National hives from China

[dpearce4]

"Sadly beekeeper organisations in this country (at all levels) have a task akin to herding cats."

OH should make a good beek leader then!!!!

mine is good at hearding chickens if thats any good?

 

[drstitson]

cats, chickens, ducks and turkeys.

 

[Hivemaker.]

(they actually referred to it as UK cedar). Premium cedar was considerably more expensive and was imported. So they do both. I presume, as for most of us, price and availability determine source.

They referred to it as uk cedar,yes thats what it is,cheaper because it does not have to be imported,quality can be exactly the same as the imported cedar,but trees need to be selected,i would imagine most would simply buy through an organisation like euroforest,and you get what they select,nowhere near as good as doing your own selecting,felling,and sawmilling/kiln drying of your own timber. Our home grown western red cedar is the same species as that grown in Oregon/British Columbia,(Thuja plicata), imported from there to UK in the 1800's. Makes a difference where in the UK it is grown as well,same applies to other timber species also,regards quality.
If selecting home grown trees for frame making (redwood) then much better to use Corsican pine,much straighter grained and less knots generally than Scots pine,the two trees are very closely related,slight difference in the needles.

 

[Winker]

Winker - WRONG. goods ordered from outside the UK attract Import Duty (at anything from 0-85%) and THEN VAT (at appropriate rate for the type of goods) based on the total of cost, postage and duty. HOWEVER -

You may have been lucky and had things labelled as being on zero rated categories for duty - again illegal if misrepresentation. or just ordered relatively cheap items.

From HMRC website:

value:

£0-£15 VAT & DUTY FREE
£15.01-£135 VATABLE BUT DUTY FREE
>£135 VAT & DUTY PAYABLE

BUT DUTY waived if <£9.

Gifts upto £40 (excluding those attracting excise duty eg booze or fags) are VAT FREE.

I have ordered around £70k worth of camera kit over a 12 year period from a supplier in Honk Kong named DigitalRev. Up to the other year when they hiked up the VAT i would only pay 17.5% on all imports from him. Every sale was around the £2-£5k mark. 6 months ago i got a new camera from him EOS 1Ds Mk III. Costing £5k and got billed an extra 20%, im sure it was for VAT, but due to the excess amount of Jameson's 12 year old whiskey flowing around my system at the moment, i cant seam to lay my hands on the receipt at this point in time.

 

[oliver90owner]

We would be hard-pressed, as a group, to draw up a specification, ask for quotations from several sources and then distribute the goods effectively. Yes, some of us buy in a few extras and distribute, but the savings are chicken feed, and most beeks rely on waiting for the winter sales and even then only a minority have a good idea idea of what they will need to keep in stock for the coming year.

Another aspect is the testing for conformance to the specifications - it all takes time and the large-scale users are the only single ones to complain if a fault is found. Recovery of multiple small orders to the purchasing point is, again, a time and costs consuming exercise.

Not all of the inflated price is profiteering as these places (the suppliers) have considerable overheads to contend with. The UK is heavily burdened with bureaucracy and the governments (national and local) take more than they should.

RAB

 

[BKF Admin]

If selecting home grown trees for frame making (redwood) then much better to use Corsican pine,much straighter grained and less knots generally than Scots pine,the two trees are very closely related,slight difference in the needles.

I dont think Corsican pine is planted in the uk now due to disease ?

 

[Hivemaker.]

No they are not,but plenty of trees still growing,Larch is another being felled all over the place because of disease that may affect oak trees,sudden oak death.
We sawmill lots of oak as well..lol

Compliments of USA,where we import some of our timber from.

After destroying millions of oaks in California, the infection spread to Britain – then suddenly jumped species

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/16/sudden-oak-death-forests-tree-species

 

[TBRNoTB]

Basically I would agree with you but there are things which aren't available in this country.

Whilst I agree with the above sentiments, not all of us can afford to live in more than one country! Is it not encumbant on all of us (all things being equal) to try and get our stuff 'in house'? or maybe before much longer we may not have a house to live in!

 

[The Cumbrian]

Whilst I agree with the above sentiments, not all of us can afford to live in more than one country! Is it not encumbant on all of us (all things being equal) to try and get our stuff 'in house'? or maybe before much longer we may not have a house to live in!

As I said basically I agree but you will not get all that many people to forgo things like Bananas (name your foreign fruit/out of season food of preference) people seem quite keen on gold for jewellery etc. I could go on but I won't.

 

[TBRNoTB]

As I said basically I agree but you will not get all that many people to forgo things like Bananas (name your foreign fruit/out of season food of preference) people seem quite keen on gold for jewellery etc. I could go on but I won't.

