Urban dwellers 'should keep bees'

[BKF Admin]

People in English towns areas are being encouraged to keep bees to help declining populations.

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[GingerNut]

I am

Yours Roy

 

[Hombre]

My dear OH saw this on the BBC news at lunch time and said, "Why don't you get plastic hives and save all that mess"?

She refers of course to piles of sawdust and oddments of wood.

Perhaps I aught to liberally translate her question as. "Why don't you get MORE hives"?

 

[hedgerow pete]

noooooooooo, this means even more muppets keeping bees and keeping them in my areas, how about we all who know what to do keep even more hives the last thing i need is another muppet near by getting me a bad name.

 

[victor meldrew]

93 new members in my club this year alone.
Keep encouraging newbies.
As forage is finite may I suggest culling some of the old beekeepers, after all the coffin dodgers are well past their sell by date and can't keep up with modern practices anyway .

John Wilkinson

 

[BKF Admin]

That did make me laugh John.

But then I do have a few years to go yet.

 

[victor meldrew]

That did make me laugh John.

But then I do have a few years to go yet.

I hoped you'd like it

John

 

[Hombre]

You have to admit that johannes Paul is getting his name, face and product on the TV for free. We all know what a bit of PR spin did for Makuna honey. So should we really be afraid. I suspect that the stock position at Thornes may not improve, but the opportunities for them are likely to.

I certainly hope you don't feel me to be one of your "muppets" Pete? I have always found that within a community reputations are appropriately earned by the individual rather than by their peers and accomplices.

If it takes off without clipped queens, then just imagine the number of free bees that will be on offer in the area before long. A few speculative bait hives could be just what the doctor ordered!

 

[ribblesbees]

If it takes off without clipped queens, then just imagine the number of free bees that will be on offer in the area before long. A few speculative bait hives could be just what the doctor ordered!

mmm very interesting thought.

 

[hedgerow pete]

i know wher you are coming from with your point of view , but i am sooooo sorry but but i am coming from the vastly opposite direction , simply i hate swarms, i realy do hate swarms dealing with someone elses muck up or someone else deiase ridded mite carring fleas, i have my type of bee at my type of bee shed the last thing i need is someone keeping bees badly in thier back garden because my bees will be blamed as normal for any stinging infliction in a 20 mile radius of birmingham, i have meet so many people the last year who belive beeking is only done twice a year, both times to collect honey, i have also had to "help" other out for varius reasons one of which is realy narking me and that is the amount of newbees being ripped off by people selling nucs with either no queen or unmated queens and to me personal a 5 frame nuc should not contain 4 frames of stores and no queen ! so sorry but the last thing this hobby needs is more people jioning and the markets being flooded with rubish, i can remeber the lectures i used to get off the old boys back in the early 80s as bee keepers tryed to recover from the boom of 78/79, the more it explodeds the more dieases will bloom and the worst it will become

 

[JCBrum]

Seconded.


Admin, why have we got two threads entitled "Urban dwellers 'should keep bees'" ??

 

[OXFORDBEE]

Thirded....

But this time we've go the varroa mite which will help keep the population of let-alone beekeepers in check..

 

[BKF Admin]

Seconded.


Admin, why have we got two threads entitled "Urban dwellers 'should keep bees'" ??

Because my thread is an automatic newsfeed that I have from the BBC.
If it picks up a keyword from the BBC it posts the thread for me with my username,all clever stuff.

I do auto-pilot posting now

 

[hedgerow pete]

if this boom in interest, swings one way we will have a more informed public( a good thing for sure) but if it swings the other way as it did in the early 80s after the good life rave , we will have hundreds of unwanted bee hives producing random swarms weekly causing people to be come haters of all things flying , we will then have a massive back lash of hatred against us. i only speak of past times here, i can rember asking a friend of the family if i can keep a hive or two at his orchard and was slapped in the face for asking, and now i am urban my pressure is in creasing i know of several people how keep hives inn london that are unable to run more than 2 hives because there is no flowers where she lives in london, have a look in a city park there is no flowers anymore just trees, so where will all these new bees forage from because unless there is massive council planting of flowers there is no other group of people able to afford or are equiped to grow and plant 1,000 of flowers

 

[marklaverda]

admin
How do you set up automatic newsfeed from the BBC.
I would like to do this for my other interests and seems a good idea.

 

[BKF Admin]

Shoot me a pm Mark and I will explain.

 

[hedgerow pete]

i have just been reading a book called prfitable bee keeping by Dr. laurie croft first published in 1986 , very dated now but several good ideas, on sad fact is this,

in what ever year it was say 1985 he states there was 740,000 acres of osr and is properly harvested with bees would produce 20,000 tons of honey and would allmost stop all honey imports into the uk, that was at the bottom of page 8 if you have this book, would this not go towards the proper reinstatement of bee hives, each hive should be able to collect enough honey for the winter survival ?

 

[JCBrum]

Seems a good idea to me Pete.

I've met objections to osr honey from several beeks who say it doesn't taste good.

I've tried some myself and thought it was good. btw - I like creamed and crystallized honey.

I don't think many urban beeks can benefit from it though due to location.

 

[oliver90owner]

20,000 tonnes in 3 weeks. Wonder what, say, 200,000 colonies would do for the rest of the year? Move them into urban areas?

Regards, RAB

 

[JCBrum]

I think Pete and his book were suggesting that the osr crop would be mostly all they need, including winter stores.

Although I didn't consider the maths first time around, I have just done a rough assessment based on local reports for earlier this year.

I think you might have under-estimated the number of hives required.

I reckon nearer 400,000 hives would be required.

Hmmmm, ... it doesn't look so practical then, does it.