Scottish Government report on the 'Restocking Options' study [Archive]

Kate Atchley

30-03-2016, 02:32 PM

Many thanks to everyone who helped in one way or another with this. The report was published earlier on the Scottish Government's web site. Link at the bottom of this page.

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/farmingrural/Agriculture/animal-welfare/bee/strategy

Happy to have some discussion here if you like. There should be a lot to mull over. Weather data and queen mating in Scotland. Routes to achieving greater sustainability in bee stocks. Cross-community collaboration. The data presented on the preferences of the two communities.

cheers

Gavin

Thanks for guiding me through your report at the weekend Gavin. As you say, much to mull over. I was pleased to hear about the preferences you identified among non-commercial beekeepers for locally bred queens and an avoidance of imports.

It's left me eager to understand more precisely the conditions in which our Amm queens will fly and mate. Clearly they don't wait for 20º and the sunshine often quoted as essential (as almost no queens would be mated here). There may be nothing for it but to create a weather station in Ardnamurchan though I know nothing about these. Davis equipment may be the place to start if we can find some funding?

Any experience of this amongst you folk out there?

drumgerry

30-03-2016, 03:16 PM

Just read the commercial section up to 2.3 so far and there are some encouraging voices to be heard within that. Can't help feeling though that some still want cheap queens when they want them ie imports early in the season. Some commercial guys from the comments seem to have a bit more vision for the future. One thing's for sure in my opinion is that a shift away from what's gone before is needed and I'm encouraged that there are some commercial beekeepers who are thinking along similar lines.

Great work Gavin and all who contributed. It's a true snapshot of beekeeping in Scotland in 2015/16 and I can see it will have historical significance for historians of the future.

drumgerry

30-03-2016, 03:24 PM

On the weather station front (!) Kate - we are part of a network of weather stations (ie we have a weather station in our garden) run by this guy

http://www.highlandweather.info/

He is a hobby/semi-commercial weather enthusiast and as you can see he has weather stations all over the Highlands (much better coverage than the Met Office). He is always expanding his network and might be interested in putting a weather station into your area (it looks like he has a gap in coverage there). It doesn't cost us anything and we have a little computer display in the kitchen which gives us all the weather data we could ever need. This data is then fed to his network using our wifi every 10 minutes.

His daily forecast btw is the best out there for the Highlands. Even if he doesn't put a weather station into your garden he could point you in the right direction of the tech that he uses. His name is Lee and he also has a FB page here

https://www.facebook.com/highlandweather/?fref=ts

Calluna4u

30-03-2016, 05:46 PM

Can't help feeling though that some still want cheap queens when they want them ie imports early in the season..

Its not nearly as simple as that. Early queens ARE needed. The 2000 queens (just from the queen unit btw) and the hundreds of nucs is us, but I am not so foolish to think that this is the answer. Its just PART of the answer.

Last season and this season illustrate perfectly the catch in the ideas raised that I mentioned at the Battleby event where Gavin's document was presented.

Least year the nucs came through OK but only about 60% could have been described as saleable. Losses were generally in the medium range last year and demand for nucs was strong. Superficially viable to set up to produce them for sale.

This year we have an easy winter and 80% plus of the nucs will be fit for sale in April............but..............after a kind winter demand is modest (not just for nucs, for packages too). Not a major issue as we plan to use most ourselves anyway. However its a reality check for the breeding programme. In the years where demand is high due to losses, we will also be affected by the same circumstances and thus the nucs will be scarcer and of lesser quality. In a year when most of the nucs come through so will most peoples bees.

If there is not market stability who is going to risk the house setting up to do all these thousands of nucs and queens. Its NOT going to happen out of the amateur sector, no guy needing a lot of queens or nucs or packages is going to hawk their tail round loads of amateur associations trying to find what they need.

To be done on a scale that is viable its going to need a guaranteed income for the breeder. I cannot see that happening, and without the bee farm to cross pollinate so to speak I can now see it will be hard for such a venture to be stand alone in Scotland.

Bad winter and demand cannot be met, good winter and sales become the issue. Caught both ways.

As for the original conjecture about queens, well its queens on time people want, and in numbers that 'overwintering a few' can never ever meet. The price is a factor but most definitely a secondary one. Early enough to get a crop first season is top issue. My clients are needing in excess of 2000 queens before the second week of May, and at a sensible price (under 20 pounds). Any takers for supplying that from local sourced stock? Its a price that can buy in excellent stock from outside Scotland.

Most do not want overwintered queens anyway. To get significant sales they need to be new seasons which leads to minimal management. Older queens require more intensive working and unless they are proven breeder queens they are expected to be significantly cheaper.

High ideals and fine words often get wrecked on the rocks of reality. To me a twin track is essential unless you actually want to eradicate profession beekeepers.............here will always be years from time to time that local production just cannot sort out from organic local growth, and properly managed and controlled imports are needed. Best having the option and a proper supervisable route. Otherwise the trade goes under the radar.

drumgerry

30-03-2016, 08:34 PM

As for the original conjecture about queens, well its queens on time people want, and in numbers that 'overwintering a few' can never ever meet. The price is a factor but most definitely a secondary one. Early enough to get a crop first season is top issue. My clients are needing in excess of 2000 queens before the second week of May, and at a sensible price (under 20 pounds). Any takers for supplying that from local sourced stock? Its a price that can buy in excellent stock from outside Scotland.

Sorry C4U I think we're going to have to part company on this one. What you describe exemplifies to me an unsustainable business model. If they need 2000 queens in the first week of May then of course the only way to do that is to import them. I've said this before and I'll say it again that if that's the only way they can operate to make a profit they should maybe find alternative employment.

Calluna4u

30-03-2016, 09:19 PM

Sorry C4U I think we're going to have to part company on this one. What you describe exemplifies to me an unsustainable business model. If they need 2000 queens in the first week of May then of course the only way to do that is to import them. I've said this before and I'll say it again that if that's the only way they can operate to make a profit they should maybe find alternative employment.

Why? The stock is usually excellent and they get a good crop from splits first year. Seems a lot more financially sustainable to me than relying on UK production. either own bred OR bought in. They are just as good, they are cheaper, and they are available at pre agreed times rather than just piecemeal as UK suppliers are at the mercy of so many variables.

As I said before I had a mere 50 on order from a leading UK supplier for early June, and 40 more from a leading Irish supplier. They arrived in lots of 2, 3, 4....the biggest lot was 6...............and they were still trying to complete the orders in September, and actually never did. Despite several attempts, and a lot of fine words, I have NEVER had a UK queen order for more than 10 queens fully supplied in one lot.

Its just a romantic notion that a UK breeding program will be easy to implement. The above type of supply problem is ONLY suitable for amateur beekeepers who have no sensitivity of timing or the need to make a living. We TRY....but many years it will just not work properly.

The idea that these people should be cut off from their supply of perfectly good queens is putting the gun to the back of the neck of at least 20 bee farms (not many in Scotland) or expecting them to operate as effectively subsistence businesses. The margin is hard enough to generate without crucifying them on queen supply.

There seems to be a prevailing mood (not held by all of course) that imported are inferior. Well SOME imported are inferior, but some are also far superior to local stock. Winter better, swarm less, sting a lot less, have less chalk and far less likely to contract EFB, and more honey to boot. Locally adapted? Well there are some lines for sure, but in my experience it is mostly mythical. Plenty other stock is perfectly well adapted to this country despite never having encountered it.

drumgerry

30-03-2016, 09:33 PM

Sorry I'm never going to agree that imported is a better option - an easier, cheaper, short term option yes but better? Better for the wallets of a few commercial beekeepers maybe but for the rest of us? Who actually also count in the grand scheme of things. I think Gavin's report estimates that there are 4,000-ish of us amateurs here in Scotland - that's a fair number and a fair number of associated colonies. Not sure it's in our interests to have endless swampings of non-native queens/packages. Which is why we need to put in place systems that suit ALL of us - amateur and commercial. To my mind that's always going to be a solution that is developed in Scotland, for Scotland and not in Italy or Cyprus or Slovenia or New Zealand etc.

The only easy thing to do is to keep importing. The difficult, challenging option is to develop our own production of queens. Gavin's report sets out a number of ideas to achieve that.

It seems to me that the report also suggests that a proportion of commercial operators actually agree with me so in that I have some hope. Interestingly not a single SBA association respondent sees imports as being part of the solution.

Kate Atchley

30-03-2016, 09:35 PM

C4u thanks for taking us through the scenarios you've portrayed.

I find, ringing in my ears, the question: why now, why such a hurry? And here I refer to the hobbyist, the amateur beekeepers like me who choose to keep bees for the sheer pleasure and satisfaction it promises.

We've all become habituated to expect instant solutions. In beekeeping this equates with queens to deliver a crop the year we buy them ... queens to replace lingering queens we have not sought to replace ... immediate restocking when colonies are lost through the winter or we mess up on winter feeding or varroa treatment. Yet this is a new phenomenon. Surely no such expectations could be supported for my parents' generation before us?

