New allotment rules

[SteveJ]

I've just received some new rules from my allotment association. I would appreciate thoughts. I've added my comments in italics.:

Bees will be permitted on the allotments subject to the following:

• Hives to be positioned so that bee flight paths do not impinge on pathways or other allotment users.

No problem they are

• Hives to placed in a remote area of the allotments, preferably in the centre unless near a site boundary.

No problem they are

• The number of hives on an allotment to be limited to two. Bees to be provided by recognised suppliers and during season of production the beekeeper to ensure levels of varroa are monitored, and also ensures swarms are prevented and that the health of the bees remains consistent.

I have three hives and two nucs at the moment. Is a nuc classed as a hive? Even with the best will in the world a swarm could always get away, and we have another year like last year it was crazy. What happens if a wild swarm lands on the allotments. Do I get it in the neck because someone thinks they are mine?

• Ensure adequate screening height to ensure the rise of the bees when leaving the plot.

No problem there is

• The beekeeper to ensure that someone else on site can deal with any emergency that may occur due to the existence of the bees.

Allotment owners have my number

• The beekeeper to be a member of a Local or British Bee Keepers Association as membership carries Public Liability Insurance. Disease Insurance would also be beneficial. The bees to be kept in accordance with legislation such as the Bees Act 1980, Bees Diseases and Pest Control Order 2006.

Member of local association. Registered on BeeBase and have been inspected twice by SBI

• The beekeeper needs to show the Council evidence of a formal qualification in bee keeping which will help to confirm the degree of competence of the keeper in the management and manipulation of the bees.

Doing my basic this year

• The beekeeper needs to have had a least one year’s experience of bee keeping prior to keeping bees on an allotment.

Third year on my own.

• Any honey produced should be used and consumed in conjunction with clause 6 of the Associations Lease.

No idea what clause 6 is got someone investigating. Why do I get the nasty feeling I won't be able to sell my Honey?

• Should the beehives cause annoyance to any other allotment holder, the Council or a member of the public, depending on the severity of the annoyance the beehives shall be removed. Each request for bees on an allotment to be with the prior written approval of the Council, this will not be unreasonably with held if all criteria is met, and the express consent of the Allotment Association

Do they give me notice or are they taken without my permission. What do they do with them. Could this be constituted as theft

Constructive comments would be appreciated.

SteveJ

 

[Beeforest]

Rules, rules, tiresome rules - glad I've got my own land.
Though it looks like you've got it sorted even though you will have to limit your number of hives and may have to change your swarm management technique. Officially you should not be selling your honey if it is produced on an allotment. I won't tell on you though

 

[DarynWebb]

No idea what clause 6 is got someone investigating. Why do I get the nasty feeling I won't be able to sell my Honey?
[/QUOTE]

I have no Idea what clause 6 is but if it is to try and stop you selling honey, your not selling your honey, your only selling the jar and any honey just happens to be a gift would something like this get you around the rules?

 

[Bob Bee]

IMO. All perfectly reasonable and understandable.
I would see this as a very positive and encouraging policy giving you leeway to describe things like your third box as swarm control as part of disease management.

Many allotments don't allow bees because of negative past experiences.

 

[gavin]

I would hope that the owner would be given a reasonable period of time to remove them him/herself before anything else happens. Maybe you could ask for the rules to be clarified.

The requirement for a formal qualification worries me. Seems overboard - just competence should suffice. Also, the need for experience will stop any new beekeeper using the site - do they really want that?

Sadly, as you can see from another thread on here, not all beekeepers take their responsibilities to others seriously, so there is a real need for agreements like this.

cheers

Gavin

 

[Beeforest]

Could also sell a raffle ticket. Oh, look you've won a jar of honey!
Small donation then made to X Charity.

 

[Travelator]

My first thought on seeing those rules was that your allotment committee have observed and admired how you keep your bees and decided to make some rules so that any other beekeepers will come up to the same high standards that you have set.

