So, about this restocking .......

[gavin]

Doing a spot of Googling to try to find a Scottish Government page I saw a while back that promised more details of the subsidised importation 'to follow'. In the process I came across these documents. An interesting read for anyone interested in the 'restocking' (importation) programme and maybe this is a good point at which to start a discussion on where the SBA should go from here.

The scheme. The bee farmers lost '4,000 colonies, equating to more than 50% of the bee farmers stock'.

www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00425856.docx

Application form: www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00425871.docx

I see that the form is explicit that a Freedom of Information Request might force the government to release details given on the form.

Annex A: www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00425858.docx

Including .....

4. The Programme is also open to Local Beekeeping Associations which are formally constituted and affiliated to the Scottish Beekeepers Association and that have training apiaries. Replacement stocks will be restricted to a maximum of 6 colonies per Association. In addition educational establishments with established training apiaries that have suffered winter losses may also be eligible.

Also, anyone who lost 20 colonies or more can get a piece of the action.

[gavin]

Found the page with the details. £50 a pop.

It is a grant of £200k to the BFA to run the scheme, so if each imported package costs, together with expenses to administer the scheme, £100, and the bee farmers pay half (don't remember seeing this obligation to pay half but I remember hearing it) plus all of the money is spent then £400k/£100 means 4,000 (the claimed number of colonies lost) imported colonies coming into Scotland over the two years of the scheme (this year and next). Great. In the meantime the number of colonies lost by amateur beekeepers has already likely been made up by this season's increase .... and these winter losses are seen as an entirely normal part of beekeeping. You need those empty boxes to cope with the inevitable splits as the season progresses. Several of our beginner beekeepers locally now have bees, and a few established locals lost theirs .... as always some leave beekeeping, some get back in again within the year or in the one after, sometimes wiser, sometimes poorer.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/farmingrural/Agriculture/animal-welfare/bee/News

If 4,000 colonies is the plan, then the SBA should be demanding to see risk assessments of the impact on other beekeepers, and of the effect of replacing genepools that were to some extent native and locally adapted, with something that is pre-adapted for then actively bred for conditions very different from ours.

[drumgerry]

Where's the smiley for steam coming out your ears when you need it?! I've said it again and again and your posts confirm it Gavin. The £200k will achieve a grand total of bugger all except to eff up even further the plight of what's left of our native/AMM strains. I'm rapidly losing any sympathy for commercial beekeepers and how they conduct their affairs. Right now I'd happily see any who participate in this travesty of a scheme go belly up. Businesses like that don't deserve to survive.

[Trog]

Surely the beefarmers weren't farming AMM in the first place, so will it make much difference? Whatever they were using before will have flooded the areas around their apiaries with non-native drones for years.

[drumgerry]

I believe some such as Chainbridge use/used native types. So clearly not impossible to do. But on the whole you're right Trog. Maybe what I was getting at is that this is a further £200k of funding which will bring no benefit to native/AMM bees and in that sense make their plight a harder one than if the money was directed at them.

[Gscot]

Hi ,
As far as I know the Bee Farmers use the imported bees as the hive builder using their own proven local queens after a couple of months their hives are working with their own strain of bees only a few imported drones left. The amature beekeeper like myself who cant breed his own queens yet and does a split and uses an imported queen ends up with a colony of imported bees after a couple of months. Who,s the the villan
How,s about all you experianced beekeepers getting together and developing a queen breeding system with proven hardy queens suitable for scotlands climate and sell them ( you,ll get plenty of sales) Might even get a grant to get started.

[drumgerry]

Interested to know where you got that from Gscot. Strikes me as an awful round about way to get a colony of bees when they've not been too bothered about importing a package and queen in the first place. As to their own strain - Murray McGregor of Denrosa (the biggest bee farmer in Britain) uses Carniolans the seed stock of which came from Germany, went to New Zealand and came back to the UK. Not exactly his own strain.

And I think if you read the forum you'll see that many of us are breeding our own queens. What sticks in the craw is the bee farmers getting huge government subsidies to bail them out when the same cash could be used to develop something to benefit all of Scotland's beekeepers.