What if we, the hobbyists, were to slow down, watch out for and accept the vicissitudes of nature with each season? Soon we would see and understand that sometimes we must wait ... for the bees to recover ... the queens to be replaced ... the colonies to be increased. Sometimes we could take care of this ourselves if only we were not in such a hurry. In fact, mostly, we can take care of this ourselves if we slow our expectations down.

Instant gratification and smaller-scale beekeeping are not good bedfellows.

Of course, for the commercial beekeepers, there are more pressing imperatives which I respect. But let's not conflate the two. There is room here for different approaches. There is room here for upskilling folk to provide queens and bees locally and to invite everyone to accept more realistic timescales for their beekeeping.

When I came to Lochaber, then a varroa-free area, we understood that bees would be provided to incomers only as fast as could be arranged. So too for those taking beginners' courses and new to beekeeping. We knew we might have to wait. So be it. It was not and need not be a problem.

gavin

30-03-2016, 11:54 PM

It seems to me that the report also suggests that a proportion of commercial operators actually agree with me so in that I have some hope. Interestingly not a single SBA association respondent sees imports as being part of the solution.

And only 6 of the 19 commercial beekeepers responding included imports as something to be encouraged - that surprised me. The appetite for imports is restricted to a few and the preference for local is not restricted to the hobby sector.

The model that Murray described of needing to buy in large numbers of mated queens to make early season splits just isn't happening on any scale in Scotland. Surely it makes more sense to overwinter nucs so that you can fill your empty boxes with vigorous colonies that will be productive almost as quickly as the main colonies. The queens in those overwintered boxes are likely better than current season queens from southern Europe as they have not laid much as yet, are proven to a degree and don't suffer from being out of their colony for a while. Yes, there will be poorer years for overwintering nucs but for people who know what they are doing a good proportion will come through. In the years when you end up with surplus stock and a slack market can you not use them to boost your less productive main colonies?

Calluna4u

31-03-2016, 07:52 AM

And only 6 of the 19 commercial beekeepers responding included imports as something to be encouraged - that surprised me. The appetite for imports is restricted to a few and the preference for local is not restricted to the hobby sector.

The model that Murray described of needing to buy in large numbers of mated queens to make early season splits just isn't happening on any scale in Scotland. Surely it makes more sense to overwinter nucs so that you can fill your empty boxes with vigorous colonies that will be productive almost as quickly as the main colonies. The queens in those overwintered boxes are likely better than current season queens from southern Europe as they have not laid much as yet, are proven to a degree and don't suffer from being out of their colony for a while. Yes, there will be poorer years for overwintering nucs but for people who know what they are doing a good proportion will come through. In the years when you end up with surplus stock and a slack market can you not use them to boost your less productive main colonies?

The bee farmers I describe are mostly in England. their spring crop is almost all they have. The summer crop that used to be important is in decline although if you read the forums someone somewhere, had a huge crop but mysteriously little honey to sell when approached. 2015 was such a season, with summer honey almost non existent in large areas.

I know of many bee farms whose season is effectively over at the June gap and who from then onwards are in winter prep mode.

However, the 'full crop first year from a split' people are in areas with access to heather, especially Yorkshire, Derbyshire etc, or have a lot of balsam to go at. They are folk with a major nectar source late season.

An over wintered queen is not the equivalent of a new seasons....she will already be 9 or 10 months old entering the first full season, and will have built up the nucs for winter. Wintering mini nucs is a very nice experiment and can be proven in small numbers but it is never likely to be a VIABLE process. The queens are not cheap to raise (and any commercial source must take time and wages into account, big numbers are not going to come from amateurs) and wintering them in a way that loses more than necessary is a needless loss. Yes they will have relatively little age on them from a laying point of view but they are mature queens pheromone wise and are more likely to need close management than current seasons stock. Do not assume from this that we do not do close management, we do, but others have different management models and strategies. I know of one sizeable and successful bee farm in Yorkshire who never look in the nest again after a new seasons queen is installed, all their disease control is in the first half of summer, and final again at season end during winter prep. It works and is very cost efficient.

The Buckfast/Carnica/ and from next spring queens from Scottish mothers, available from the Alps in late April to June are very young when sold on. I collect them in person from the area, freshly caught the day before and they are in the hands of the UK client inside 48 hours from catching. They will have only just started to lay.

Yes, for the most part they are bred from proven stocks, and mated in areas with a lot of drones from proven stock. However to call the other queens southern European is rather missing the point about them that makes their market. The mother queens are NOT southern European. They are proven NORTHERN stock, and they too saturate their area with drones from other lines of proven northern stock. The bees are normally from breeding institute stock or leading breeder stock. Our current breeder does his own inseminated crosses, using lines from Denmark, Germany, and the Austrian alps. The only difference to a northern queen is that they are being raised in the south to extend the available season at the critical time...the start.

If it truly were southern European bees, in their case ligustica or sometimes sicula before the freeze, then there is a much reduced northern market, except for queenless and droneless packages widely used in mainland Europe to bring small colonies up to strength for the spring flow. (called booster packages, and significant proportion of bees from the south of Italy, in particular Puglia, used to go for that)

If we end up in a situation where we have to use up our precious overwintered nucs to unite into our mainstream stocks just to get them up and running properly then its a dead loss, and the nuc project will not continue. Queen rearing yes, large scale nuc production no. I have the equivalent of a full time salary to find out of the nucs, and it cannot work if its going to be boom and bust on nuc production matched to bust and boom on demand.

We are in the opposite situation to the southern guys. Our crop comes very late by comparison. We are looking to the heather from day one and anything else is just a by product. The smaller colonies in spring that have not endured significant spells of instability, and then peak in July and August are often the best sets at the heather. Boosting them too much early CAN actually reduce their performance. I would always take a strong over a weak of course, but it does mean a lot more work, and on our scale being able to cope NEEDS a spread of strengths. That might sound odd, but on a tight schedule you cannot keep up if they are all needing split for example at the same time. The spread of strengths helps us in that.

There is lot more to this subject than simple solutions that have all the feelgood buzzwords in them. Not targeting your report Gavin, you know that, its an important first step, more aiming at the rather introverted approach prevent on the forums, which really reduces beekeeping to a conservation project for so called local strains of very mixed worth, though their keepers no doubt think very differently about their much loved bees.

The Drone Ranger

31-03-2016, 10:15 AM

There's a difference between importing queens and package bees

I can't see how Germany and Denmark can produce commercial quantities of queens and UK can't

I don't feel that Queen imports from selected areas even NZ represent as much of a risk as moving bee colonies or packages from Italy to UK

If imports are stopped though you can be pretty certain that UK queen breeders will emerge to supply the market

Suggesting a new mated Carniolan would be less likely to swarm than an overwintered queen C4u ?
I like Carniolan but wouldn't try and spin that one

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

prakel

31-03-2016, 10:53 AM

If imports are stopped though you can be pretty certain that UK queen breeders will emerge to supply the market

Really? Where will their selected breeding stock come from? I may be wrong on this but it seems to me that a lot (but not all, admittedly) of the people currently promoting local bees are actually just churning out daughters off anything they can find in their hives that looks half decent with little further thought.

There are good queen breeders in the UK who've got to where they are by putting in the years, I know, but even they plainly aren't scratching the surface. New blood? Good luck to them (and I mean that quite genuinely) but I won't be holding my breath.

Calluna4u

31-03-2016, 12:29 PM

I can't see how Germany and Denmark can produce commercial quantities of queens and UK can't

If imports are stopped though you can be pretty certain that UK queen breeders will emerge to supply the market

Suggesting a new mated Carniolan would be less likely to swarm than an overwintered queen C4u ?
I like Carniolan but wouldn't try and spin that one

1. They don't really, and that's in a really favourable more continental climate than our with much more reliable summer weather. Sure, Ringkobing and Saint Andrews are on the same latitude, but the weather moves, on average, sw to ne in this part of the world, so Denmark has a climate more like Kent. The queens they take to Italy for grafting and mating are selected breeders.

2. Not very likely. Why they have not emerged already, in times when wages and cost were far lower kind of tells its own story. The top guy only claims to manage a maximum of 2000 a season. There are higher claims but they are held in some suspicion.

3. Without shadow of a doubt yes. I don't suggest it. I know it. From direct experience over many years.

However, before this gets misinterpreted.........even NEW season queens can swarm. The idea that they will not is a partial myth, but they are a lot less likely to. You have to compare apples with apples as well. A lower vigour second season queen may indeed be less likely to swarm than a new queen of a more vigorous strain. I prefer to compare like with like.

The Drone Ranger

31-03-2016, 12:50 PM

Calluna4u

31-03-2016, 01:00 PM

On the rape C4u if the colony is big enough to do well its probably going to try and swarm as the blossom starts to diminish
That's true of a new season carnie or overwintered hybrid
The AMM boys would argue their bees don't swarm in May but that's because they build up too slowly for rape anyway
That should pretty much upset everyone I suppose but its only my opinion

New season carnica of reliable provenance are not available, other than from NZ, at a time to even come close to testing this. You get them in as early as the end of April or early May....introduce and wait for brood to hatch.....its only turning round into build up at the end of May. Thus misses the OSR. The NZ carnica were very low swarming stock indeed, but we have stopped working with those for now. We are far more interested in them building for around 7th to 15th July, to be moved to the Bell. New seasons queens can effectively be left to get on with building that.

