Importing package bees by the truckload?

[Russel]

Snip>
Orchards don't cover areas of thousands of square miles, and fruit farmers don't spray beneath the trees to kill everything in sight, which means there's plenty of other forage around. The bees choose what flowers to visit, the beekeepers get colonies to the right size for the right time, and then put them in the right place to get maximum pollination of a given crop.
Snip<

I beleave thy now mow at the first sign of blossoms otherwise the bees ignore them?

 

[alldigging]

So how do Italy have billions of spare bees?

 

[thorn]

So how do Italy have billions of spare bees?

The Mafia brings them in from China.

 

[Chris B]

So how do Italy have billions of spare bees?

The same way we have more bees than we can handle later in the season. Their season is just earlier than ours.

 

[YorkshireBees]

I watched the program with interest. (Even enjoyed the Penguins!)

Murray seems like a shrewd business man as well as a intelligent beefarmer and I'm sure the last thing he wants is SHB being imported.
It would have a major impact on his business / income.

Personally I would be fine with a ban on bee importations however, as others have stated, new colonies are not produced in enough quantity in this country to satisfy demand.
Ok maybe enough colonies are available for the average beekeeper (hobbyist) but if your a beefarmer I can imagine that there are not enough available at the right time / price.

 

[wessexmario]

The question seems to be...

"Which has higher priority, business or environment?"

 

[user 6228]

Certainly within the Bee Farmers it's the Scottish beekeepers who have been leading the way with adopting (and evangelising) polystyrene hives.

Some...
But even the most ardent proponent I bet wishes they had started sooner to convert over ( think cashflow)

perhap ITLD can tell us how many beefarmer colonies are in Poly north of the border.

 

[Apple]

I'm astonished at the absence of comment.

I am not.
The vast majority of beekeepers in the UK are like me it seems, happy with 7 colonies, and bumbling around the shows with a couple of show jars of honey and a few tins of beeswax polish to sell, not to supplement our income!

Unfortunately the Beefarmers seem to have little regard for the environment or the effect their behavior has on the rest of us, a bit like the guy in his big red Ferrari tearing down the motorway and flashing this lights at anyone inconsiderate enough to slow his money driven progress!

James

 

[Chrisfnvs]

I'm astonished at the absence of comment.

I am not.
The vast majority of beekeepers in the UK are like me it seems, happy with 7 colonies, and bumbling around the shows with a couple of show jars of honey and a few tins of beeswax polish to sell, not to supplement our income!

Unfortunately the Beefarmers seem to have little regard for the environment or the effect their behavior has on the rest of us, a bit like the guy in his big red Ferrari tearing down the motorway and flashing this lights at anyone inconsiderate enough to slow his money driven progress!

James

I take it you don't like bee farmers then James, i must disagree with you, bee farmers very livelihoods are very much linked to the environment and what happens within it or to it, no bee farmer that i know would ever knowingly bring a pest that could affect his or any other bees into this country, we actually do care for our bees, we have to as we rely on them to give us an small income.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Bee farmers keep bees as it is their income - not dabble around feeling righteous to 'supplement' anything.
The vast majority of people in this country are also happy with a few square yards of land to grow a few spuds, some veg and maybe a little fruit. But if we depended on that to feed the country we would have starved long ago.
I've worked with a few of these people 'with litte regard for the environment' and I have nothing but respect for them - look at the hammering they had in 2012 to name but one year. Let's get real shall we?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The vast majority of beekeepers in the UK are like me it seems

I've only met a handful of really pompous ones to be honest

 

[wessexmario]

I have no problem with commercial beekeepers, but it does seem a bit short-sighted and a high risk to all if current practices for imports from countries that have notifiable diseases that aren't currently in the UK don't include inspections, monitoring and adequate notifications of any outbreaks of disease.

 

[BeeJayBee]

... it does seem a bit short-sighted and a high risk to all if current practices for imports from countries that have notifiable diseases that aren't currently in the UK don't include inspections, monitoring and adequate notifications of any outbreaks of disease.

There are regulations, you can read them on Beebase https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/index.cfm?sectionid=47 and on DEFRA http://www.defra.gov.uk/animal-trad...-animals/iins-other-animals-balai/iin-bllv-4/

You don't seem to understand that the EU as a whole has been free of Small Hive Beetle, apart from some found in a consignment that arrived in Portugal. Those bees and beetles were destroyed.