The "villains" here are a group of people who are only bothered about their short term needs and to hell with the rest of us.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Gscot
The biggest beekeeping operations import thousands of NZ queens
This is so they have strong colonies before the rape crop
Their drones do impact on all local bee populations
The bees are carniolans which are nice bees in themselves and well suited to harsh conditions
Breeding programs in those areas are usually badly compromised
Here's a link to an interview with one of the UK largest operators
http://biobees.libsyn.com/interview-with-murray-mc-gregor
I like the idea of a queen breeding program but there are few areas where a particular strain can be bred and mated
meanwhile buying or getting an AMM queen in most locations is a waste of time because all daughters will be mated with local carnie X drones

[Gscot]

A Queen breeding program with proven hardy queens what ever the breed suitable to Scotland. as you say no pure AMM left I recon the bee farmers have tried and tested to find the best for them(crosses) I see most of you guys breed your own queens but will not have any for sale, Even the B man is struggling to supply.What we need is available queens for sale to the hobby beekeeper Would help to stop imported queens

[gavin]

GScot is right as far as one major beekeeper goes, I understand, but not others. The main bee farmer areas (just like many hobby beekeeper-only areas) have had imports before but their stock drifts back to something with an element of Amm in the mix. This is, however, a vary large-scale importation and will change the bee genetics of parts of Scotland with, in my view, no effective consideration of the effects of that.

[drumgerry]

Gscot - there's no reason if you're interested you can't produce your own queens. Any beekeeper can do that with a bit of effort on whatever scale they want to. And with a bit of help it's possible to source native stock if you're proactive about it.

What doesn't help the likes of Drone Ranger or Gavin in their parts of Scotland is large scale imports of non-native stock to flood the area with drones. Which is exactly what commercial beekeepers do as a matter of course and will do on an even grander scale with this latest scheme.

[The Drone Ranger]

A Queen breeding program with proven hardy queens what ever the breed suitable to Scotland. as you say no pure AMM left I recon the bee farmers have tried and tested to find the best for them(crosses) I see most of you guys breed your own queens but will not have any for sale, Even the B man is struggling to supply.What we need is available queens for sale to the hobby beekeeper Would help to stop imported queens
Lots of agreement with that sentiment regards availability of queens
The queens I am raising may or may not be good doers with the right health and temperament
In a breeding program consistency is the most important aspect
Queen breeders try to develop a strain of bees with all the best attributes
That needs some kind of controlled mating conditions or AI
What I am doing this year is only intended to provide the right drones next year
If beekeepers in a locality co-operate better results can be achieved, but not control of mating in areas where migratory beekeeping represents a very large proportion of the total bee population
The breeding program therefor would need to be located somewhere where mating is less random

[Gscot]

Why dont we get together and develop a new Queen a Scottish Queen -Could have a poll to select a name I would go for The Caledonian myself
Would have to get an artificial inseminater to get it started. Going to learn to develop queens after I chuck working not got a lot of time at the moment.

[drumgerry]

Gscot - we've already got a Scottish strain. It's Apis Mellifera Mellifera. No need in my opinion to call it anything else. And getting anything organised country-wide is a challenge to say the least. Especially when our national body doesn't take a proper stance on imports and we have the commercial beekeepers working at odds with everyone else. For myself I've decided to do what I believe in, as regards native bee breeding, alone although I'm happy to work with interested local individuals. Until things properly change that is.

[Dark Bee]

Why dont we get together and develop a new Queen a Scottish Queen -Could have a poll to select a name I would go for The Caledonian myself
Would have to get an artificial inseminater to get it started. Going to learn to develop queens after I chuck working not got a lot of time at the moment.

Do you live downwind from a distillery by any chance?

[drumgerry]

Haha DB! I thought that was aimed at me because I actually do! Tamdhu is next door.

