New Holland Joins Forces with the BBKA

[jezd]

New Holland, one of the UK’s leading agricultural manufacturers, has announced that it has joined the fight to find solutions to the problems which are threatening and killing dramatically high numbers of Britain’s honeybees.

New Holland has formed a partnership with the British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA) which has led the campaign to raise funds for research to fully understand these problems which, in the winter of 2007/8 alone, wiped out a third of British bee colonies.

As well as providing essential funding, New Holland will use its extensive dealer network and customer base to support the aims of the BBKA. It will have stands at key agricultural shows and events – where it can raise awareness of the work of the BBKA amongst farmers, land-owners and contractors. LAMMA 2010 will mark the official launch of the link with the BBKA and New Holland’s stand promises to create a buzz during the two days of the show.


http://************************/new...-joins-forces-with-the-bbka-to-raise-fu.shtml

fyi - I can feel the love on its way

Jez

ps I would post link but this site does not trust me

 

[Hombre]

The site trusts you Jezd, but not the link

 

[wojciech]

New Holland, one of the UK’s leading agricultural manufacturers, has announced that it has joined the fight to find solutions to the problems which are threatening and killing dramatically high numbers of Britain’s honeybees.

New Holland has formed a partnership with the British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA) which has led the campaign to raise funds for research to fully understand these problems which, in the winter of 2007/8 alone, wiped out a third of British bee colonies.

As well as providing essential funding, New Holland will use its extensive dealer network and customer base to support the aims of the BBKA. It will have stands at key agricultural shows and events – where it can raise awareness of the work of the BBKA amongst farmers, land-owners and contractors. LAMMA 2010 will mark the official launch of the link with the BBKA and New Holland’s stand promises to create a buzz during the two days of the show.


http://************************/new...-joins-forces-with-the-bbka-to-raise-fu.shtml

fyi - I can feel the love on its way

Jez

ps I would post link but this site does not trust me

I would hope that this is a more ethical link than that which the BBKA has with agro-chemical companies. However, as a beginner living in an area dominated by the growing of rape and wheat, I find myself wondering whether bee health is affected by monocultural agriculture. In my first season, I experienced a glut as long as the rape was in flower but subsequently a lack of forage which was possibly the main factor in the bees turning very aggressive. As a result, I have arranged to move my hives to a traditionally farmed mixed organic farm in the hope of getting varied forage.

Oerhaps beekeepers should be exploring the advantages of 'step aside" and other practices which lay some land aside fallow or planted with meadow flowers etc

 

[admin]

Or perhaps beekeepers should be exploring the advantages of 'step aside" and other practices which lay some land aside fallow or planted with meadow flowers etc

I keep some of my hives on meadows that are set aside,I get a good crop from them.

Regards your bee's being aggressive that could of been due to the rape pollen if it was still available,it gets between the body plates and itches them.

 

[hedgerow pete]

sorry but anything to do with the bbka, will end up doing nothing, shame that the new holland lot how are trying got mixed up with a load that dont, as for aggresive bees try my lot when they get stroppy

 

[thurrock bees]

mine only get nasty after the rape has finished.

 

[wojciech]

I keep some of my hives on meadows that are set aside,I get a good crop from them.

Regards your bee's being aggressive that could of been due to the rape pollen if it was still available,it gets between the body plates and itches them.

That's interesting - I was advised in a Q&A session at my local BKA that it was due to the glut of forage running out with the rape finishing and that the only thing that I could do would be to feed with sugar or to move them to another site with fresh forage. That's why I was thinikng in terms of alternative sites with a wider range of forage and then started musing on the effects ol local agricultural crops being domoinated by OSR, to the exclusion of everything else. I suppose I expected that in moving to a very countryish location the bees that I was getting would have good forage but I've been told that urban bees have had a better spread of forage than mine had in my first, beginning year.

 

[oliver90owner]

Not really any different than them being defensive late in the season. Then it is put down to reduced forage opportunities? or winter stores? potential robbing? Same on rape, the bees are instinctive, not really thinking about it (reasoning). More flying bees not foraging (why is it recommended so often that you inspect your bees when the foragers are out at work?). KISS. The bees responses are just that.

On a separate note, I can understand why the spoken word is only retained as a topic. No time to digest it and work out all the underlying reasons and effects; reading a hard copy allows one to digest the information, think of more reasons, or the actual ones, why it should be so, and work out those underlying behavioural responses (and to go back over it again and again). Talking (or listening rather) does not allow one to write down or maybe even consider those other factors and secondary effects, as the topic has moved on in a few fleeting seconds.

Not too difficult to grasp that a monoculture forage crop is just that and urban gardens have a diversity of flora; or that OSR is here and gone in a few weeks of the year and urban gardens are carefully (often) organised for a progression of (usually) flowering plants. Depending on what the poster meant with the word 'spread'.

The poster was obviously thinking about the monocrop and diverse sites but appears to have not considered that last statement.