I have opinions on the instrumental insemination too, but you directed that to prakel so I will hold me tongue on that.

Your opinion on the Amm vs OSR situation pretty much matches my own. Some colonies do well, but many are a lot slower.

mbc

31-03-2016, 01:32 PM

2. Not very likely. Why they have not emerged already, in times when wages and cost were far lower kind of tells its own story. The top guy only claims to manage a maximum of 2000 a season. There are higher claims but they are held in some suspicion.

.

There has never been a time when home produced queens could be reared at a comparable cost to imports from further south.
If I were honest about my own queen rearing efforts, then I only get about 50% success for all the effort of setting it all up, that is 5 usable queens for every 10 cells grafted, after the attrition of larvae not accepted, virgins not hatching or not getting mated. I believe professional outfits here get a better strike rate, but they are also below some of the success rates achieved further south.
It would take import tariffs or closed borders to make queen rearing here competitive on price with queens raised and mated on the continent.
This isnt going to happen so we need to out compete the imports on something other than cost to make queen rearing on a large scale viable for british producers. I believe sustainability could be our competitive angle, our queens mated by our drones could be far more sustainable in the medium to long term as successive generations are more likely o be stable and useful to us than the progeny of foreign queens mated to our drones.
This scenario would hold more water if we had a uniform(ish) bee of our own, sadly this isnt the case as we've got the hotsh potsh we've got through generations of imports and no central vision for our own queen breeding.
But anyway, the argument that if imports were stopped then uk breeders would emerge to fill the gap is spot on, just never likely to happen.

Calluna4u

31-03-2016, 01:42 PM

But anyway, the argument that if imports were stopped then uk breeders would emerge to fill the gap is spot on, just never likely to happen.

I doubt it. there has to be some concept of viability for anyone to do it at sufficient scale. Unless honey prices rise dramatically then high priced queens from the UK are just seen as an increased cost in an already marginal profession.

What would actually happen, as has happened in the past, is if the beekeeper deems it too expensive, and most do not have the time to do queen breeding of any scale on top, is that they will just use their natural cells and have to take what comes out in the mix. Some will set up breeding programmes, other will not and just raise what they can on an ad hoc basis. That has been the British way for a long time, and cutting off the route to early mated laying queens will just institutionalise the way it has been done for years.

We are charging 30 pounds for the home bred new seasons queens. I do not expect many orders from professionals at such a price.

mbc

31-03-2016, 01:55 PM

I doubt it. there has to be some concept of viability for anyone to do it at sufficient scale. Unless honey prices rise dramatically then high priced queens from the UK are just seen as an increased cost in an already marginal profession.

What would actually happen, as has happened in the past, is if the beekeeper deems it too expensive, and most do not have the time to do queen breeding of any scale on top, is that they will just use their natural cells and have to take what comes out in the mix. Some will set up breeding programmes, other will not and just raise what they can on an ad hoc basis. That has been the British way for a long time, and cutting off the route to early mated laying queens will just institutionalise the way it has been done for years.

We are charging 30 pounds for the home bred new seasons queens. I do not expect many orders from professionals at such a price.

It would need someone well respected in the game to prove on a large scale that there was a good return on that £30 for a queen

drumgerry

31-03-2016, 05:47 PM

Again the focus seems to be that we need large scale queen production for a Scottish solution (I say Scottish as that's what I'm talking about and what Gavin's report is about) to be viable. For 99% of beekeepers the requirement isn't for 100 or 200 or 2,000 queens at a time. Maybe the focus should be shifted away from what the commercial guys need for their business model and instead should be on what would benefit the vast majority of us (who from Gavin's survey seem to own most of the colonies in Scotland). If some of the commercial guys want to hitch on to the back of that all well and good.

prakel

31-03-2016, 07:31 PM

Really? Where will their selected breeding stock come from?

Are any of the UK queen breeders approaching the task using Instrumental Insemination prakel ?

DR, I've quoted from both of our posts as I'm assuming that you're referring to that specific part of my post... that being the case then the answer must surely be yes. But, I'm totally ignorant as to how successful they are in establishing sound lines which are worth spending money on or how easy it is to get hold of queens from them although I have been on a few waiting lists for British queens over the years without actually ever getting to the top. I've also had a breeder refuse to sell to me on the grounds that I live in the wrong area.

I have opinions on the instrumental insemination too, but you directed that to prakel so I will hold me tongue on that.

Please don't, not on my account. I'm too inexperienced to comment on the finer points of II queens. But I'm keen to try and learn from your own experience if you'd care to elaborate.

The Drone Ranger

31-03-2016, 08:17 PM

It's a question of control because isolated mating is not generally available in UK
I get the impression that the biggest queen producers use II
I'm happy to be told they don't

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

The Drone Ranger

31-03-2016, 08:32 PM

doubt it. there has to be some concept of viability for anyone to do it at sufficient scale.

We are charging 30 pounds for the home bred new seasons queens. I do not expect many orders from professionals at such a price.

Well if they are from your best stock and they get advertised in SBA mag and BeeCraft you might be pleasantly surprised
If someone ordered 300 queens from you and you could deliver I suspect the price would be a bit flexible ?

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

Calluna4u

01-04-2016, 07:04 AM

Please don't, not on my account. I'm too inexperienced to comment on the finer points of II queens. But I'm keen to try and learn from your own experience if you'd care to elaborate.

I am sensitive to the fact that it could be seen as some kind of attempt to saturate the forum, and do not enter any more than a few of the threads I could. The poster specifically addressed you, so left it at that.

However, the increasing use of II does concern me rather. I fear it is becoming too much used in situations where it is less than optimal to do so and is a risk factor for causing inbreeding issues.

I know its not the most popular opinion round here but the heavy focus in on one ideal model of bee and promoting the idea of maintaining it, even in small scale units, by II is a real danger to genetic diversity. Vigour and population resistance to threats come from that very diversity that seems to be in the crosshairs of those with a narrow idea of what bee we should have, and even small beekeepers with half a dozen hives are being encouraged to do II, and to spend a lot of money on insemination gear and training.
I do not consider this to be safe or wise.

I have had II queens several in the past. They are less easy to introduce and less likely to be excellent. They CAN be and we have had some really excellent II queens that went on for years, but among II queens it was maybe 30% or a bit less, and with naturally mated it was much better.

To me II is a breeding tool. It is best used to produce mother queens of known quality and lineage, from which grafting is done and normal production queens are then open mated to a gene pool of many lines. Brood fertility is best this way. Its main use is thus in producing the breeder queens which are then disseminated among the beekeeping community, either as breeder queens or via their open mated progeny being sold on. The potential loss of sex alleles must always be thought about.

In short I feel it to be a tool that is of great worth but with considerable potential to be used the wrong way and that a genetic bottleneck can happen down the line, and inbreeding can follow from it. It has happened before and will happen again, and the over inbred unit needs a rapid genetic input.

Having said all that, Jolanta WILL be properly trained (abroad) and will be doing II, but ONLY for the production of breeder queens to trial and select from. All queens intended to go out and earn the cash in the field, or be sold on to head working colonies will still be open mated. When paying wages too, its a hopelessly costly process to use II as a main production tool.

Calluna4u

01-04-2016, 07:37 AM

Well if they are from your best stock and they get advertised in SBA mag and BeeCraft you might be pleasantly surprised
If someone ordered 300 queens from you and you could deliver I suspect the price would be a bit flexible ?
Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

The amateur sector are slow to want these queens and nucs.....until they see them and work with them and then they want more. Almost all the Scottish orders come from folk who have seen with their own eyes, and handled them.

Over 80% of the orders into the Scottish amateur sector came from people who had seen the bees, either at work on the heather or on a group visit to the mating unit, or had been recommended to get them by someone who had.

The climate of political correctness around black bees and 'local' strains is very engrained right now, even though I personally believe a lot of it to be incorrect, and thus, into certain associations, uptake of this stock will be slow or may even never happen. I prefer in that case just to wait for word of mouth to get through, and its no worry if it never does.

Lots of ads are rather BS laden and extol virtues that are, if not imaginary, are at the least inflated. We just sell them as no fancy breed, just our own selected working stock with regular addition of quality breeding material from other units, but the client is told (mark on cage) what line the queen came from, so if they have a favourite they can reorder it while that line still exists.

Referring to the inbreeding threat from II mentioned in previous post, we have strict upper limit of 50 queens from any one line that we will allow to be incorporated into our working unit, and on the face of it up to now (some will be weeded out during the summer if they fail to match up to the standards, and some will be added in) it looks like she will be kicking off with 27 lines this spring, and only about half of these will be heavily used as mothers for larger quantities of production queens, and ALL will also be encouraged to throw a lot of drones. Two production apiaries containing ONLY selected stock will also be placed within close flying distance to the two mating units. We will not be starting the breeding until we see that there will be adequate mature drones of the right lines for the time when the virgins will be flighting.

