Sources of imported queens

[BeeJayBee]

I was astonished to find out that some bigger nuc suppliers just buy in queens as cheap as possible, harvest bees out of their colonies to make up nucs and sell them for huge prices. I was naive to think they bred their own queens.

Foreign queen £20, 5 frames inc wax £7.50, 10lb sugar £5, 2 hours work £? And knock them out for £150+.

That's exactly what a local-ish supplier does. They buy some of the cheapest queens they can get, advertise them along with a disclaimer that says that x-type might not always be available. Some of the nucs and full colonies they've sold to new beekeepers have just been a fairly random, and fairly filthy, collection of frames, plus a mixture of bees, plus a queen - and they don't say where that queen came from, nor if it actually matches the one ordered. It goes against the guidelines for nucs etc, but then there's nobody to enforce those guidelines.

These rogue dealers spoil the whole thing, and make some beekeepers very wary of any commercial setup, which is a pity because there are some very good, and very trustworthy, bee breeders around.

 

[farbee]

That's exactly what a local-ish supplier does. They buy some of the cheapest queens they can get, advertise them along with a disclaimer that says that x-type might not always be available. Some of the nucs and full colonies they've sold to new beekeepers have just been a fairly random, and fairly filthy, collection of frames, plus a mixture of bees, plus a queen - and they don't say where that queen came from, nor if it actually matches the one ordered. It goes against the guidelines for nucs etc, but then there's nobody to enforce those guidelines.

These rogue dealers spoil the whole thing, and make some beekeepers very wary of any commercial setup, which is a pity because there are some very good, and very trustworthy, bee breeders around.

I started with one of these. To be fair they did take off into a large thriving colony.

 

[Chris B]

Who is going to supply quality local nucs in sufficient quantity? It should be straightforward but I don't see much evidence of it happening (with a few notable exceptions). The opportunity is there. Go for it Pete!

In defence of some of the big suppliers, I can't see they make anything significant from bee sales compared to equipment sales, so why they do it I don't know. Perhaps because their customers expect it? If so the answer is to educate new and potential beekeepers that not all bees are the same, and that a young overwintered (proven) queen is actually a much better bet than a newly-mated one that brings the risk of early failure.

 

[thebeeman]

There is a massive cost involved providing Queens. To over wintered Queens.
That takes many years to build up. I have around 200 to 300 Queens overwintering at the moment. If i could overwinter mini nucs it would work out a lot more cheaper but there very hit and miss and if they die out for any reason that money is gone forever. If you want to start a commercial Queen rearing to supply the amount you need to make a living be prepared to invest around £30,000 to start also be prepared to lose that as well if things go backwards and it`s not a perfect summer. It`s very easy to say there is a massive market for thing and say he she or they should go for it. But the logistics are mind boggling

 

[Hivemaker.]

Just those two issues alone could account for people being initially fired-up with enthusiasm - until the realities of queen production (other than for their own use) begin to dawn on them.

You are most likely correct, LJ, it is expecting too much, although my intention was that they produce queens for their own use.

 

[Chris B]

If i could overwinter mini nucs it would work out a lot more cheaper but there very hit and miss and if they die out for any reason that money is gone forever.

For the last 3 winters I've had survival rate as good as or better in minis compared to main hives. The risk is starvation, especially Feb/Mar so a bit more effort to keep an eye on them, but well worthwhile. Only problem is, come the spring I'm more inclined to keep them than sell them as worth more to me for honey production.

Seems to me relying 100% on nuc sales for a living is precarious and I am not suggesting anyone do it. A lot of work and too many things to go wrong, not least of which would be increased competition and shrinking customer base. But I've satisfied myself bee sales are a good complement to a honey production enterprise, and for me the best balance seems to be 1 package sale per 3 honey producing hives. Customers get a good deal with a well bred UK reared queen that should give a honey crop in year 1. I get a good deal with spring cashflow for minimal impact on my own honey yield. And selling good bees locally pays me back in the drone pool too. There is certainly a time investment and logistics challenge, but capital investment is much less than that needed for honey production. Pete D is a competent beekeeper and has already made the commitment to earn his living from bees, knowing full well it's no walk in the park.

 

[Pete D]

Pete D is a competent beekeeper and has already made the commitment to earn his living from bees, knowing full well it's no walk in the park.

. Thanks Chris.

Now if I can just convince the wife that quitting my job of 18yrs back in October, handing back the car, the bupa, the pension and not having a salary go in the bank November and December was sound judgement on my behalf then my smile will keep getting bigger.
Picked a rough time of the year to go self employed part time bee farmer and part time odd job man but picked the right time of life.
So far so good, picked up 3 days a week working locally as a consultant in a food company for 3 months which will see me through the dark months, did a great Christmas market and sold 300 jars of norfolk liquid gold and getting myself nicely prepped for the coming season.

 

[Tom Bick]

Good luck Pete hope it all goes well for you. Been self employed and even a sole trader is great especially if you are practical and adaptable as it seems you are. All the best for the future.

 

[Into the lions den]

why aren't there more imports from Spain/Portugal?

Back to the original point of the thread before the stable full of hobby horses got trotted out......................

