Petition parliament ban on honey bee imports

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Forgive me for using your own words (but not quite in the same order) Ian:

Ban movement of bees and put a govt department in charge to manage.

I suppose that means compulsory licencing of all managed bee colonies in the UK?

well that just shows the depth of idiocy some behold.

 

[B+.]

Exactly, I'm not having a dig at all, just highlighting the fact that the majority of UK queen breeders are small scale and would really struggle to get halfway towards meeting the annual demand for queens in this coultry.

OK. I understand - but that's not what breeders do.
I would never claim, or even seek, to satisfy the entire UK demand for queens. That is the role of multipliers.

 

[Apple]

where are these £60 overwintered nucs? Is it a Cornish thing?

One of the local associations
However I can not say as Promised mods would not comment on local association affairs!

 

[Apple]

I'm curious how you identify these individuals you've had tested.

Google B4 Project and answers you will find

 

[Norton]

It may be a work-around but it is far from being a replacement.

Well it IS the replacement for third country trade, same protocol here, samples taken, bees examined, submit application, get approved, get VET 10 and off they go.

 

[Newbeeneil]

Bee careful what you wish for!!

I wish for many things and get b****r all!

 

[mbc]

Where did the AMM come from ?
Most are Irish or from Europe thanks to BIBBA promoting imports of those queens until recent times.
Btw the Irish are mainly dutch bees anyway over 50% if I remember right. They have a very pure AMM population but that doesn't mean they are native, Irish bees spent the same amount of time evolving in isolation as the English ones did. Kind of makes a mockery of the argument that is is ok to import from Northern Ireland but not from other countries. NI is only a part of the UK due to politics it is still a foreign country in reality. Can a bee fly there, no.
Base line of the real argument is it is fine to import AMM but not anything else even though they are genetically different to what was native here.

This post is full of inaccuracies I feel must be challenged.
Bibba have never to my knowledge promoted importing bees from Ireland.
"Btw the Irish are mostly dutch bees", patently nonsense, I'll post a link proving my cock's not a lobster but I'll not lower myself to disprove this *****.
Also, I'm sure a bee would be physically capable of flying from Ireland with a following wind, or visa versa, if Boris had his way they could crawl along a bridge.
You are making up a baseline of an argument that I doubt exists outside of your head and attributing it to others, I could be wrong on that.

 

[B+.]

Google B4 Project and answers you will find

I could only find some general stuff about open mated queens. Do you have a link/answer ?

 

[Murox]

This post is full of inaccuracies I feel must be challenged.
Bibba have never to my knowledge promoted importing bees from Ireland.
"Btw the Irish are mostly dutch bees", patently nonsense, I'll post a link proving my cock's not a lobster but I'll not lower myself to disprove this *****.
Also, I'm sure a bee would be physically capable of flying from Ireland with a following wind, or visa versa, if Boris had his way they could crawl along a bridge.
You are making up a baseline of an argument that I doubt exists outside of your head and attributing it to others, I could be wrong on that.

I live on the west coast, N. Ireland is less than 20 miles away. I have picked up live but exhausted honeybees from the beach on more that one occasion. The wind blows predominantly from the west so those bess will have come in from N.Ireland, Rathlin Island or possibly Islay which is about 12 miles away.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I live on the west coast, N. Ireland is less than 20 miles away. I have picked up live but exhausted honeybees from the beach on more that one occasion. The wind blows predominantly from the west so those bess will have come in from N.Ireland, Rathlin Island or possibly Islay which is about 12 miles away.

Well there is at least one beekeeper on Islay, he used to frequent the forum

 

[Apple]

I could only find some general stuff about open mated queens. Do you have a link/answer ?

e mail Andrew Brown who heads up B4. Sure he would help point you in the right direction

 

[B+.]

e mail Andrew Brown who heads up B4. Sure he would help point you in the right direction

No.
I did that once and got no reply. I'm not playing that game anymore. Why should I? If you can't answer the question, it's not my job to go chasing after a response. I've got better things to do with my time.

 

[Nige.Coll]

This post is full of inaccuracies I feel must be challenged.
Bibba have never to my knowledge promoted importing bees from Ireland.
"Btw the Irish are mostly dutch bees", patently nonsense, I'll post a link proving my cock's not a lobster but I'll not lower myself to disprove this *****.
Also, I'm sure a bee would be physically capable of flying from Ireland with a following wind, or visa versa, if Boris had his way they could crawl along a bridge.
You are making up a baseline of an argument that I doubt exists outside of your head and attributing it to others, I could be wrong on that.

Bibba actively encouraged members to import AMM queens from Ireland, it's a fact I was a member at the time. Bibba members remain the largest customer for a large Irish breeder.
It is only in recent times they have swapped over to locally adapted.

Ireland imported huge amounts of Dutch AMM bees after the Isle of wight disease to replenish their stocks, resent research has shown their genetics are still present. If you look for the research it even shows how many are descended from Dutch bees. It's over 50%.

