Farming Today - BBC R4 - on bees, neonics and stuff.

[gavin]

Well worth the 12 min taken to listen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p3hng

Apparently Owen Patterson has ruled out a ban for now, and plans waiting for additional evidence from Defra studies early next year.

Ian Homer in Dorset gets featured on the weather impacts on honeybees.

[Jon]

I think this winter will see much higher losses than last winter which was actually very good.
Locally most people got their bees through.
The clusters are already smallish and will be getting smaller for at least another 3 months.
Oxalic acid time in 3 weeks will allow a better assessment of how things are going.
I have about 20 extra nucs so I should not be short of bees but I would like to get most of them through winter so we can pilot our nuc supply scheme for beginners.

Better watch you head in case the sky falls in if Neonics are not banned.