There is no technical reason why not, apart from the bad character of Iberian bees.

A. m. iberica is a most beautiful, generally large sized, all black bee, to see a yellow stripe is a rarity. BUT it is a pretty aggressive bee and an almost constant swarmer. It is unsuited to being worked in less than perfect conditions, so UK weather renders it a very difficult bee to work with. (In good conditions with a flow on it is, like many bees, lovely to watch work and to manipulate.) It draws queen cells all the time, in prodigious numbers, and a new queen will have its first cells under development even before the first hatch of worker brood has occurred. They will swarm all the time even well into September. This characteristic is strongly heritable even into crosses. Their drones dominate matings, so it is not easy, apart from some coastal areas of Portugal, to breed from stock chosen from and aimed at northern clientele, and provide a bee that will be remotely to the customers liking.

They are also strongly resistant to accepting requeening from any strain other than their own, so difficult to establish a colony and then requeen with the type of your choice.

Very unsuitable for urban situations as they 'follow' for great distances.

Queens, packages, and nuclei on combs are indeed available from there in large numbers, and they are the cheapest in western Europe. So why not any more arriving? Because they are not suitable for the UK climate or market.

Those engaged in the import trade are not, as some more jaundiced posters would state, just in the business of buying cheaply where possible and making fat profits ( my own effort has been essentially as a 'common good' project). The stock is CHOSEN as being suitable for the market (in particular the queens) and suit most parts of the UK. If less suited than you would like then they are good stock for establishing a colony and THEN requeening with the strain of your choice, as they are very good acceptors of any type of queen. For much of Scotland and the extreme west of the UK we actually recommend requeening at the earliest favourable time.

Also hear that some are saying it is bee farmers bringing them to areas of the UK where *in the opinion of the posters* they should not be. Well you should be aware than probably 70% or even more of these actually are destined for amateur beekeepers. Associations group source them, and traders take full loads and distribute them. The NBU is informed of where they all go for traceability, which was important this autumn.

 

[Jimmy]

Thanks for the detailed reply.
Some of the A.m.iberica characteristics sound like a description of Roger P's queen issues....

 

[Little John]

Back to the original point of the thread before the stable full of hobby horses got trotted out......................

There is no technical reason why not, apart from the bad character of Iberian bees.

Which was ...

why aren't there more imports from Spain/Portugal?
Presumably the Iberian beekeeping year starts in advance of the UK so they would be at an advantage when it came to supplying early mated queens for the UK spring?

So the question being asked didn't relate at all to the character of the bees, but rather to the advantage or otherwise of supplying early mated queens. That was the issue being asked about, and so that was the issue which was discussed. I don't see any hobby-horses anywhere - but then, people see what people see.

LJ

 

[Finno]

You are a brave man! Best of luck with the project and otherwise in 2015.

Finno

 

[Into the lions den]

Which was ...



So the question being asked didn't relate at all to the character of the bees, but rather to the advantage or otherwise of supplying early mated queens. That was the issue being asked about, and so that was the issue which was discussed. I don't see any hobby-horses anywhere - but then, people see what people see.

LJ

The OP asked about why not Spain and Portugal....I told you why. Early queens ARE an advantage and are available from there, but better stock than those sources is brought in from Italy and New Zealand in particular, and just as early (even earlier for NZ). Really good queens also available from Cyprus but not in such large numbers. The bad stock for UK purposes IS the reason Portugal and especially Spain are not used more than they are. Used to be a lot of Hawaiian stock too, which functioned well in most of the UK.

You might find considerably more Iberian origin stock arriving this coming spring.

 

[BeeJayBee]

Those engaged in the import trade are not, as some more jaundiced posters would state, just in the business of buying cheaply where possible and making fat profits ( my own effort has been essentially as a 'common good' project).

The stock is CHOSEN as being suitable for the market (in particular the queens) and suit most parts of the UK.

Maybe I fit into the category of a 'jaundiced poster', but the comment I made earlier is true.

 

[Into the lions den]

Maybe I fit into the category of a 'jaundiced poster', but the comment I made earlier is true.

There are indeed always suppliers who are worse...or better....than the norm, or even outright rogues. Applies just as much to domestic stock as imported.

 

[mbc]

There are indeed always suppliers who are worse...or better....than the norm, or even outright rogues. Applies just as much to domestic stock as imported.

Possibly, but domestic stock, by its very nature, will have been mated here, by drones in our air, from our stocks, and this helps with continuity and stability, whatever mother stock has been chosen by the domestic rogue.
I find the idea of the British Isles as some sort of brief stopping off point for other people's bees, used and discarded as a fungible commodity to gain a harvest, with no thought or regard to the pollution caused to the native fauna, quite abohorent.

 

[Apple]

Possibly, but domestic stock, by its very nature, will have been mated here, by drones in our air, from our stocks, and this helps with continuity and stability, whatever mother stock has been chosen by the domestic rogue.
I find the idea of the British Isles as some sort of brief stopping off point for other people's bees, used and discarded as a fungible commodity to gain a harvest, with no thought or regard to the pollution caused to the native fauna, quite abohorent.

abhorrent indeed






James