With the main bee farm as the prime recipient of the stock we have a fairly secure basis for the queens project, so sales in ones and twos are not of great importance. I doubt most of the big guys would feel like giving us 3000 for 100 queens, when they can get 100 very good indeed queens for 1800, and if they rake around can actually get them for 1100 from less proven producers.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had stopped using the NZ stock for now, well that is only 95% true. We have two old NZ lines in service as lines to graft from. The issue with the NZ stock was of inbreeding at F1 level. We found out too late that all the NZ queens we brought into Aberdeenshire were from only 4 mothers (and even THEIR relatedness was an unknown) so diversity of drones was very poor. Too many virgins were then mating to related drones and the resulting brood was spotty and the vigour declined in about 75% of the stock at F1, sometimes very sharply. Now the basic bees are very good but until the diversity issue is resolved there will be no further import of that stock by me.

Price flexibility? Well only a little. The price is more that I think smaller beekeepers should not be penalised too heavily for just being small. In ones and twos it should be higher but we chose not to. Thus the only difference is that for under 10 queens we charge to P&P. Above that delivery by special delivery is free.

The Drone Ranger

01-04-2016, 09:48 AM

As you say C4u I think the truth is there are good and not so good strains in most "breeds" of bees even before you start looking at the variation between different individual queens
Like humans there are loads of non aggressive people but only a few Colin Jackson's
Most folk are happy with a gentle family dog not a Crufts Winner
In bees its not having the bejesus stung out of you and the prospect of some honey that trumps most other considerations
I have a fair few hives so requeening the ill natured ones is no problem
For somebody with just 2 hives though they can't solve ill nature by raising their own queen
The same with lack of vigour 2 hives probably means buying a queen in
Carnies are popular because they have a reputation for being gentle (probably testament to the breeders)
I have one of jon's queens and she hasn't swarmed the bees are gentle and productive
I'm sure yours will be the same

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

prakel

01-04-2016, 10:38 AM

Most folk are happy with a gentle family dog not a Crufts Winner

I think that people's standards depend on whether they've raised the queen themselves or paid £30/40 for it. Even a free queen given to help someone out can get a rather critical appraisal far beyond what the recipient's own queens receive. Human nature.

fatshark

01-04-2016, 12:35 PM

A bit late to the game but I've now read this report ... like others I congratulate Gavin (and all those who contributed) on its thoroughness. The 'queen mating windows' makes particularly interesting reading.

Rather than get embroiled in the imports/commercial etc discussions I'd like to raise the issue of new beekeeper training and nuc/queen demand. The report comments on the 'churn' of members of BKA's, with large numbers being trained every year, yet the overall number of beekeepers in the country not increasing at anything like the same rate. The questionnaire doesn't ask BKA's how many new beekeepers are trained per year, but "up to around 50%" is quoted in the introduction. I think this figure would have been useful - it contains some who abandon beekeeping before ever getting bees, some who acquire bees and potentially acquire heavy losses resulting in them leaving the hobby and some who get bees and keep going. Perhaps these can be divided 33% each - any thoughts?

The report indicates that replacement stocks needed are 20% higher than available (within BKAs) - I'm very surprised the shortfall is as little as this. With large numbers training each year and the relatively high attrition rate of colonies belonging to new beekeepers (personal observation, not in the report) I would have expected the figure needed to be significantly higher.

Is there under-reporting of needs, are beginners more successful than I suggest or are less trained?

My previous association (not Scotland) trained 40-50 per annum (overall association membership ~220-240), but the total membership only increased by ~5% per annum. A significant proportion of those trained, 50-70% perhaps needed bees - sourced from local members, commercial purchases or a well-organised swarm collection system. Inevitably demand for nucs was highest as soon as the season started ... as the beginners courses finished and far too soon for UK-raised colonies to be available. To reduce demand for imports better management of expectations would be needed, re-scheduling of the beginners course and/or "pre-booking" of overwintered nucs. All this requires (time consuming) organisation. My limited experience of helping run queen rearing courses (grafting/mini-nuc based) suggested that it would be better to invest time into smaller scale queen rearing (splits/Snelgrove etc.) training, and the combined and related topics of winter preparation and proper Varroa control.

Better beekeeping reduces demand ... which is both obvious and explicitly stated in summary points 2 and 3 of the report.

Bumble

01-04-2016, 01:53 PM

The report comments on the 'churn' of members of BKA's, with large numbers being trained every year, yet the overall number of beekeepers in the country not increasing at anything like the same rate. The questionnaire doesn't ask BKA's how many new beekeepers are trained per year, but "up to around 50%" is quoted in the introduction. I think this figure would have been useful - it contains some who abandon beekeeping before ever getting bees, some who acquire bees and potentially acquire heavy losses resulting in them leaving the hobby and some who get bees and keep going. Perhaps these can be divided 33% each - any thoughts?

My previous association (not Scotland) trained 40-50 per annum (overall association membership ~220-240), but the total membership only increased by ~5% per annum. A significant proportion of those trained, 50-70% perhaps needed bees - sourced from local members, commercial purchases or a well-organised swarm collection system. Inevitably demand for nucs was highest as soon as the season started ... as the beginners courses finished and far too soon for UK-raised colonies to be available. To reduce demand for imports better management of expectations would be needed, re-scheduling of the beginners course and/or "pre-booking" of overwintered nucs. All this requires (time consuming) organisation. My limited experience of helping run queen rearing courses (grafting/mini-nuc based) suggested that it would be better to invest time into smaller scale queen rearing (splits/Snelgrove etc.) training, and the combined and related topics of winter preparation and proper Varroa control.
Our association 'trains' between 30 and 40 each year (runs courses, takes money) but a good third of those don't ever intend to become beekeepers. During the course the ones who did want to become beekeepers learn that it isn't a leave alone hobby, so in the end only about a dozen will stay with the association and start keeping bees.

Timing is off with our course too. It starts in the winter and finishes well before any overwintered nucs or colonies are available, but that's the way it's awlays been done and there's no will to change, yet every year there are complaints from new beekeepers that they're waiting a long time for their bees.

Probably the biggest problem we have is ongoing training and support, because even in a fairly large association there are only a few who are willing to give up their free time to help new beekeepers, so only the more determined new members stay for more than three years.

madasafish

01-04-2016, 03:16 PM

Probably the biggest problem we have is ongoing training and support, because even in a fairly large association there are only a few who are willing to give up their free time to help new beekeepers, so only the more determined new members stay for more than three years.

I help our Association with Apiary based training.. and will help individuals when required..
It's a real struggle when people take a colony into winter with little training or experience and wonder why it dies out...

I stopped selling TBH nucs completely to beginners as "natural beekeepers" appear to have more than the usual proportion of ignorants and tend to kill their bees. Those that do overwinter tend to pester their neighbours with swarms..

The Drone Ranger

01-04-2016, 04:25 PM

I think that people's standards depend on whether they've raised the queen themselves or paid £30/40 for it. Even a free queen given to help someone out can get a rather critical appraisal far beyond what the recipient's own queens receive. Human nature.

Don't I know it :)

Incidentally I was given a Queen last year by Jon (he's a generous chap)
She was born on the wrong side of the sheets from the rest of his breeding program
I'm looking forward to how she does this year though

A friend bought 3 queens from Jon the season before and gave me one of them
Thats one of my best queens without any doubt and I believe the other two were good as well (still think I got the best one lol!)

I got a couple of other queens from the same friend last season (Local) really good ones from her best honey producer
Like everything though there's bound to be variation some good some a little less so

The Drone Ranger

01-04-2016, 04:42 PM

I help our Association with Apiary based training.. and will help individuals when required..
It's a real struggle when people take a colony into winter with little training or experience and wonder why it dies out...

I stopped selling TBH nucs completely to beginners as "natural beekeepers" appear to have more than the usual proportion of ignorants and tend to kill their bees. Those that do overwinter tend to pester their neighbours with swarms..

Fell about laughing -- thanks :)

I think 18 people started the Summer course being trained I was one of them(so was Mrs DR)
11 finished the course
5 bought bees
There was us,Ruth who ran over pheasants, Nicky, Lois,Bill
Later Lois gave up after a stinging incident
So 4 left keeping bees possibly (I'm not sure that Ruth didn't just go back to roadkill)

That was long before the press attention on how important it is for people to save the bees
It's not for everyone I sometimes doubt if it's for me :)

fatshark

01-04-2016, 04:55 PM

Ruth sounds interesting ...

