeping that bee importation carries, maybe they should start another thread where their arguments can be clearly explained and tested. I would be very interested to read them.

Very unusually for me, (and I am sure that I am not alone in having very fixed opinions), I have had my views on the importation of bees completely changed by reading the very informed, eloquent and lucid words of @Into the lions den.

 

[Into the lions den]

Still at the frames..........been too easily distracted today...done 28 boxes of Lang deeps. I would be nipping at staff who only did that and who drifted off onto internet arguments.........will be off to bed with no supper for me. I will starve to death........probably some time in 2024.

Apologies btw for the introduction of black bees into the debate....it ws a response specifically to the suggestion we could turn into a bee and queen exporting country and the only pure enough stock we would have had to be of much serious merit would be the black bees from the Celtic fringes. However they are mostly loved in their own back yards. The comingling of British bees and Black bees in my writing comes from reading too many things online.

We have a couple of lines went out from here that have proven really popular in Italy. Very strong VSH and good producers...originally taken from an apiary in Aberdeenshire. So yes, there are bees in the UK that have a limited export market, however in that case they just used ours as graft mothers and last I heard there were over 3500 F25 queens in northern Italy and the line had gone into their Buckfast programme.

However what the bee REALLY was going back far enough was an NZ Carnica from 2009, somewhat modified by a couple of generations of Scottish open mating....ended up as a cracking and very consistent line being maintained out there by insemination.


(F25 btw is a line number...nothing to do with generations of hybridisation...was Jolanta's J23 but they already had a line 23 at the breeder. Was a touch confusing here because we also had a J25.....and the breeder of THAT queen..one we bought in as a breeder queen..is a reader and contributor here.)

 

[pete darbyshire]

Good grief!

Here's a petition being promoted on Facebook
https://www.change.org/p/environmen...S6I57vtw4BZotWdKNmaW8M74r7gKVgAjQ8vczZ43EG4Qs

Or this one!Petition: Stop the honeybee decline!
https://www.change.org/p/uk-governm...tially-destroyed-under-post-brexit-import-banor both!!

 

[B+.]

Still at the frames..........been too easily distracted today...done 28 boxes of Lang deeps. I would be nipping at staff who only did that and who drifted off onto internet arguments.........will be off to bed with no supper for me. I will starve to death........probably some time in 2024.

Apologies btw for the introduction of black bees into the debate....it ws a response specifically to the suggestion we could turn into a bee and queen exporting country and the only pure enough stock we would have had to be of much serious merit would be the black bees from the Celtic fringes. However they are mostly loved in their own back yards. The comingling of British bees and Black bees in my writing comes from reading too many things online.

We have a couple of lines went out from here that have proven really popular in Italy. Very strong VSH and good producers...originally taken from an apiary in Aberdeenshire. So yes, there are bees in the UK that have a limited export market, however in that case they just used ours as graft mothers and last I heard there were over 3500 F25 queens in northern Italy and the line had gone into their Buckfast programme.

However what the bee REALLY was going back far enough was an NZ Carnica from 2009, somewhat modified by a couple of generations of Scottish open mating....ended up as a cracking and very consistent line being maintained out there by insemination.


(F25 btw is a line number...nothing to do with generations of hybridisation...was Jolanta's J23 but they already had a line 23 at the breeder. Was a touch confusing here because we also had a J25.....and the breeder of THAT queen..one we bought in as a breeder queen..is a reader and contributor here.)

I remember J5 was one of mine but I'm not sure about this one. Was that one of mine too? Our numbering systems are different so it's hard to remember which is which.

 

[drex]

I remember J5 was one of mine but I'm not sure about this one. Was that one of mine too? Our numbering systems are different so it's hard to remember which is which.

Good to see you are still looking in. Missed your posts.

 

[Murox]

Good to see you are still looking in. Missed your posts.

so have I.

 

[Norton]

Here's a petition being promoted on Facebook
https://www.change.org/p/environmen...S6I57vtw4BZotWdKNmaW8M74r7gKVgAjQ8vczZ43EG4Qs

So what species would that be?
Dorsata, florea, cerana?

 

[Brian Bush]

There is a relatively silent majority out there that just want nice workable productive bees. Type not especially important.
Thanks ITLD I am so pleased that someone remembers those of us who just want to enjoy our bees. This forum is beginning to suffer from the I love AMM/small scale hobbyist syndrome. The simple facts are that most of our bees are the result of importation of bees since, at least, the Great Exhibition of 1851. The importation really took off in the 20s and 30s following so-called IOW disease. Post 1945 large numbers of European bees were imported to replace numbers lost during the war and give the agricultural economies of ravaged Europe a boost.
ITLD is quite correct in saying that if it were a viable proposition in the last 170 years some enterprising Brit would have come up with a workable scheme to breed bees of the required quality and quantity, available at the required time to fulfil our National needs. Unfortunately we do not have short Mediterranean winters, warmth early in the Spring, year round forage available etc, etc!
I import a few purebred queens each year to try and improve my stock but I will manage for a year if I have to in order to allow the UK govt. to iron out issues with regard to cross border imports.