The only part that seems unreasonable is requiring past experience, as it creates a Catch 22 (can't keep bees without experience / can't get experience without keeping bees). Perhaps they could amend it to allow for a beginner to keep bees if they have a nominated mentor to give advice?

If "clause 6" does indeed mean "no selling" then that's annoying, but if it's a general rule covering allotments then there isn't much you can do (apart from being discreet).

 

[Chris B]

A mixture of sensible and absurd.

Clearly the council have consulted a myopic beekeeper whose own personal opinions have crept in, even though irrelevant or unnecessary for the council.

Varroa monitoring? Not relevant for the purpose of rules. Do any BKA's stipulate such rules?

Disease Insurance would be beneficial? That's certainly debatable and has no place even being mentioned in rules.

Formal qualification? Member of BKA. 1 Year keeping bees. All a bit OTT. The only real requirement is competency or oversight from somebody who is competent (a mentor). Liability insurance is understandable but no need to stipulate BKA membership as the only way to obtain it.

 

[steve1958]

I guess its like any out apiary...

.........................................Always have a back up plan.

My Allotment Bees seem settled enough, and the Allotment keepers appear happy with them being there.
However I do have somewhere I can move them to at a moments notice.
Whether that notice comes from the local council or a disatisfied Allotment keeper. (They can always beg me to bring them back later).

As far as the formal qualification goes. A certificate to show completion of a basic beginners course in Beekeeping is usually enough,

I have been very fortunate up to now in that both the Council and the Allotment Holders want Bees on the site.
If I cause a problem then I deserve to be asked to leave

 

[Teemore]

The pedant in me says that any beekeeper is arguably a recognised supplier of bees...

No matter what the source of your bees is, you 'could' end up with a fiesty colony - particularly a few generations down the line.

The requirement of a having a formal qualification in beekeeping is one that I keep seeing come up and it is symptomatic of the approach adopted by insurance companies. To digress a little, there is a distinct failure to recognise that people with actual experience of beekeeping will often have a greater practical and pragmatic understanding of bee management than someone who does their basic (or equaivalent) and rushes out to buy their first hive of bees. It is like the comparison of a beekeeper who has managed 2 hives for ten years and one who has managed 30 hives for 3 years. Who in that scenario has the greater experience?

My inclination would be to enquire whether 'years experience' of practical beekeeping will be acknowledged and also whether they would recognise any other beekeeping mentoring/unaccredited training that you have received through your association etc.

I do think that it is reasonable that someone have experience of keeping bees before moving them onto an allotment.

My inclination would also be to point out that swarm prevention is not 100% guaranteed but that you do have procedures in place for swarm control - e.g. artificial swarm. I'll define swarm prevention as being measures taken to reduce the chance that a colony will swarm, those measures being taken before the colony shows any signs of impending swarming(ie charged queen cells). Swarm control represents steps you can take to prevent a swarm issuing after the colony shows signs that it intends to swarm.

The committee should confirm that you will be given an opportunity to collect any swarms that issue from your own hives in the event that swarm prevention methods are not completely effective. I would suggest that you consider clipping your queens' wings as a start.

Your point about other swarms going onto the allotments is valid. The allotment committee should acknowledge that you will not be presumed to be the 'cause/source' of 'wild' swarms.

ChrisB's comments on varroa monitoring and disease insurance are spot on. Varroa monitoring has no bearing upon the rest of the allotment site and its users unless they are bee keepers. Similarly the bee disease insurance does nothing for the allotment association/council or other allotment users. Better that they ask you to send off bees and comb samples for disease analysis on a periodic basis and that would be to your own benefit anyway!

 

[Silly Bee]

No idea what clause 6 is got someone investigating. Why do I get the nasty feeling I won't be able to sell my Honey?