The Drone Ranger

01-04-2016, 05:24 PM

2651

Run for it

fatshark

01-04-2016, 06:28 PM

More like 'run over it' from your previous description ;)

The Drone Ranger

01-04-2016, 09:19 PM

Well she felt (wrongly ) that "if you slowed down for them you would never get anywhere"
Lois had flames coming out of her smoker at one point
Bill built his own hives and the brace comb was something to behold
Nicky got stung on the top of the head ran round in circles screaming and threw herself on the ground as if that would work
They were the success stories :)

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

drumgerry

01-04-2016, 09:26 PM

The Drone Ranger

01-04-2016, 11:51 PM

DR your "Nicky" story reminds of the time I was talking someone through a procedure on the phone, they got stung (maybe a couple of times!), started shouting to their companion to "Get them off me!" followed by a long beeeeep as the line went dead. Oh how I laughed! Whoops - bit of thread drift creeping into our very serious thread ;)

It is a bit of a drift but fun nevertheless
I think a lot of folk like the idea of bees but soon realise it's not for them
Kids all want rabbits but not cleaning out the hutch

I gave Lois a queen once for her "queenless" hive
When she went to put the cage in she found young brood
She rings me up "Its ok I have young lava and eggs"
Yay!
I say"what about the queen I gave you then"
"Oh I let her go" she says
"Go where ??"
"in the garden" was the reply

(Sorry if you are reading this Lois I let the plant you gave me in return die so I'm no better)

gwizzie

02-04-2016, 09:13 AM

It is a bit of a drift but fun nevertheless
I think a lot of folk like the idea of bees but soon realise it's not for them
Kids all want rabbits but not cleaning out the hutch

I gave Lois a queen once for her "queenless" hive
When she went to put the cage in she found young brood
She rings me up "Its ok I have young lava and eggs"
Yay!
I say"what about the queen I gave you then"
"Oh I let her go" she says
"Go where ??"
"in the garden" was the reply

(Sorry if you are reading this Lois I let the plant you gave me in return die so I'm no better)

DR you crack me up LOL, just having my breakfast and decided to read your last couple of posts and I could not eat with laughing, my good lady asked what I was reading to make me laugh so much. I replied a few posts on the bee forum, she asked me to read them to her and she now is rolling about on the couch laughing (think it was the road kill that got her) You should write short stories bud ;);)

The Drone Ranger

02-04-2016, 09:30 AM

This thread is about an important issue though so apologies Gavin
Could you could move this stuff ?

fatshark

02-04-2016, 09:55 AM

It's peripherally on topic ... the point is that BKAs train large numbers of beekeepers but don't necessarily have the means (willingness, experience, [wo]manpower, organisation) to generate sufficient nucs and queens to meet demand. The report makes this clear. The demand itself is variable ... not least because a significant proportion of those on the training courses never take up beekeeping but instead return to their pheasant-slaughtering or whatever. Of course, that's no reason for them not to take a course.

What's the solution? Is there a solution? I think Roger Patterson pre-screens people taking their beginner courses to ensure they have whatever it takes to become a beekeeper (no fear of large amounts of flying bees?). This might reduce the 'unpredictable' numbers a bit.

Secondly, perhaps BKAs should match trainees numbers to available nucs ... building the cost of the nuc into the course, ensuring local bees (whatever they are Bumble) and reducing the demand for bees from unknown and untested sources.

Finally (and perhaps some do this, but I'm not aware of any that do) could BKAs encourage more experienced members to overwinter nucs by providing a guaranteed price/sale for them the following year? The economics of this would have to be carefully worked. I sell a few nucs but generally can't be bothered to overwinter large numbers because of the hassle associated with selling them (which far outweighs the hassle of generating them) ... if I knew I had a guaranteed sale of half a dozen in early May to local beekeepers at a fair price I'd be a lot more inclined to do it.

mbc

02-04-2016, 10:04 AM

. I sell a few nucs but generally can't be bothered to overwinter large numbers because of the hassle associated with selling them (which far outweighs the hassle of generating them) ... if I knew I had a guaranteed sale of half a dozen in early May to local beekeepers at a fair price I'd be a lot more inclined to do it.

Spot on!

drumgerry

02-04-2016, 10:13 AM

I'm the secretary of our local BKA (a small affair with 20-ish members) and we don't have the man/womanpower to offer training to new beekeepers. If we were to do so the burden would most likely fall upon yours truly and perhaps one or two others - mainly me though. To cut a long story short I simply can't afford to act as an unpaid volunteer over the number of weeks a half decent course would take. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

It begs the question why beekeeping relies on the services of volunteers to provide basic training. Perhaps it makes the case for a paid scheme with certified trainers or the like. I don't know. Maybe if people had to pay a few hundred quid for a course rather than the typical £25 or £50 I see they might think a bit harder about getting involved.

(oh look 1,000 posts! 6 years worth of drumgerry waffle!)

The Drone Ranger

02-04-2016, 10:18 AM

How about your Summer training course 10 Sundays through the Season and finishing with buying a hive with bees ready to go through Winter

What happens now?
Do folk buy bees in Spring and either lose a swarm or make splits at all the wrong times (sometimes more than one)
They weaken the colony and end up with two or three demoralised hives who die out in Winter

In the rush to get more hives they just lose the ones they have

The best way might be to begin with a colony at the end of the season and learn how to get that through to Spring
Then they will have a better idea what not to do in the Summer when everything seems possible

Normal advice is get your nuc in early Spring but is that truly the best way
Could get your training in Spring and your bees at the end of Summer be better

drumgerry

02-04-2016, 10:23 AM

The question remains DR - who wants to/can afford to give up 10 Sundays? If it's paid work maybe but as a volunteer?

prakel

02-04-2016, 10:42 AM

Do folk buy bees in Spring

The best way might be to begin with a colony at the end of the season and learn how to get that through to Spring.....

Normal advice is get your nuc in early Spring but is that truly the best way
Could get your training in Spring and your bees at the end of Summer be better

Not very fashionable these days but our grandparents always said that the best time to buy bees was just before they need their winter feed. But I can't imagine, even as beginners, they would have needed the level of hand-holding that a lot of people now seem to demand.

drumgerry

02-04-2016, 10:55 AM

The Drone Ranger

02-04-2016, 12:04 PM

The question remains DR - who wants to/can afford to give up 10 Sundays? If it's paid work maybe but as a volunteer?

Angus College ran a course £80
10 Sundays "Introduction to Beekeeping" all practical
The now defunct local association apparently objected and they stopped after 2 courses

drumgerry

02-04-2016, 12:13 PM

The Drone Ranger

02-04-2016, 12:13 PM

Not very fashionable these days but our grandparents always said that the best time to buy bees was just before they need their winter feed. But I can't imagine, even as beginners, they would have needed the level of hand-holding that a lot of people now seem to demand.

When I gave bees to a friend to get her started I waited till August
It was a full hive of the gentlest bees I could muster
I drove them there about 30 or 40 minutes set them on the stand opened them up
We had a cup of tea (really awful stuff Gail) and then looked through the hive (not recommending that)
She spotted the queen before me confidence rose, brood of all stages, still plenty drones to see, and well past swarming danger
At least things got off to a good start and they sailed through Winter

The Drone Ranger

02-04-2016, 12:38 PM

That's a shame DR. Who was doing the teaching? Did they get paid? Vulgar question to some but in my opinion beekeepers have an unrealistic expectation that they should have training available to them for little or no money. If you want to learn to canoe you pay Glenmore Lodge or the like a decent sum for a professionally run training course. If you want to get training in golf or playing the guitar you have to pay for lessons. Not sure why beekeeping should be subsidised by people who have spent hard years building up their skills and knowledge.
The Beekeeper who took the course was excellent
it began in Late April not opening the hives on first week just looking at the components(WBC)
Mouse guards were demonstrated and just to illustrate the point a mouse ran out of the only hive without one
That was opened and the devastation revealed

A couple of bad weather days we did extraction , making fondant, frame building and fitting wax
All the rest was inspections, requeening with matchbox, brood identification etc
Diseases problems were covered but it he didn't have varroa it was a good few years ago

The College has a rate that they pay the instructors full time or part time
I think the College had Government subsidy which might have been reduced now
Anyway it was money up front 18x£80 =£1440
So I expect the instructor got more than that but how much I dont know
He helped find us bees and they were £50 inc a Smith Brood Box

Checking out the college class rates at the moment it would probably cost about £160 now so double the above figure
That's 4 hrs * 10 lessons

fatshark

02-04-2016, 06:39 PM

The best way might be to begin with a colony at the end of the season and learn how to get that through to Spring
Then they will have a better idea what not to do in the Summer when everything seems possible.

An alternative would be to run a winter course as per usual then have an association apiary containing colonies which beginners - with their mentor - take responsibility for. As the season progresses they're likely to want to swarm, so 'cool them down' a bit by taking a nuc out of them. This nuc is then built up by the beginner during the season and then overwintered. The beginner pays a nominal amount for the nuc helping to offset the investment made by the association.

Doing it this way gives them the full season experience, allows them to learn the ropes on smaller colonies, introduces the swarm prevention and nuc preparation, gives a pretty perfunctory introduction to raising a new queen (timings etc but none of that grafting nonsense) and finally shows how to prepare colonies for winter.

Rather than doing this in an association apiary, this could be a strategy used by mentors in their own apiaries ... with the nuc cost offsetting their investment in time. It might help to have some 'ground rules' set out by the association of what mentors and mentees should expect, for example paying for the nuc, supplying their own frames, kit etc. One of the time consuming aspects of mentoring is traipsing around to the association apiary, or the mentees apiary/back garden/allotment to solve a problem (or at least knowledgeably try guessing how to fix it) caused by the mentee working alone.

Normal advice is get your nuc in early Spring but is that truly the best way

No ...

wee willy

02-04-2016, 07:19 PM

Elaborate please [emoji3]

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

fatshark

02-04-2016, 09:33 PM

Price, availability
Strength, how well established is the colony, ease of judging quality
Beginners (often) want to meddle, bees need to get on with it
Inconsistent weather

PS ... though the Q might have been directed at DR or others ...

