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Look like Italian bees to me ... very well mannered but personally... not sure about how warm climate bees would fare in your locations ?

Supplier is in Romania...
Morning Philip, I'm not interested in buying there stock.. I rear my queen's and colonys as natural as possible no pollen subs and I try and use honey stores where possible.. So there way of rearing is completely at the other end of the spectrum.
They wouldn't survive up here at all.
 
Getting to a Facebook page. Not sure where I should be looking for this video?
 
Morning Philip, I'm not interested in buying there stock.. I rear my queen's and colonys as natural as possible no pollen subs and I try and use honey stores where possible.. So there way of rearing is completely at the other end of the spectrum.
They wouldn't survive up here at all.
That's what I thought ... wondered if you were thinking of changing your mongrel in favour of these Romanian pussy cats... I don't think they would be quite as amenable on the frosty slopes of the Clee ! If they really are as gentle and well behaved as in the video ?... my view - if it looks too good to be true - then it probably is !!!
 
Getting to a Facebook page. Not sure where I should be looking for this video?
We brought in some of these warm climate bees from BS Honeybees 2 years ago... seemed to be from the Northern Greece area... 10 off £350... thought I would try boosting my surrogate early brood for queen rearing of our Native Cornish black bees that do not start brooding up until a little later in the year.
Kept in an apiary side far away from our Amms where the local beekeepers had all kinds of stripey mongrel stock, so no problem of a gene pool mix up!
Of the 10 only 7 were successfully introduced to nucs made up with the stripey mongrel stock.
Of the seven surviving to produce brood all but 2 were superseded and overwintered.
This last season lost both of those to EFB, that was in all probability brought into the apiary in a swarm from a nuc of bees sold by a local swarm collector to a newbee for £100... which of course swarmed on a marked queen.

I will NOT be buying any more imported bees and strongly suggest that others do likewise.
Lesson learned.

2020 has been a terrible year beekeeping wise for many,
Let us try to make 2021 a better one.
Two new years resolutions...
Do not import bees and encourage others not to do so
Do not sell swarms and encourage others not to do so
Breed local selected stock and encourage others to do so

well that three!
Chons da



T
 
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That's what I thought ... wondered if you were thinking of changing your mongrel in favour of these Romanian pussy cats... I don't think they would be quite as amenable on the frosty slopes of the Clee ! If they really are as gentle and well behaved as in the video ?... my view - if it looks too good to be true - then it probably is !!!

My point for putting the link up was to highlight how can bees survive with feeding them all that sub the longevity of that stock wouldn't be good surely?

All my stock is raised as natural as possible we have 100% Mating and I've not lost a colony yet... Surely this stands for something.
 
Was you not telling the rest of us not to import prior to two years ago? I can't remember.



You might want to edit that goal!.
Thank you
I went with the masses as one does and found out that the imported exotics did not stand up to the claims being made for them
My original ideas around a bee importation ban were based on the large consignments of packages being imported... and we all know the problems that that caused in the highlands, lowlands and marches of this tiny island of ours!
Rule Britannia and all that!

Chons da
 
May bee something "blowin in the wind" about a moratorium on importing bees in the new year?


As if the Government has nothing better to do?
 
very much doubt it. One importer plans to bring in queens / packages only, no frames. Option for Packages to be introduced into Nucs for a few weeks, before being sold on as such
 
May bee something "blowin in the wind" about a moratorium on importing bees in the new year?
That's old news. Importation of packages and colonies banned next year.
Queens in posting cages allowed with reinforcement of the obligation on the queen having to be introduced in a new cage,removing and killing all attendants and sending the original cage, packaging and dead attendants to the NBU
 
Going to be sadly disappointed then
I'm all for far stricter bio security when we have a new border with the eu but believe it will be business as usual with the vast majority of things including bees as there's too much at stake confusing supply lines for things like fresh food, I'd be happy to be proved wrong where bees are concerned but as others have pointed out this will only lead to more black/grey market imports as queens are easily posted.
 
I'm all for far stricter bio security when we have a new border with the eu but believe it will be business as usual with the vast majority of things including bees
Press release went out over a month ago - BFA passed it on to all memebers
 
Press release went out over a month ago - BFA passed it on to all memebers

Press release from what organisation (I know you mention the BFA but obviously they don't make rules so presumably you mean an official press release)?

Can't see anything from a UK government source online, but I may be missing something. Could you provide a link please?

I can see a thread on this forum regarding this issue from September, but that related to what would happen if we reverted to WTO rules, which is of course still an open question. There also seems to be potentially some muddling of what the EU rules are on imports INTO the EU (not relevant to this discussion), and what WTO rules are?

Anyway, if someone could provide a link to an official source of this new rule, that would be good.
 
As Mad said, plenty of higher priority activities that the government need to try and sort out first. think Defra will have its hands full with food supply issues for some time, unless there is a big compromise in the next week or so.

Any feedback from BFA members on the press release? I'm sure there are significant number of members who either import bees or purchase the imports.
 

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