This outbreak was reported as soon as it came to the notice of the authorities. If something isn't meant to be there, how on earth was anybody else to know about it?

notifiable diseases that aren't currently in the UK

The only notifiable bee diseases are EFB and AFB, both are in the UK.

Two notifiable pests that are not yet in UK are Small Hive Beetle https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/index.cfm?pageid=125 and Tropilaelaps miles https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/index.cfm?pageid=92 . I think we should all make sure we can recognise them, and trust that any beekeeper who thinks they've seen them will report their sighting.

But what happens about the beekeepers who don't use the internet, or those who aren't registered with Beebase for whatever reason (probably as many as 50%), or those who rarely look at their hives because it's a mean thing to do?

What about the bee-havers whose colonies die, and they shrug and go and buy some more bees (from a bee farmer) without giving more than a passing thought to what might have killed their bees? ... I've got two of that type of beekeeper within half a mile of my main apiary, and I'm far more worried about what they might miss than what any bee farmer might do!

 

[Norton]

You don't seem to understand that the EU as a whole has been free of Small Hive Beetle, apart from some found in a consignment that arrived in Portugal. Those bees and beetles were destroyed.

This was an illegal import anyway. Imports from mainland USA were stopped in 1986. However imports from the USA continued into Portugal, Spain and of course France for another 15 years even though the importers AND the exporters knew it was illegal not just from the EU point of view but also because of US fish and wildlife and USDA rules.
Talk about irresponsible people!

 

[Apple]

Talk about irresponsible people!

One expects a cohort of beekeepers to be pompous too, the most pompous I have met have been beefarmers whom it would appear know so much more about how to keep bees than the greater mass of ordinary chaps like myself.
I for one shall continue to do my bit for the environment and bumble around with a few colonies of healthy endemic bees and trust to luck that a beefarmer with 1000's of imported bees does not set up camp on my doostep ( Fortunately my family owns much of the land in these remote parts of Devon and with some luck there is enough of a buffer zone for me to continue without interference from imports!


James

 

[Chrisfnvs]

Don`t forget there are other ways in which SHB can arrive on our shores, in compost, flower and plant imports and not forgetting all those tonnes of fruit and vegetables we import every year!! make not mistake it will arrive here sometime or another just like varroa did a while back, if it can survive here we will have to learn how to deal with it, you must have meet some odd bee farmers James we are not all like that you know, lots of us are quite friendly, there are a lot of them on this forum who give out good advice to others who ask for it and are not at all pompous, it is a shame that you seem to see all bee farmers as the enemy, we are all bee keepers in the end.

 

[VEG]

To label bee farmers all the same is not on. The 3 I know are great.

 

[BeeJayBee]

To label bee farmers all the same is not on. The 3 I know are great.

Spot on!

I have yet to meet a single bee farmer who is pompous and unhelpful, but I've met a fair few so-called hobbyists who are both!

 

[user 6228]

a bit late
Doul KM (1976) The effects of different humidities on the hatching of the eggs of honeybees. Apidologie 7 (1) 61-66
Seeley, T. D. & Morse, R. A., 1976. The nest of the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.). Insectes Sociaux 23, pp. 495-51.
Chen, Y. et al., 2012. Nosema ceranae infection intensity highly correlates with temperature. Invertebr Pathol, pp. 264-7.
Tamashbi, G., 2009. The effect of temperature and humidity on grooming behaviour of honeybee. J. Entomol. Soc. Iran 28, p. 7–23.
Flores, J. et al., 1996. Effect of temperature and humidity of sealed brood on chalkbrood development under controlled conditions. Apidologie 27, p. 185–192.
Kraus, B. & Velthuis, H., 1997. High humidity in the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) brood nest limits reproduction of the parasitic mite Varroa jacobsoni. Oud.Natur- wissenschaften 84, pp. 217-218.
Villumstad, E., 1974. Importance if hive insulation for wintering, development and honey yield in Norway. Apiacta 9, pp. 277-281.
Hossam, F., 2012. Tolerance of two honey bee races to various temperature and relative humidity gradients. Environmental and Experimental Biology 10, p. 133–138.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Fortunately my family owns much of the land in these remote parts of Devon and with some luck there is enough of a buffer zone for me to continue without interference from imports!

James

Apart from your sister's Carniolans ?