The 'all being equal' I think encompassed that, I would hope as Rab would put it 'thinking people' would prefer to purchase items of equal quality/price that were produced in their own country? If one doesn't it is the equivalent of paying winter fuel allowance to someone retired to Cyprus or Italy.

 

[The Cumbrian]

The 'all being equal' I think encompassed that, I would hope as Rab would put it 'thinking people' would prefer to purchase items of equal quality/price that were produced in their own country? If one doesn't it is the equivalent of paying winter fuel allowance to someone retired to Cyprus or Italy.

The point I am trying to make is that even if you buy say jewellery "of equal quality and price" in the UK the gold came from abroad. There are no English commercial goldmines and the only welsh one I know of produces infintesimal amounts of gold.

WE don't grow many bananas. oranges etc and a UK vegetable diet (that is the vegetables in the diet not vegetarian) could be rather restricted in the depths of winter.

I would always encourage people to buy British but you/we have to be realistic and accept that few if any are prepared to turn the clock back to the days when we had to be self suffucient in everything.

 

[TBRNoTB]

The point I am trying to make is that even if you buy say jewellery "of equal quality and price" in the UK the gold came from abroad. There are no English commercial goldmines and the only welsh one I know of produces infintesimal amounts of gold.

WE don't grow many bananas. oranges etc and a UK vegetable diet (that is the vegetables in the diet not vegetarian) could be rather restricted in the depths of winter.

I would always encourage people to buy British but you/we have to be realistic and accept that few if any are prepared to turn the clock back to the days when we had to be self suffucient in everything.

What part of 'all things being equal' don't you understand? It is obvious we don't produce enough gold to satisfy the demand, as with bananas etc etc they are outside the 'equal' quote. It is the things we do produce/grow (think apples!) we merrily import goods from the other side of the world and think nothing of it! saying that, I'm sat here drinking a can of imported larger! doh as a country we need to think more about what we buy.

 

[drstitson]

here's the answer winker:

"all cameras attract VAT; but digital cameras are duty free"

lenses alone however attract around 6.5% duty!

checking out fora, it seems that some of the HK suppliers, eg onestop digital, will promise to refund any duty incurred.

and of course some suppliers declare the correct numerical value that you paid BUT in HK$ rather than £ (so when customs convert before calculating duty/VAT they end up with a sum 1/12 of that you paid!).

 

[drstitson]

we may not be able to produce bananas or oranges BUT we should not be importing stuff that is in season in the UK.

and joe public needs to understand that you can't have french beans in December - no need to fly in from Kenya; eat sprouts instead. likewise new potatoes from Egypt in winter - wrong, wrong, wrong on so many levels (importing seed pots from scotland, peat from ireland for packing, using excessive fertiliser as soil so poor and 500l of water per kg pots produced).

 

[oliver90owner]

The problem of declaring a low value would be felt if the items were of high value and disappeared, or got seriously damaged, while in the system.

RAB

 

[chrismcd]

"Sadly beekeeper organisations in this country (at all levels) have a task akin to herding cats."

You are so right! But there are honourable exceptions!!

HRBKA run a beekeepers shop out of containers in the staff car park of the RHS at Harlow Car.

http://www.hrbka.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9&Itemid=14

I know it is out of the way for many beeks, but it does buy in bulk and everyone is welcome to take advantage of the discounts.

Mainly Nationals, but there is a good choice considering it is run by volunteers (not all HRBKA) from out of three containers!

 

[BKF Admin]

I purchased 3 hives from a beekeeper that imported a container load from China a few years ago.

They cost me £40 each,within the first year all 3 turned black with mould,the guy went out of business about the same time.

 

[Dishmop]

Buying in less developed countries is an obvious way forward - living is cheaper there .......

.
Its not all to down to living costs. Some people/companies are just happy to make a profit to cover costs and have enought left over to live on, as opposed to those who want huge profits per unit, the biggest car they can get on lease and a house that they cant afford when sales go down, then cry and whinge that its the governments fault that they cant get a bank loan.
If UK companies sold thier goods to us at the same price they sell them for abroad then we might be able to buy more of their products.

 

[Winker]

here's the answer winker:

"all cameras attract VAT; but digital cameras are duty free"

lenses alone however attract around 6.5% duty!

checking out fora, it seems that some of the HK suppliers, eg onestop digital, will promise to refund any duty incurred.

and of course some suppliers declare the correct numerical value that you paid BUT in HK$ rather than £ (so when customs convert before calculating duty/VAT they end up with a sum 1/12 of that you paid!).

That could be the answer

 

[Dishmop]

turn the clock back to the days when we had to be self suffucient in everything.

You'd be turning the clock back an awfully long way.