I have no Idea what clause 6 is but if it is to try and stop you selling honey, your not selling your honey, your only selling the jar and any honey just happens to be a gift would something like this get you around the rules?[/QUOTE]


With the price some charge for an empty jar, the honey does come free.

As regards the Rools.

Well, looks like a bit of officialdom. Some of those rools must be difficult to comply with.

 

[Silly Bee]

• The beekeeper to ensure that someone else on site can deal with any emergency that may occur due to the existence of the bees.
Allotment owners have my number

Is that enough? A phone call is not exactly "Dealing with an emergency" IMO.

 

[user 6228]

"The beekeeper needs to show the Council evidence of a formal qualification in bee keeping which will help to confirm the degree of competence of the keeper in the management and manipulation of the bees. "

[Set mode = "rant"] I dont like this... This is part of the creeping regulation of everything that says you must have a formal qualification before you can start anything... Every risk assessment jumps to "formal qualificatons". The end result is training orgs get richer, people learn enough to pass the exams and standards in the field go down, as those who should be frightened off just go and get a piece of paper, and then perform badly. The people who were going to study the subject and be competent were going to be competent anyway.
You need a formal qualification to boil a kettle?

[/set mode ="rant"].

 

[SteveJ]

As I said. Constructive Comments. Doing my basic later on this year costs 15 quid of which the association pays half. Not unreasonable and it goes to the BBKA.

 

[user 6228]

As I said. Constructive Comments. Doing my basic later on this year costs 15 quid of which the association pays half. Not unreasonable and it goes to the BBKA.

"• The number of hives on an allotment to be limited to two. Bees to be provided by recognised suppliers
"

Does that mean to limit the density of hives (hives per allotment e.g. you can put hives on other holders allotments as well as your own) or the number of hives per allotment holder? (even if you have have two allotments you can only have two hives?)

Recognised supplier? recognised by who? and how? a lot new beeks round here get their bees from swarms collected by the local BKA. Is that a recognised supplier

Does that also mean you can't divide a colony of your own and bring it on to the allotment?

 

[beebreeder]

Personally I think this is a polite way of saying we do not want bees on the allotments.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Personally I think this is a polite way of saying we do not want bees on the allotments.

No, it appears to be very similar to "Best Practice guidance" being used by quite a lot of Councils. t i think started in a memeo by the city of Birmingham

My Local Council Haringey has almost similar wording butdoes not have rule 6 , however it refers to the allotments acts which basically stop you carrying out a trade but allow dispasal of surplus

They restrict the number of hives to 3 not 2 and local allotments are also allowed to restrict the times when you can manipulate ( the allotment behind me says " not at weekends"...so they dont have bees becasue no one is prepared to accept that restriction

i have been arguing with them that the qualification clause should be re wriiten to "Beekeepers of less than XXX years expereiance should have or be seeking to obtain a qualification"

 

[Tom Bick]

All seems reasonably sensible Steve and you obviously tick all the boxes.

Personally I would like to see one extra that all hives and beekeeper to be registered with Bee Base. I am assuming you are Steve.

 

[RoseCottage]

It just seems to me to be an awful lot of trouble to keep your bees. I would try and find an association apiary, farmer, or someone with a piece of land and talk with them.

The requirement for a formal qualification is fundamentally flawed and persuades me that whoever drafted these rules up has done a very poor and confused job.

I have no problem with doing a professional qualification for my career - this I do often, but this is a hobby, and always experience counts far more than a piece of paper based on a few hours of handling in-front of an examiner.

I hate the slow slide to elitism and into bureaucracy under the cover of pseudo-sense.

I hope that I never have to lodge my bees in an allotment run by such rules. Mind you, knowing the nature of beekeeping I would probably also avoid allotments by choice (if I had a choice),

Sam

 

[SteveJ]

My real concern at the moment is that my plan last year was to keep too two hives, AS once so I had four and then reunite in the autumn and thus back to two. In April I had two by July I had eight.

SteveJ