Imported queens

[Finman]

Good weather, bad weather, pretty much an irrelevance. Bees go out when there's something available and they stay at home when there isn't, whatever the weather within reason.

Good heavens guy! Most plants need over 20C warm that they exrecete nectar. Like c,over needs one week 24C to give nectar.

Beekeeping basics!!!

Why you have such yields there and 6 months yield periuod? Why?
Why bees stopped last summer brood rearing and lots of hives died in thre lack of pollen.

Use your brains, guys, when you have them.

And you are the most eager teachers in this forum!!!

Somebody needs to bless UK beekeeping, but who takes that risk?
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[Finman]

Good weather, bad weather, pretty much an irrelevance. ).

Holy Ship. That level jokes by adult. "I have a stong one box hive. What I do now? What is that water like stuff in brood combs? - Help?"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-90990/The-UKs-jokes.html

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[Chris B]

You have misunderstood what I've written Finman.
Bees don't forage in bad weather because there is no nectar, not because they aren't equipped.

 

[Finman]

You have misunderstood what I've written Finman.
Bees don't forage in bad weather because there is no nectar, not because they aren't equipped.

Oh boy. Robbing an extracted frame in August and collect nectar from flowers have nothing to do each other.

Bees are national in one country. Then they are exported to another "non national country".

Do you think that they work better in their "homeland".

I bought Norton's bees from Cyprus couple springs ago. They start very early brood rearing and they are really mad to get drinking water even from snow. Why? They had larvae and they were very thirsty. "Local Italian hives continue their winter rest and were very silent in their cluster. I have seen this during 2 springs.

A super bee hive was very lowdy. They just cried inside the hive. I pour half litre water inside the hive. After 2 hours they we silent.

What I should think about that?

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[jenkinsbrynmair]

You have misunderstood what I've written Finman.
Bees don't forage in bad weather because there is no nectar, not because they aren't equipped.

Good heavens guy! Most plants need over 20C warm that they exrecete nectar..

Beekeeping basics!!!

Use your brains, guys, when you have them.

.

Yeah Chris - what do you know? a mere 300 hive beekeeper!

 

[Swarm]

immigrants spread disease eh?
Perhaps you could blame them for other stuff,perhaps they'll bring over a couple of Asian hornets and some hive beetles with them, then they could go round spraying neonics Where did all the queens come from after the Isle of Wight disease?
Unless of course you pretend it didn't reach Wales and Cornwall, who rant on about their black bees

What about bad husbandry,abandoned hives,for spreading disease

I support Britain through and through, but do grow up, the only healthy bees aren't British bees

Don't forget to include Ireland and parts of Scotland. Do you honestly believe that every colony was lost? It's a rare disease indeed that wipes out an entire population.

 

[Finman]

Yeah Chris - what do you know? a mere 300 hive beekeeper!

I wondered the same.

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[Norton]

I do not think the point is if the British bee was rendered extinct by disease approximately 100 years ago, Brother Adam said yes, others say no, strangely enough I'm inclined towards the latter.

The truth is that a large number of imports of AMM were made from the continent in the following decades - soooooo, you cannot be sure if the bees that today fall within the designated AMM measurements are BB or continental AMM or hybrids of both. Hence the recent adoption of the "near native" description by BIBBA and co.

Also just bear in mind that the first imports took place in 1814, 100 years before the epidemic and appearance of Brother Adam and the development of the Buckfast bee.

So, imports are not a recent event. The UK has been dependent upon imports for the last 100 years and will continue being so, especially when heavy winter losses occur. Early queens enabled UK bee stock numbers to recover quickly from the situation such as 2012 and the 2013 spring.

 

[Bryanthebee]

I may of rocked the boat about bad weather, may be bad wording but dont some bee`s fly in worst weather than others, i am lead to believe the the more local the bee then they are more accustomed to local forage.

Did any one see the horizon program on bbc2 last night they say there are three factors to the decline of the british bee.

1 farming it has change over to crops which have no forage for bee`s by 30% which has taken away their natural forage.

2 neonicotinoids which disorentate the bee this was tested in germany with tracking device on bee`s from same hive one doped with the chemical and one without, the one doped failed to get back to the hive.

3 varroa mite which is sucking the life out of them and leaving a virus.

so if we can put all three together the bee is really going through the mill.

all of the above can change if we want it to by treating, stop importing, give the bee`s forage this is why london city bee keepers are doing so well they have variaty of forage alone makes a difference.

well me i am going british all the way. if we all treat bee for verroa and dont import what a difference that would make.