The Drone Ranger

02-04-2016, 11:13 PM

Thing is fatshark beekeeping is pretty boring in the Winter
Lots of people lap up theory but they don't remember any of it
The first couple of stings and that's it for a lot of folk

So let's say at the tail end of April 20 students pay £150 that's £3000
Would you give up 10 Sunday afternoons for that payment?

Students will be seeing colonies on rape first then on the bell heather
They have to be inspected weekly anyway

By the 5th week you will probably have 10 students
By the 10th week maybe 7 or less
5 might want a hive of bees which lets say is cost + £50 that's another £250

The instructor earns £3250
The people who complete the course get an established hive at a good price
Anyone can drop out and buy an imported nuc but why would they ?

Now if you ran the course for weeks through the Winter I don't think either party gets much from it
And it's a much bigger commitment doing something that you wouldn't be normally
If you give them a nuc each at the beginning you will have a job controlling them
They might not want a colony they had been rummaging through all Summer :)

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

The Drone Ranger

03-04-2016, 10:29 AM

And now we come on to one of my great bugbears Prakel! The lack of self reliance amongst some beekeepers. Having to be told how to do something rather than finding out for themselves. Not even willing to read a book on the subject. Grrrr! There's such a wealth of information out there so there's no excuse. If they can't be arsed with books I've started to point them to this forum and to Fatshark's blog as good starting points. And I don't believe that beginners get too confused by conflicting information. I think they stop when they get a bit puzzled and give up - do the work people there's no way round it!
Hi DG
I am a beekeeper not a butler
So when folk ask my advice I give it
I don't run off and do it for them

Let's take Gail as an example
After overwintering her colony
Her nice bees built up in spring
I had told her how to make a Snelgrove board
I gave her his book and explained why swarming needs control

She didn't make a board she got plenty reminders from me but she did no swarm control
It was always that she was too busy ,it would get done ASAP etc
She spent the time building supers and dreaming of honey
Phone call from her eek sealed queen cells
You can guess what happened next
No honey, and the new queen produced the worst tempered bees imaginable
They stung the bejesus out of her at every turn

Later that year I went to her place and removed the queen and replaced her
Not with one I produced but one I made her buy

Once you have the advice, ignoring it has consequences ,
Its no good yelling "Jeeves can you just fix my beehive"

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

madasafish

03-04-2016, 05:15 PM

The fact is that beekeeping requires adherence to timetables and understanding that certain events lead to a limited number of outcomes - often unfavourable - so you need to avoid those events or control their outcome.

There are a lot of people who live their lives in a jumble with no clear purpose and priorities. Mostly they will be useless at beekeeping..

Saving the bees is great until you have to get up early to do something for the bees, or miss some social event, or get stung.. or all three. Not many people have the discipline , organisation and strength of will needed.

Jon

03-04-2016, 05:44 PM

Saving the bees is great until you have to get up early to do something for the bees, or miss some social event, or get stung.. or all three. Not many people have the discipline , organisation and strength of will needed.

Every now and again i get asked by someone if it's ok to just get a hive of bees and keep it at the bottom of the garden without having to do anything more.
The other request I get through to our BKA sec account on a regular basis is some bull about incorporating beehives into an urban regeneration or architecture project as a design feature.
They usually want endorsement by the BKA as part of a funding application and are totally disinterested in taking the time to do any basic training to manage the bees.

mbc

03-04-2016, 06:14 PM

Yup, I get loads of this sort of casual enquiries when I do farmers markets, I waste no time in telling them to plant some pollinator friendly flowers and leave beekeeping to people who are mad enough to enjoy fiddling around with the creatures.

fatshark

03-04-2016, 08:01 PM

Let's take Gail as an example
...
You can guess what happened next

I've known several beekeepers like Gail ... they like the principle of keeping bees, but not the practice.

I usually try and site a couple of bait hives nearby ... ;)

The Drone Ranger

03-04-2016, 10:10 PM

It's sink or swim and after a steep learning curve she still speaks to me and has bees

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

Greengage

04-04-2016, 08:08 AM

On your stories, we had a chap rang our sec looking for bees, He was told no as he would have to do a course on beekeeping so he signed up paid his €40 after completing his 10 lessons all provided free demanded his nuc of bees, when he was told they cost €120 for the bees only he flipped . "But you told me i could get bees if i did the course" have not seen him since.

fatshark

04-04-2016, 08:55 AM

You should have charged €160 for the course ...

The Drone Ranger

04-04-2016, 09:17 AM

madasafish

04-04-2016, 09:23 AM

If all the recommendations from the beekeeping associations changed from buy a nuc in spring to buy a hive of bees in August the demand for imports would be reduced
The commercial beekeepers and the UK bee producers would be able to supply the demand
Plus all noobs would get a better start in beekeeping

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

Instant gratification fail

The Drone Ranger

04-04-2016, 09:56 AM

Lol
Oh well !

On one occasion my friend W was taking a Payne's nuc of bees from her in town site to another apiary near her home
She had to pop into the supermarket on the way
It was one of those rare sunny days when temperatures can soar
She looked at the nuc , then at the sun, and thought "whats the plan here"
Solved!!
The nuc was put in the trolley, and wheeled round Tesco while the shopping was done
by the time she got to the till the bees were getting pretty noisy
The till girl noticed and asked "what's in the box?"
Bit of quick thinking required
Then the answer "Gerbils !!"

"Oh! Gerbils ,they're quite noisy aren't they"

"Yes they are a bit , anyway thanks must get on "

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

Bumble

04-04-2016, 12:56 PM

Then the answer "Gerbils !!"

"Oh! Gerbils ,they're quite noisy aren't they"

"Yes they are a bit , anyway thanks must get on "

Damn! Just decorated my keyboard with coffee!

fatshark

04-04-2016, 01:19 PM

Emma

04-04-2016, 02:50 PM

I would love to have started beekeeping by buying bees from a mentor as Fatshark describes.
I hoped to start beekeeping with mentoring, having had a kind offer of apiary space from someone who worked closely with the person I was buying bees from. But it all fell through a the last minute, due to their personal circumstances. I was left with a rapid hunt for an apiary site, and setting up from scratch on my own, starting with two overwintered colonies in... um... quite interesting conditions. Two more attempts at finding hands-on mentors failed, and a summer of stress & disasters ensued. And that was after attending two winters' worth of local association lectures, a summer's worth of association apiary demos, at least 2 conferences, and every extra one-day course I could find, plus a bit of understanding from living with bees as a child. There is simply no substitute for hands-on experience, and for working with a colony through a season.
Since then, I've had some frustrating times with selling colonies to people who blithely ignore what I tell them, prompting me to make long trips to their apiaries to sort out missing queens.

Emma

04-04-2016, 02:54 PM

Another thought on this thread, but this time prompted by my day job, for which I study people who make a (usually very modest) living from wild and woodland products. Often these are people who are skilled at a craft or at getting wonderful produce through their knowledge of wild ecosystems or native species. Despite their knowledge and skill, earning a living is difficult, because food and other material things are sold at such low prices just now. So in many cases they earn most of their money through teaching their skills and knowledge to other people who want to have a taste of it in their own lifestyles - or who just want to experience what they do for a day or so. (To my surprise, I've discovered that it's much the same across Europe.)
Beekeeping is an anomaly, because, as other posters have pointed out, people with a tremendous amount of experience do so much teaching and demonstrating for free. So there is little middle ground between people who pour their own resources into small-scale beekeeping for very little return, and people who make a difficult living by keeping bees on a much larger scale, aiming for bulk production, which leads towards an industrial rather than a craft approach.

drumgerry

04-04-2016, 03:37 PM

That's exactly the point I was making Emma. My honest opinion is that a sustainable, organised system of bee production and beekeeping education is simply not going to arise out of the current association setup based on volunteer labour - the price of a mid season nuc is simply not sufficient return for a season's worth of mentoring in addition to the cost of the bees supplied.

Probably Gavin could answer this for us but I suspect Scotgov are looking at alternatives to such an approach. Perhaps something properly funded to be put in place in the various regions. Perhaps a number of 1/2 jobs throughout the country along the lines of what Bernard Mobus did at Craibstone. Post holders to develop regional beekeeping education and queen/nuc rearing systems. Possibly with access to a fund where they can award grants to individuals carrying out such activities for the greater good. Or funding to set up regional apiaries to implement education and queen/nuc production. I am being optimistic perhaps but they did ask the question so they must be thinking about it.

The Drone Ranger

04-04-2016, 03:37 PM

I think Emma you would favour something like a course of 10 Sunday afternoon practicals
Sorry Fatshark I don't really have plans I'm just making a suggestion but beekeeping courses in Winter are for the improvers I would say
Stuff like dissection and microscopy and the contents of a bees wazoo etc

heres a little tale
When I started trout fishing as a hobby I was lucky and was taught casting after school by an enthusiastic teacher with a lot of other kids
Lots of years went by till I worked for Hawker Siddley they had a fishing club and I started match fishing
Then it was back to sea fishing then trout fishing
I bought a rod lines reel and lots of stuff I didn't really need and fished in various lakes reservoirs etc
They all cost quite a bit for a day ticket
We had an ex British Fly casting champion living nearby and my friend Pete and I took several lessons from him as improvers it was worth the cost

The interest though had began long before when my Grandfather used to take us fishing as kids
If I had kept it going that might have been enough
So I think the practical comes first then a bit of theory and if you think its needed some more advanced stuff

fatshark

04-04-2016, 04:37 PM

Stuff like dissection and microscopy and the contents of a bees wazoo etc

None of that would be in my introductory course ;) Or should be. I reckon you could get the entire thing into four sessions. Furthermore, the principles of things like swarm control are actually more important in some ways than the practice. In my experience people get hung up on which box goes where without remembering you're simply trying to separate the queen from the brood, or whatever.