[The Drone Ranger]

Why dont we get together and develop a new Queen a Scottish Queen -Could have a poll to select a name I would go for The Caledonian myself
Would have to get an artificial inseminater to get it started. Going to learn to develop queens after I chuck working not got a lot of time at the moment.
I like the plan
You would need to settle on a race as Drumgerry says AMM seems to have most support
The Caledonian strain sounds good though :)
The reason for local breeding programs is that until you control the local drone population, you can put a fantastic queen in your hive ,but unless you keep buying new ones of that strain then the next generation will cross with the available drones
That's why until importation stops you can't even stabilise the local crossed population far less drive forward a single race breeding program
You can select the productive well behaved queens to use as breeders though

[Dark Bee]

Haha DB! I thought that was aimed at me because I actually do! Tamdhu is next door.

No actually it was directed at Gscot. The lad is obviously possessed of keen business acumen and I thought if he was able to get a few bottles of "Wrick de hoose juus" on a regular basis we could rename it "Tonic Wine" and make a tidy profit. He is already on the ball with the bees, varroa has eliminated all the native black bees in Scotland and now as he clearly sees, there is a void which needs to be filled with a hybrid carefully developed from the best strains of bee in the world. Think of the fun to be had travelling widely and at someone else's expense to find them. He has already decided on a name "The Caledonian Bee" - that is superior to anything England ever produced. It sounds like the name of a ferry boat, so there is the possibility of sponsorship at the local river crossing.
It will be important to make it clear to beekeepers who purchase these bees that to maintain the purity of this carefully developed strain, queens will have to be bought in as required. There is no consideration to be given to their mongrel offspring if they mate with local drone types. A guaranteed income from queen sales and you can live anywhere in the world you wish, I like it.
P.S. Gscot, I just reread your post, you say you need an artificial inseminator; I'm yer man. I've done a bit myself, minor point of order but in bees it is called instrumental insemination and in cattle it is called artificial insemination. They are quite different creatures, although to be fair this would pass unnoticed by many who favour the hybrid strains.

[drumgerry]

Maybe a bit harsh on Gscot DB. He's maybe not to know all the background of which you and many others on the forum are aware. Nice summary of what Bro Adam did with Buckies btw!

[The Drone Ranger]

Gscot is enthusiastic I like that
The same problem for buckfast as AMM
You can't easily maintain the qualities because of random crossing
I am pessimistic about future prospects
But I have a lovely big black beauty started laying so not totally without hope :)
My first Caledonian ??

[Gscot]

Now DB is correct i am partial to the odd drop of tonic wine but only because it was made and developed by the same monks who developed the Buckfast Queen( It gets drunk by the gallon arround this area)Who would think that naming a Queen bee after a wine.They say that the AMM is the Scottish bee but is it the Irish Scottish AMM or the Scottish Irish AMM or the Italian Scottish AMM or English Irish Scottish AMM.
Times have changed since the dinosaurs -
Another slug of the tonic
Thinking of getting a plan drawn up submitting it for a gov. grant say for £100000 a year for 5 years to develop and distibute a Queen bee to help the honey bee and to reduce the imports .May ask the bee farmers for a starter Queen as they will have tried and tested already --another slug
Going to hand my notice in on mon. at work

[drumgerry]

Aye good luck with that one Gscot. Beginning to regret sticking up for you tbh now.

[Jon]

The idea that there is a Scottish AMM or a Welsh AMM or even an Irish AMM is quite fanciful.
The Jensen and Pedersen paper (http://www.gbbg.net/pdf/ligustica_incursion.pdf) noted that there is far more variation within AMM populations than between those in different countries.

But AMM is clearly the native bee of all of these places and a few more in Western Europe besides.

[Trog]

Hmm, I beginning to like the sound of this Caledonian Bee. A sort of AMM-plus. Definitely needs the AMM waterproofing and ability to respond instantly to weather conditions, plus easy to handle, but maybe should be a little less laid-back so as to produce decent quantities of honey.

Wait a minute! That's what I have here ... :D

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Trog
A quick re-branding exercise and the Mull Caledonian is born
best get a couple of hundred apideas on order :)

I'm afraid Gsots plan has a few holes
Not least of which is that the bee farmers can't maintain their carniolans either
That's why they have to keep importing
So getting stock from them would be a poor starting point

[gavin]

Completely untested for resistance to Varroa though :(

[Trog]

Oh, no need to worry about that, Gavin. They're sitting on a major ley line, arranged according to the best principles of feng-fooey, crystals above the crownboards, dreamcatchers that don't look at all like fishing fly casts at every entrance, chakras all nicely karmic and the queens all know they are goddesses. What could possibly go wrong?