Same with stores and flow. If you had 5000 hungry mouths to feed and the food wasn't delivered, wouldn't you be a bit worrried about those offspring, a bit shirty if someone came along and tried to raid those dwindling food reserves in the larder? And if there happened to be ten, or a hundred, times as many able defenders doing nothing else? What would you expect them to do? Sit around and let all their hard work be raided, without even a response. Not likely.

Before I get 'jumped on' by the wet nurses on the forum, let me just say I am not getting at (picking on) anyone - just an observation (with an example here) which is possibly generally appropriate to an ever increasing proportion of learners, as the 'Bio Optic Optional Knowledge' device (BOOK) falls slowly into one of the 'less used' categories of the modern learning process.

Regards, 'a thinking' RAB

 

[wojciech]

Not really any different than them being defensive late in the season. Then it is put down to reduced forage opportunities? or winter stores? potential robbing? Same on rape, the bees are instinctive, not really thinking about it (reasoning). More flying bees not foraging (why is it recommended so often that you inspect your bees when the foragers are out at work?). KISS. The bees responses are just that.

On a separate note, I can understand why the spoken word is only retained as a topic. No time to digest it and work out all the underlying reasons and effects; reading a hard copy allows one to digest the information, think of more reasons, or the actual ones, why it should be so, and work out those underlying behavioural responses (and to go back over it again and again). Talking (or listening rather) does not allow one to write down or maybe even consider those other factors and secondary effects, as the topic has moved on in a few fleeting seconds.

Not too difficult to grasp that a monoculture forage crop is just that and urban gardens have a diversity of flora; or that OSR is here and gone in a few weeks of the year and urban gardens are carefully (often) organised for a progression of (usually) flowering plants. Depending on what the poster meant with the word 'spread'.

The poster was obviously thinking about the monocrop and diverse sites but appears to have not considered that last statement.

Same with stores and flow. If you had 5000 hungry mouths to feed and the food wasn't delivered, wouldn't you be a bit worrried about those offspring, a bit shirty if someone came along and tried to raid those dwindling food reserves in the larder? And if there happened to be ten, or a hundred, times as many able defenders doing nothing else? What would you expect them to do? Sit around and let all their hard work be raided, without even a response. Not likely.

Before I get 'jumped on' by the wet nurses on the forum, let me just say I am not getting at (picking on) anyone - just an observation (with an example here) which is possibly generally appropriate to an ever increasing proportion of learners, as the 'Bio Optic Optional Knowledge' device (BOOK) falls slowly into one of the 'less used' categories of the modern learning process.

Regards, 'a thinking' RAB

The reason why I raised my experiences of my first year in beekeeping under the topic of New Holland, which is associated with heavy agricultural machinery, is that I have questioned whether monocultural farming, with domination of an area by a glut of a particular crop, rather than a spread / succession of forage throughout the summer, might be unhelpful or even harmful to bees.

I'm not sure what Oliver had in mind in discussing "the spoken word" versus "the book" but I have to point out that while reading is a useful point of reference to reflect on experiences, the most valid form of Adult Learning is by "doing" ie getting stuck in and hopefully learning from experiences rather than mistakes. My own experience from professional practice is that a supportive "practice teacher" /mentor can make the all difference between disasters and useful learning expereiences. Ideally, I would have wished to have such support from an experienced bee-keeper following the basic Beginners Course if onlly for consultation and advice.

 

[MuswellMetro]

The reason why I raised my experiences of my first year in beekeeping under the topic of New Holland, which is associated with heavy agricultural machinery, is that I have questioned whether monocultural farming, with domination of an area by a glut of a particular crop, rather than a spread / succession of forage throughout the summer, might be unhelpful or even harmful to bees.

.

well said, my view is that Mono culture is one of the main destructive forces in the countryside

Ok , i m so old so i remeber that in the late 1950's my grandfathers hives in out apiaries were in multi cropped small fields sprayed only with cattle slurry and miles of mixed diverse hedges of sloes,hazel nuts ,wild dog rose and elderflower . Just outside london in south bedfrodshire/north hertfordshire

Its now a waste land with hedges ripped out with goverment grant, large mono culture OSR or Winter Barley fields, set aside strips sprayed with high toxic weed killers, soil erosion, water table contaminated with nitrite fertiliser..and the land has shrunk one foot below road level with flooding and the odd torched car...and suprisingly no Bees

ok it was not all jolly with DDT and 2-4-5HT weed killer but we had wild bees

 

[oliver90owner]

On second thoughts, Admin was entirely correct about the pollen irritating by getting between the body plates.

No other reason than that. I think I remember someone else telling me that.

 

[victor meldrew]

Irritating ? Watch a forager trying to pack evening primrose pollen onto her rear legs !, now that must be irritating , she often flies off ,trailing a banner of interlocked pollen grains .

John Wilkinson