A solution has to be 'distributed' ... no-one is going to traipse long distances for regular training. That's why I'd suggest an association-level/local mentoring. All I was really suggesting was formalising it a bit more, making any training in the mentors apiary (so no additional travelling) with the mentors bees, but with a guaranteed sale of a nuc included. The price for the latter could be raised to make it more realistic of the effort involved.

Emma makes an interesting point re. training ... are there any individuals offering paid-for training in beekeeping? Andrew on Colonsay of course for one-off weeks, and some II I'm aware of, but anything else? An interesting idea ...

DR ... we share another interest. I also fish for trout and sea-trout (primarily now on the Eden, but all over the place in my time). When I moved house recently I had to reveal all the stuff I'd purchased but didn't really need. I'm sure some of my rods have been breeding ... there are surely more 8' four weights than I've ever purchased.

At least, that's my story.

drumgerry

04-04-2016, 04:58 PM

I can think of a few people doing training courses fatshark. I trained a small group last summer in grafting/queen rearing over a couple of sessions. It was offered through our association but it was me that was doing it. The fee was modest and split between me and the association. There's probably a fair few ad hoc things like that kicking about.

Interested to read yours and DR's and Emma's and everyone's thoughts on education/bee supply. It's a bit like a brain storming session to expand the basic data collected in Gavin's report.

I've been a bit of a fisherman in my time as well although I'm considering myself having taken early retirement from it now. The last thing I used to do was float tubing on lochs - like a floating armchair. Amazing how close you can get to the fish in one of those

gavin

04-04-2016, 05:35 PM

The course we've run in the East of Scotland BA for several years comprises 4 two-hour evening indoor sessions (Feb and Mar), lightened by interspersing PowerPoint stuff with more practical demos, then two afternoon apiary sessions (Apr and May if the weather cooperates). We didn't particularly like the BBKA Course in a Case so this was written by members. All the tutors do things free of charge (we don't mind ... ) and as far as I can tell all beginners who want them get bees locally, mostly from the association apiary but also from other members ... and we all charge too little at £125 per 5-frame stock. The tutor quality has been nudged upwards here and there over the years, and now we have a very well qualified (and brilliant, lovely!) guy in charge. There are also SBA training sessions for trainers (18 and 19 April for the next ones) and that should also help boost the quality across Scotland.

The beginners are also invited to additional sessions at the association apiary and usually they have an appetite for that. Didn't go so well last year (I was distracted and the weather was poor) but in some years and in 2016 it will be great experience for them.

New beekeepers are invited to ask for a mentor. Often the person they get bees from is their first port of call but there is a mechanism to spread the load around others in our association too.

Seeing the discussion here, and watching what happens elsewhere, I think we have got this right, as long as there is someone to carry the effort at the association apiary. I'm in the process of succession management there, we'll see how that goes. So, we are 100% self-sufficient for bees and for training. It does involve quite a bit of unpaid effort though.

The issue was raised earlier of the churn and the class members who don't take it up at all, or who don't last as beekeepers. I'm comfortable with our attrition rate. All we can do is be honest at the start (on cost, difficulty, personal risk, commitment required) and be as supportive as we can with continuing support, while expecting people to work towards their own self-sufficiency. Perhaps half of ours never try to take it up and of the rest maybe half or two thirds stick with it in the long run. By that measure our class of about 33 this year should produce 8-10 new beekeepers (although some travel some distance so we'll lose touch with them quickly I would imagine).

We do have some beginners who head off thinking that they know it all, and they don't. Not many, but their areas are always good places to site bait hives :-) A few are a bit clingy, needing more support than is reasonable. They usually come to realise that servicing their needs is seldom your top priority in the busy season, and so they improve.

Here's what I think we need to make things better:

- spreading good practice around a bit more
- physical resources that would help (equipment to make things happen)
- maybe better online resources to help with the first
- regional groupings so that the little associations can make things happen
- promoting good quality training so that folk are directed to good LAs rather than the haphard additional stuff available in some places

We manage expectations for bees simply by being open on the timing from the start. Some are impatient and buy full colonies from members earlier than the current year's nucs are avaiable. Generally that leads to difficulties but it is usually the more keen beginners who try that option and they are often the ones who do cope (after a brief wobbly period!).

Whether folk start our course and never become beekeepers doesn't really bother me as long as they enjoy the course and leave it with a good impression of what beekeeping is about. Much better explaining the difficulties than telling them all is easy and watching them fail within the first year or two.

I guess I'm agreeing with you that an integrated i) training ii) bee supply iii) aftercare system is the ideal, and there are associations that do this quite well. College courses and the like fail the last two of these. Businesses sometimes do the first in the hope of also getting the second. Some individuals use the internet to jump straight to number 2 and miss out on the others. It is, of course, possible to get into beekeeping and succeed, more or less, by getting some bees then reading lots of books (did that myself) but working with the local beekeeper community is bound to be better.

I have to say I think that the more recent beekeepers turn out to be better beekeepers than some who have been keeping them for decades. We also have some very experienced and very good older beekeepers (older than me ... ) but some of the longer established beekeepers are also swarm factories.

Trout fishing? Someone mention *trout fishing*?!!

The Drone Ranger

04-04-2016, 05:55 PM

I don't think there's a problem to be solved here it all seems to be sorted
I'm a bit out of touch

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

Calluna4u

04-04-2016, 06:14 PM

If all the recommendations from the beekeeping associations changed from "buy a nuc in spring" to "buy a hive of bees in August" the demand for imports would be reduced

The commercial beekeepers and the UK bee producers would be able to supply the demand
It's better for the supply chain

Not going to happen in the real world.

1. Folk traditionally think they are potentially buying a winter loss.

2, Not even any honey in the first 9 or 10 months? No going in to play with them?

Then the big one for commercial producers......no matter where you are in Europe they do NOT sell the family silver.....by which it means they do not sell good bees immediately before the most valuable flow (often acacia) unless they are going to be paid for the envisaged nominal crop too. ( A nuc or package can cost over 200 euros at source in E. Europe before or during the acacia, and a week after wards you can get the same weight of bees and a queen for 130 euros less, even cheaper sometimes. Should be a cautionary tale about buying E. Europe bees at reasonable price before the acacia is over in early June, they may not be what you think.) Sorry for the illustrative digression.

If you want to buy a full colony from me at the start of August it would set you back at least 400 pounds, if I would even entertain the idea. I would be foregoing the heather crop from that hive, and our long term average for a normal colony is 44.2lb, so a hive with bees I MIGHT think about selling at 250pounds (still cheap) immediately has a value 150 pounds higher. Its irrelevant if the new owner wants to take it to the heather or not. I would. Specially produced nucs............yes but reluctantly and with a health warning, and a suggestion to order now if they wish but let me bring it through winter.

Gavins exercise was a valuable look at a lot of stuff that had never been properly collated before, to enable those in power to have a look at how things can be improved. Do not expect much cash thrown at it, it is not there to throw.

It is a much more holistic solution that is being looked at and economic factors are part of it. This forum has run way off topic and into Utopia again, but not a surprise.

Apart from a single suggestion (albeit a serious one) that some if not most professional beekeepers should leave their profession, the vast majority of opinion on here focusses on training new beekeepers and supplying them with cheap or subsidised bees. This is way off the target as its the existing individuals and enterprises that are the rock (or sand) that sustainability will be built on.

The internet generation have become accustomed to everything being provided for nothing or very little, and they even demand a standard of service for stuff that is almost free. Several have touched on this in responses but it still seems to boil down to a totally amateur solution, where volunteers give of their time free or for cost, and they are training newbies.

For there to be a sustainable solution it HAS to be based on people getting properly rewarded for their time and skills. Once it gets to that then there is also a right to expect a level of training that is sensible and follows some kind of standard format with universally agreed basics. Otherwise, when its the enthusiastic amateur, you are totally open to the trainer only following their own doctrines and ways, producing followers rather than what would be universally understood to be a good beekeeper.

Then there is then economics. The Scottish economy is one of the factors being borne in mind at government level. Whilst not specifically in Gavins brief as far as I know, it is for sure a factor influencing decisions at the higher levels.

Eradication of the professionals seriously reduces the availability of targeted pollination, and the iconic product Heather Honey would no long generate the millions it does. This primarily comes from the professional sector who may be the minority of individuals but have a very significant proportion of the colonies and an actual majority of the traded and sold honey, so economically dominate. Might be unpalatable for many on here but sorry, it is so.