 

[Finman]

.
National guys are broud when they get 15 kg honey in 6 months.

I am proud when my imported Italians make the same in 3 days.

During rainy and clowdy days balance hive makes -1kg loss/day.

 

[Chris B]

I'll put it in simple English for you Finman so you can understand:

Bees can fly in low temperature and in rain. Any race can do this if they have a good reason to.

If the weather is good (high temperature and dry) but no forage, they will not fly.
If the weather is bad (low temperature and wet) but forage is available they will fly.
Bees behaviour is driven by availability of forage, very little by the weather. Of course the availability of forage is closely related to the weather.

 

[Bryanthebee]

my bee`s in this area will bring in also 15kg in three days if there is forage.
so lets just say there is a flow on but there is a light drizzil. is there a bee that fly in this type of weather because time then is not on the bee`s side if they dont.
this would make a difference if they did.

 

[VEG]

Have seen my bees flying in rain i wouldn't go out in, have also had mine flying in quite thick fog, how the hell they found their way back I don't know.

 

[waverider]

Put your hive on balance and learn yourself what they do.

Some measured facts, and not only national spirit!

Finman; As you may know a large majority of people would certainly benefit from undertaking some study in 'research methods' on this forum. Far too much assumption based on inadequate data.

 

[Swarm]

Have seen my bees flying in rain i wouldn't go out in, have also had mine flying in quite thick fog, how the hell they found their way back I don't know.

That would be the sat nav

 

[Walrus]

There are 2 ways to look at this bee genetics stuff - theoretical & practical.

In theory we can breed bees perfectly adapted to their environment which are also gentle, productive, disinclined to swarm etc. Some people even manage to do this in practice.

But what really happens is that most of us cannot control which drones our lovely queens mate with, and so within a few generations our bees become local mongrels.

One "solution" is to buy in well bred queens every year or two - but this is not a complete solution as swarming does happen, plus it is expensive.

Another is to persuade all beekeepers in your area to club together and act cooperatively so that they breed from the best selected local queens and cull the nasty colonies so that the nice local drones + nice local queens will continually produce the best of bees for the local area. But realistically this aint gonna happen - humans move around quite a lot too, and some of them keep bees, and some of them dont take kindly to being told which type of bee they must keep or how they must do it.

So I just take each queen as she comes, whether she be local or bought in - are the bees doing well? If so keep & breed from. If not, requeen. I think it is the fact that they are doing well that matters, not where they came from or what colour they are.

FWIW my best colonies to date have been local mongrels which are quite dark, but I am not biaised and if they are nice bees I'm happy to have them.

 

[Chris Luck]

I'll put it in simple English for you Finman so you can understand:

Bees can fly in low temperature and in rain. Any race can do this if they have a good reason to.

If the weather is good (high temperature and dry) but no forage, they will not fly.
If the weather is bad (low temperature and wet) but forage is available they will fly.
Bees behaviour is driven by availability of forage, very little by the weather. Of course the availability of forage is closely related to the weather.

Very clearly put, I agree completely and it is exactly what happens AND some flowers produce nectar at low temperatures.

Chris

 

[jd101k2000]

I am a complete expert... I have two hives and this is my first season... but I do notice that my darker bees of a Welsh persuasion tend to come out in slightly worse weather than the sun-loving bees of an originally Italian persuasion that are their neighbours. The Welsh bees also get up earlier and go to bed later. (They are also friendlier.) I also notice that there is greater variability in the Italian bees - yellow, waspy ones, smaller dark ones and everything in between. Suggests that she was more widely mated than her fat, hairy Welsh neighbours. However, I did study statistics, so I realise that I cannot say from this that native bees go out in worse weather than foreign bees. My experience suggests that, but I have not taken into consideration light/shade, population of colony, colour of hive, etc. and the biggest factor of all... my own personal bias.

 

[Russel]

Would someone please tell this bee she's not playing by the rules and to put that pollen back.

Taken Jan 11th @ 14.11 the week prior the snow that shut done the UK for a week or more

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[jenkinsbrynmair]

bees of a Welsh persuasion tend to come out in slightly worse weather than the sun-loving bees of an originally Italian persuasion that are their neighbours. The Welsh bees also get up earlier and go to bed later. (They are also friendlier.)

You will also find theat they instinctively buzz in a wonderful close harmony whenever there is more than three in close proximity although i have found that their bass section could do with a bit more 'guts'