Queen problems

[victor meldrew]

Hi Hivemaker,
You say some seem to bee nosemic, but how is that as its my understanding that the exporters of bees must have a clean bill of health to send bees abroad. There lies the problem who if anyone will bee inspecting the colony the queens come from?
Breed your own queens its great fun and a great sense of satisfaction.

Mo

Mo the imported Queens arrive with a certificate of health issued by the exporting country !( this must be retained by the importer for 2 years.)

Some time after instalment (this time is elastic),a bee inspector will be along to inspect your stock and will be advised that you have exotic bees that will require close inspection !
Of course you could have done splits or what ever before a UK inspection !

Any system can be bucked but by and large they work .
One of the biggest importers of bees resides in the North West ,yet the incidents of either of the foul broods, both current and historic are well below average in the area!.

John W

 

[theengraver]

The main driving factor now adays is plain and simple economics and ease
a 100 years ago it was trying something new and inovation.
the damage is done

the only way to stop the rot is for the govement to draw a line under allowing imports and work on what we already have repair and improve.
We have some of the best minds in the world in this country that can do this but the goal posts keep moving.

Imports will never be stopped the only way for the rot to stop is for beekeepers not to buy imported queens and to admit

yes we beekeeper are destroying the bees its our fault we did it blame us
we imported all the bad things our bees can not cope with we flog the guts out of them from as soon as the first drop of nectar appears until the last drop we can squeeze out of them and then we take as much honey away from them and give them a bag of silver spoon sugar mixed with water to keep them alive until it all starts again my grandad never needed to feed his bees.

Our own native bee is all but gone neglected and thrown in a corner and left to die.


Im not saying lets go back to the good old days straw skeps and the like

but lets give the bees a little help take some of the stress off them work with what we have.

 

[oliver90owner]

incidents of either of the foul broods

Exactly my point in my earlier post. Selectivity of data. Ho, hum - lies da*mn lies and statistics. Not saying you are incorrect in what you have quoted, but that it may not be the whole picture(nosema ignored?).

If it happens for the important thigs, like health of the bees, what chance for 'lesser important (perceived) characteristics of these importations?

RAB

 

[Finman]

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Our professional beebreeders test all the time foreign bee strains if they are able to get some valuable genes.

When you are a big queen breeder, you needs different strains that inbreeding will not ruin the stock.

Our Elgon bee breeder Olsson have many bee strains. He lives on area where are no other beekeepers. He keeps different strains in solitary yards that they do not mix together by themselves. (Olsson was the first in the world to cross ordinary fox and polar fox. )


"imported queen are rubbish". That is very stupid attitude. You just pick up good genes from the world and do not think that "only I have best bees".

"Queen breeding is fun". Not to me. It is interesting but not for fun. I look utube and TV for fun.

To be satisfied with your "own stock" is dangerous. I have seen that several times. When I use to bye 3 new queen every year, I may compare how good they are compared to my recent stock.

It depends so much how much you have beehives around you which genome you cannot control.

 

[Finman]

Our own native bee is all but gone neglected and thrown in a corner and left to die.
.

Yes, The British exported that "Black Devil" to every continent where they went themselves, and that Black Devil is not nursed in those continents any more.

I had those Black Devils between years 1963-1988 and I have nothing good to say about them. Thanks to varroa, it killed them all from our country.

Some beekeepers cry after them, but too late. No one breeded them when they existed here. BD had all kinds of diseases and it was not healthy race at all.

 

[Chris B]

I wonder if people are aware of a bit of an import "loophole". England and Wales are under the jurisdiction of the NBU and any imports are shown on Bee Base. Scotland is managed differently. Import regulations still apply (I presume they are similar or perhaps even identical) but the stats don't appear to be published on the internet.

It is also possible to import bees (queens and packages/colonies) into Scotland and then subsequently move them to England. They are then not recognised as an import so won't appear on Bee Base and as far as I know there is no obligation to notify the English RBI at all.