 

[Ian123]

[QUOTE="Brian Bush, post: 748274, member: 347"I import a few purebred queens each year to try and improve my stock but I will manage for a year if I have to in order to allow the UK govt. to iron out issues with regard to cross border imports.
[/QUOTE]
Order away queens are still available

 

[polymath]

Unfortunately this may be the pain we need to go through before better times. What I mean by that is some countries around the world there is significant government support for Beekeepers as the recognize the benefit we provide. it may be that only when farmers complain enough that crop yields are down etc that the government will then support or even help create a national Queen Bee rearing programme - in some countries they even give queen away for free. In Australia for instance: Committee has recommended that the Australian Government commit $50 million per annum in pursuit of ... Australian Government use this money to establish a national centre for honey bee

So maybe a little pain now will be worth it to get the UK government to support UK breeding of bees and queens more.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Or this one!Petition: Stop the honeybee decline!
https://www.change.org/p/uk-governm...tially-destroyed-under-post-brexit-import-banor both!!

or neither

 

[Into the lions den]

I remember J5 was one of mine but I'm not sure about this one. Was that one of mine too? Our numbering systems are different so it's hard to remember which is which.

The J5 line was a good one....now onto J5A and J5B...just a couple of trial grafts from each to test their wintering..up to now seems good..will send you some pics in spring.

J23 that in Italy is known as F25 was a queen heading a very gentle and productive main unit colony that showed up really well on all our selection criteria so was hauled home for Jolanta. One of the best ever. Its local progeny did brilliantly, and its Italian progeny...albeit crossed with Buckfast...really did the business there. I posted some pics of the brood it had on a visit to Puglia a couple fof years back on twitter...the line ended up included in their Buckfast programme out in Italy. The actual location we dug it out from was adjacent to Castle Fraser in Aberdeenshire.

Jolanta and I were talking with Ged Marshall a couple of years back about selection of lines. We are really lucky insofar as we have some 4000 colonies out there and only need to bring well less than 0.5% in for the programme..including as starters and finishers. Actually about 1 in 300 if even that many. You can set the bar very high. The size of pool to draw from gives Jolanta a huge edge. If you think you have 5 good breeders from say 30 hives your criteria are toiling for making constant improvement. Even then, they get brought home from the field chosen by a team leader and she herself then goes through them with a critical eye...a fair number get their marching orders out of the unit even before she uses them.

More than 3 cells of chalk in the hive?
Spotty brood at all?
Lack of pollen or lack of diversity of pollen?
Stinging?
Weight? (is it a nectar getter?)
Apparent genetic uniformity? (she does not like to graft from colonies with mixed colour workers...makes for mixed colour queens. Its ok with Buckfast as thats their normal, but not for our normal preferred selections)
then there is her personal special.......'runaboutyness'

Any of these can get a colony rejected as a breeder.......even as a starter finisher if she does not choose it as a graft mother because the drones from it will enter the pool...so she looks at the drones too and if THEY are all suitable she will use it.

However..some colonies are very good starters and finishers...other do not like doing it some much...if they do a consistently lower number they too get sent off to the field to earn a living.

She culls (as in sends away) the rejected full colonies at the queen unit a few times a season. Quite irritating while we are in full on mode on the main hives, but its her perfectionism that gets the results.

Our current superstar is J31. A pretty dark carnica type probably actually a complex carnica/mellifera mix that is very stable, Every one of her progeny do very well indeed.....really good weight to strength ratio, gentle, big dark bees, low swarmers (but not nil), tough as nails in winter.


This post is WAY off topic......

 

[B+.]

Good to see you are still looking in. Missed your posts.

Thank you DrEx/Murox. I think you know why I don't post much here anymore.
As Brian knows, Brexit has little effect on those of us who follow the rules so things are progressing much as normal. In fact, we have a little project planned in Beds/Bucks (as they are contiguous counties) - subject to Covid precautions, of course, we will be distributing larvae from some of my stock to beekeepers who wish to raise them as queens. Of course, this isn't really "breeding" but it was always in my mind to make the material available to ordinary beekeepers.

 

[Hachi]

Unfortunately this may be the pain we need to go through before better times. What I mean by that is some countries around the world there is significant government support for Beekeepers as the recognize the benefit we provide. it may be that only when farmers complain enough that crop yields are down etc that the government will then support or even help create a national Queen Bee rearing programme - in some countries they even give queen away for free. In Australia for instance: Committee has recommended that the Australian Government commit $50 million per annum in pursuit of ... Australian Government use this money to establish a national centre for honey bee

So maybe a little pain now will be worth it to get the UK government to support UK breeding of bees and queens more.

Sadly, the stuff of dreams, we'll be paying for C-19 for at least a decade

 

[Apple]

So maybe a little pain now will be worth it to get the UK government to support UK breeding of bees and queens more.

There is a need to select and improve our own honey bee stocks.

Our own local bees just so happen to be Native Cornish Amm.. and that is what survives best and produces the most honey and survives year on year.

Everything points to local adaptation... whatever bees you have.