The closest Ireland is the the mainland is 20 miles and that it to Scotland, it's around 50 miles at the closest point to Wales.
So a bee that lives it's entire life in a 3 mile radius is going to fly across 20 miles of open sea, a bit of a stretch.
A scout is going to travel across 20 miles of open sea, find a new nest site then travel back and fetch the others, lmao funniest thing I've heard for ages.

If your going to try and ridicule what I say then at least do it with some knowledge behind it.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Its not great to wash your dirty linen in public but one reason I am wary of nuc sales and indeed stopped doing it is that we inadvertantly sold some nucs that a few of which seem to have been carrying sub clinical EFB (they were well inspected by ourselves and by inspectors) and at their destination were put into a high stress situation...and some time later EFB cropped up in a couple of them. No evidence at time of sale...but it seems to have been there....hence we now no longer sell nucs.

Always a concern when selling nucs.... my biggest concern has been the recent indiscriminate and completely unnecessary sale of nucs to novice beekeepers for a knock down £60 or so... collected, apparently not quarantined( timing... they would have had to have been overwintered) and sold on in an area with a high incidence of EFB

Call for compulsory registration of flocks/herds and hives!

Oh not again!

 

[mbc]

Bibba actively encouraged members to import AMM queens from Ireland, it's a fact I was a member at the time. Bibba members remain the largest customer for a large Irish breeder.
It is only in recent times they have swapped over to locally adapted.

Ireland imported huge amounts of Dutch AMM bees after the Isle of wight disease to replenish their stocks, resent research has shown their genetics are still present. If you look for the research it even shows how many are descended from Dutch bees. It's over 50%.

The closest Ireland is the the mainland is 20 miles and that it to Scotland, it's around 50 miles at the closest point to Wales.
So a bee that lives it's entire life in a 3 mile radius is going to fly across 20 miles of open sea, a bit of a stretch.
A scout is going to travel across 20 miles of open sea, find a new nest site then travel back and fetch the others, lmao funniest thing I've heard for ages.

If your going to try and ridicule what I say then at least do it with some knowledge behind it.

Well if you experienced it I'm sure it's true elements within bibba were encouraging members to look to Ireland for stock, I still struggle to believe it was policy.
You almost had me cracking my knuckles, stretching my fingers and reaching for the big search engine with the Irish bees are dutch nonsense, but I pulled myself back as I'm done with arguing about how many angels can dance on a pinhead and other such rabbit holes. Suffice to say I remember reading the purest carnica have vestiges of Amm in their genome, I don't care and I certainly wouldn't write that German bees are 100% French or 50% Celtic or whatever having cherry picked this curiosity.
12 miles, that's how close Ireland is. We get tens of thousands of butterflies from Africa each summer, no one said swarms would go over the open water between but I'm quite sure drones making the crossing accidentally is probably an annual occurrence.
Appologies if you thought I was trying to ridicule you, it was only the ridiculous nature of your "Irish bees are Dutch" statement I felt needed flagging up as bs.

 

[madasafish]

Ou Association apiaries restocked with AMM queens from S Ireland about 20? years ago. (I was not a beekeeper at the time).

They are now largely local mongrels.

 

[Jb.robert]

70.000!... is this acceptable?
So, I can only imagine that this is the usual number of colony losses, why would brexit increase the losses? Beekeeper would have become less competent without the EU (or the bees died of sadness?)
Perhaps it’s therefor time to:
1- look after the colonies better so the losses are less in numbers.
2- raise your own queens (i don’t know for commercials but perhaps hobbyist could stand a couple of kilos less of honey crop)
3- plan more carefully the summer splits in order to account for winter losses.
4- get closer to beekeepers associations, learn about queen raising or/and share locally produced queens (my local association decided to raise their own queens from now on).

I looked at the petition and was looking for the button “support the ban”.

 

[Apple]

No.
I did that once and got no reply. I'm not playing that game anymore. Why should I? If you can't answer the question, it's not my job to go chasing after a response. I've got better things to do with my time.

OR you could contact Dr Jonathan Ellis at University of Plymouth who has carried out a lot of work on the problems associated with importation of sub species and Amm genetics.
Chons da

 

[Apple]

Ou Association apiaries restocked with AMM queens from S Ireland about 20? years ago. (I was not a beekeeper at the time).

They are now largely local mongrels.

No surprise there then.....
what did the beekeepers around you import and loose over the 20 years...
Selection for survival of the fittest( selfish*) genes etc etc

* best for the bees survival... not the beekeepers!

Chons da

 

[B+.]

OR you could contact Dr Jonathan Ellis at University of Plymouth who has carried out a lot of work on the problems associated with importation of sub species and Amm genetics.
Chons da

It was quite a simple question. Either you know the answer, or you don't. I am not chasing after people to answer the question.