There have been rumours.

 

[victor meldrew]

incidents of either of the foul broods

Exactly my point in my earlier post. Selectivity of data. Ho, hum - lies da*mn lies and statistics. Not saying you are incorrect in what you have quoted, but that it may not be the whole picture(nosema ignored?).

If it happens for the important thigs, like health of the bees, what chance for 'lesser important (perceived) characteristics of these importations?

RAB

I don't get your point?
Perhaps the perceived viscous second crosses of carnica/native type(mongrel)?
Ingnoring nosema ? Well it is after all endemic in the UK bee population (I'm including Cerana )
We don't have a base stock of Mellifica Mellifica
Our bees are already mongrelised .
The Germans chose Carnica, selectively bred same and generally have a homogenised stock , with extremely good temper plus other desirable characteristics! Even so they maintain this by off shore mating stations where rigid rules for acceptance of virgins in mating hives are applied !
I can't visualise a situation in the UK where this level of cooperation will be possible .

John W

 

[Poly Hive]

NO MM? says who?

AMM is alive and well in the far north. Of Scotland that is.

PH

 

[victor meldrew]

NO MM? says who?

AMM is alive and well in the far north. Of Scotland that is.

PH

Now where did I write No MM ?

I iterate ! We have no base stock of MM.
Yes perhaps it could be argued that an odd Pocket or three of MM could be lurking in the out reaches of Great Britain (Nb land mass rather than political)!
Mind you ,not that long ago Scotland thought it was immune from varroa but found out this wasn't so ?.
Now given that the cold didn't deter the march of a wing less mite it's hard to believe that it deterred amorous mongrel drones ?

John W

 

[Hivemaker.]

Perhaps AMM are quite widespread,with varying degree's of dilution of course?
Nice picture in the link.
http://www.sicamm.org/WhatApis.html

 

[victor meldrew]

Nice link and picture

John Wilkinson

 

[oliver90owner]

Victor,

One of the biggest importers of bees resides in the North West ,yet the incidents of either of the foul broods, both current and historic are well below average in the area!.

My point, had you not missed it completely, was that your statistics were about foul brood, but the thread was discussing NOSEMA.

They are two entirely different, and unrelated, types of disease. Your apparently flippant statement re your local supplier may be a 'statistical' attempt to persuade some that those bees would be nosema free also, which, while it may well be true, it is not necessarily so!

Same as earlier in the thread when some queens from certain origins were quoted as poor quality, and another poster simply misquoted by changing it to mean all imports are rubbish. Care with postings is required to make sure they are appropriate to the context of the thread.

Hope this makes things clear.

RAB

 

[victor meldrew]

Rab why on earth do you adopt this belligerent attitude ?
Drop the tendency to lecture .
You seem to read far more into posts than the poster intended!
I am not the first to object to this !
Your holier than thou attitude mars what is otherwise a sound grasp of most question/answer topics!

John Wilkinson
Ps I don't need informing of the difference between foul brood and nosema thank you!!

 

[mbc]

I think its safe to assume any reputable queen importer would have a good relationship with the beekeeper at 'the other end' and it would be in both's interest's to make sure the queens were healthy. If this were not so then feedback would very quickly follow to change the situation. If I had a company selling queens I'd want my customers to be happy and to come back again - I dont think anybody selling duff queens would stay in business very long.
This isnt to say I agree with impoting queens, as I dont, but beekeeping is a fairly small and reasonably close community and any rubbish queens being sold on mass would quickly be flagged up , even before the advent of online fora like this one.

 

[Finman]

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I think that queen byers does not know what they are buying. They think that with Lada price they get Mercedes and much more.

Queen are just queens. When you rear yourself them, you do not know what you are getting.

Look your own children. Are they such what you was making?

Bees have their diseasease, they swarm and they sting.

Bees have had "millions of years" their diseases. Why they should give up if one queen byer wnats that to happen.

It is quite naiv to want something what never has exist.

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