[er, this is the biobees forum, right??]

[The Drone Ranger]

fraid not Trog

It seems Gscot has switched to Carniolans with kilts

[Trog]

fraid not Trog

It seems Gscot has switched to Carniolans with kilts

Well, they'll be easy to identify, then. None of yer black/yellow, blackish/yellow bands, yellow/yellow stuff. Has he decided on the tartan and how to get the abdomens a uniform colour? I assume he'll be selecting drones from the local pipe band?

[The Drone Ranger]

Well, they'll be easy to identify, then. None of yer black/yellow, blackish/yellow bands, yellow/yellow stuff. Has he decided on the tartan and how to get the abdomens a uniform colour? I assume he'll be selecting drones from the local pipe band?

Fell about laughing :)

[lindsay s]

Has everyone out there been sleeping? Our saviour is down south and it’s the Cornish black bee. I still think they look a bit to yellow for my liking. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23298530

[Jon]

LOL at that and the dark ones look far more like Carnica than AMM with the wide gray bands.

[fatshark]

They had a feature on the Varroa resistant Amm in Cornwall at 6:55 on Radio 5 this morning. Utter garbage. Their reporter was from somewhere near me in the Midlands (Steve?) who came up with some gems about this being the long lost Amm, found nowhere else, that Varroa was everywhere in the UK etc. etc. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Where is the evidence that these bees are really Amm or Varroa resistant (surely too much to ask for two miracles in one day)?

[Jon]

You do not need morphomety or DNA microsatellite data to categorically state that those bees are definitely not AMM,
They look more like a cross between Buckfast and Carnica.

[fatshark]

I'm with you on the identity ... but never trust the pics used by the BBC. It wouldn't have surprised me to see a picture of a red mason bee illustrating the story ...

[Dark Bee]

Maybe a bit harsh on Gscot DB. He's maybe not to know all the background of which you and many others on the forum are aware. Nice summary of what Bro Adam did with Buckies btw!

Drumgerry, there was absolutely no offence whatever meant and if I have caused any, I offer my sincerest apologies. I may have misread Gscot's posts - I assumed he was being satirical and joined in, but unfortunately I am not Dean Swift.

[drumgerry]

I think the satire, if there was any, was unintended DB. I had read it as a sincere if misguided opinion. But never mind....maybe I missed the point. Wouldn't be the first time. I maybe need to get more practiced at the banter eh?!


http://youtu.be/7T5K1HxEBCU

[The Drone Ranger]

Drumgerry, there was absolutely no offence whatever meant and if I have caused any, I offer my sincerest apologies. I may have misread Gscot's posts - I assumed he was being satirical and joined in, but unfortunately I am not Dean Swift.
Got me again DB who is Dean Swift ?:)

[Dark Bee]

Got me again DB who is Dean Swift ?:)

DR, he is also known as Jonathan Swift, I refrained from using that version of his name to avoid the perfectly understandable confusion with our own Jon - also a man of letters.
Jonathan Swift was the Dean of Trinity College Dublin, one of the worlds great universities. He was the author of such satirical works as; "Gullivers Travels" and "The Tale of a Tub". He is regarded as a master of satire.

[Jon]

Jon - also a man of letters.
Just 3 of them, J O N.

[The Drone Ranger]

DR, he is also known as Jonathan Swift, I refrained from using that version of his name to avoid the perfectly understandable confusion with our own Jon - also a man of letters.
Jonathan Swift was the Dean of Trinity College Dublin, one of the worlds great universities. He was the author of such satirical works as; "Gullivers Travels" and "The Tale of a Tub". He is regarded as a master of satire.

Aha! (Alan Partridge moment)

[drumgerry]

I think you mean

"Knowing you Jonathan Swift, knowing me Drone Ranger. Aha!" Answer (from beyond the grave) - "Aha!"

[Trog]

Just 3 of them, J O N.

G r o a n :p