So, sustainability HAS to focus heavily on those with most impact and most need to be sustainable. Its not a situation that will be sorted out in any way by churning ever more new starters. An amateur based solution that relies on folk doing things for nothing and being around almost 24/7 to answer the endless daft questions is not going to go anywhere other than just about where we are now. If you want it to be different then STOP doing things for nothing and giving bees to them for uneconomic rates....the professionals or even self financing amateurs will have no incentive to produce, and the buyers no incentive to buy if they know Joe and Jane Bloggs are going to do it out of charity.

If it does not pay then it is not going to happen.

drumgerry

04-04-2016, 06:52 PM

There's probably 50% of what you're saying there C4U that I agree with.

As to beekeeping's benefit to the economy I think you're right to say the commercial sector dominates in terms of the honey market. What hasn't been quantified is what benefit we "amateurs" are to the Scottish economy. I think it could be added up and will be a significant amount. I think to prioritise commercial or amateur is a mistake - solutions need to be about both sectors.

I agree completely on professionalism and the something for nothing culture of beekeepers. It relies too heavily on the goodwill of particular individuals. Goodwill that can rapidly evaporate where people take you for a mug.

I'm probably the one you mean suggesting as you put it

"that some if not most professional beekeepers should leave their profession"

Not what I said. What I said was if they can't operate sustainably by which I mean refrain from importing packages/queens repeatedly as a result of poor practice and heavy winter losses then they should maybe find alternative employment. If that's not exactly what I said it's what I meant.

And you say this forum has Utopian tendencies? I thought we were all here to explore ideas.

Greengage

04-04-2016, 08:17 PM

I am not a professional bee keeper and have no intention of being one I dont even know if I will be doing it next year, I got into this by accident, someone with more clout in the pecking order than me thought they were contribution to "SAVING THE BEES" I ended up with the bees or they unfortunately ended up with me. But I can see the point being made by Calluna4u. I was previously self employed and a chap said to me one day If you want to work for nothing you will always be busy. Having attended numerous talks and conferences on bee keeping I am amazed at the enthusiasm of the amateur sector to keep their federations going for years. with little or no reward for the effort. I do know a few (2) who do it for a living but it will not make you a millionaire. I have also met lots of well meaning bee keepers who know very little but are never shy to give their opinions on what the best practice should be.Another point I noticed I have met no bee keepers between the ages of 18 and 40 with lots much older and retired looking for something to do and some with more money than sense. Met one guy who bought 4 queens for €40 euros each and threw them all into the one hive, I asked why he did that and he said sure they will fight it out and the fittest will survive, OK. Next met a chap who bought lock stock and barrel from chap giving up, cost him a couple of 1000s. Me I would be too tight reckon I can pick up swarms locally and local pest control person asked me to collect her swarms. Might know nothing about bee keeping but was always fascinated by entomology from very young age. Easier to look after bumblebees and Butterflies than Honey bees,

The Drone Ranger

04-04-2016, 09:31 PM

I still say buy a full hive after the swarming season is past
Pay for your training and you will get some

Let's talk fishing instead :)

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

Calluna4u

04-04-2016, 10:50 PM

As to beekeeping's benefit to the economy I think you're right to say the commercial sector dominates in terms of the honey market. What hasn't been quantified is what benefit we "amateurs" are to the Scottish economy. I think it could be added up and will be a significant amount. I think to prioritise commercial or amateur is a mistake - solutions need to be about both sectors.

I agree completely on professionalism and the something for nothing culture of beekeepers. It relies too heavily on the goodwill of particular individuals. Goodwill that can rapidly evaporate where people take you for a mug.

Oh I don't underestimate certain aspects of benefit that flow from the amateur sector.

A classic case would be casual or natural world pollinators. Scotland would not be exactly as it is today with no honeybees around, and when you are away up little valleys, or in urban areas, or the dripping wet west, commercial beekeepers are as scarce as the proverbial hens teeth. Because it does not pay.

The pollination of the hawthorns and all manner of fruit and seed bearing plants, far from an commercial hives, depends heavily on amateur beekeepers in tandem with other pollinators. That this has no economic benefit is untrue, its part of the natural well being of the country, and that has a value. In a document prepared some years ago in response to the EFB crisis this value was considered and a vague figure put on it. Its not just here either. I am friendly with a significant beekeeper in the Rhone valley, and last time we spoke he received 15 euros per hive per year to support his bees, just for their value to the ecosystem.

Then there is the appliance trade. The UK trade is very heavily dependant on the amateur sector as you are where the really big margins lie. You pay very high prices here, even for seconds, and without you there would be less employment.

However the major measurable economic gains come from honey trading. I have 8 households total dependant on our production. Other bee farms will add quite a few more to that. That's the direct wages aspect. We spend in the environs of 300K per year, much of it locally. The honey goes on to a packer, where 350K of honey generates more activity and goes out from there as a 500K business, and finally at retail it is a 1M turnover activity...probably a little more actually, and that money goes into peoples wages all the way through the system. Add in the other bee farms and you can see this is actually getting to the point of being a minor but important and iconic section of the Scottish economy.

Then there is the unmeasurable but real pollination uplift to crops. That probably is a lot more than the honey value. Even grouse moors benefit. Several gamekeepers have told me that a moor that gets honeybees on it each year sets more seed which is more winter food for the grouse which in turn means more healthy grouse on the moor. More grouse equals more value of the land.

Value is all around us and is not the exclusive preserve of the professional.

As for the beekeepers finding other work? Well both sectors have upper and lower extremes in them. Larger beekeepers who cannot do the job tend to fail by natural cull (financially of course), but it is undeniable that there is a wide spectrum of abilities, levels of interest, and competence across the professional sector. The worst tend to fall by the wayside.

Economic pressure to succeed is less significant, even absent, in the amateur sector. The very best and the very worst of beekeepers are to be found there, and also the best and worst presented honey. When time becomes valueless and the honey is only sold in small amounts if at all, it then no longer matters how much or how little effort is put into the presentation of the finished product.

Irrespective of competence or diligence, this is not an easy field to make a satisfactory living in. I have always thought the boundaries between the sectors are pretty blurred, especially in the 20 to 50 hive range, but outwith that too, and there is some movement of people between the two. The close relationship that developed between the SBA and the BFA in Scotland after the EFB outbreak is one of the best things to come out of it, and long may it continue. We are at our best supporting eachother.

The credit mostly falls to Phil McAnespie and John Mellis for that.

gavin

04-04-2016, 11:13 PM

There are some cracking posts on here tonight! Nice to see the tolerance and understanding from such different vantage points.

drumgerry

05-04-2016, 12:00 AM

I couldn't agree more that we are at our best supporting each other C4U. My sincere hope is that we can find ways to improve things for us all.

I wonder if by making some marketing capital out of our premium product - heather honey - in the same way that the NZ honey industry has done for Manuka (to my mind disgusting stuff!) margins could be improved for commercial and small scale beekeepers alike. Obviously not in the same ball park as you but my OH markets our Speyside heather honey to her Facebook friends and we get a great price for it - we send it all over the UK and have sent a few pots abroad.

And in purely economic terms isn't there a marketing trick to be had from the use of native bees in the production of such a premium honey? Apart from the low carbon miles of using Scottish bees people who buy our honey don't want to be told that we imported our bees from Italy or elsewhere. They want Scottish honey from Scottish bees.

I live in Speyside, the location of one of if not THE most successful Scottish industry currently operating - whisky. They have not missed a single marketing trick with their product and they sell it at premium prices the world over. I'd argue that Speyside or Perthshire or Tweeddale or anywhere else's heather honey is as premium a product as anything the whisky industry can produce. But I don't see the honey producers marketing the stuff as creatively as it could be.

Of course the whisky industry is a multi-billion pound industry with ambassadors in many countries to promote it. It's also a product with its standards enshrined in law. Maybe it's time to have Scottish heather honey similarly protected? Maybe it's time that Scotgov gave the honey industry some of the support they give the whisky industry.

At the end of the day perhaps I do have a Utopian view of things but unless you fling some ideas around you might not come up with the ones that will actually work.

PS - don't get me started on managed heather moors. I live in between a number of large estates and to my mind all they do is manage their land for the benefit of themselves and their tweed-clad chinless mates. Come the revolution......!

alclosier

05-04-2016, 12:22 AM

Another point I noticed I have met no bee keepers between the ages of 18 and 40

I'm a young 37... but you're right, I think I maybe the youngest in my Assoc. We need to look at why very few young'uns take up beekeeping unless I suspect a parent keeps bees. I would suggest in the next 20 years we will have a major brain drain of experience as father time takes his toll.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

The Drone Ranger

05-04-2016, 01:17 AM

Must have nodded off there look at the time :)
Its odd that bees would be less available in late Summer
Wouldn't argue with the mainstream on that they must be right
But aren't those early nucs responsible for most of the bee imports into UK
That's the impression I get since its apparently not viable to overwinter nucs on a commercial basis
And its not possible to supply complete hives later in the year
That must mean we have to import packages and queens etc from warmer climes
Theres nothing else for it
Off back to the land of nod or dreamland as its been described :)

gavin

05-04-2016, 09:26 AM

GG, I've put your post in the 'Native Honey Bees' area. Probably should also have moved some of DR's posts earlier.

Al, there are a few new bee farmers on the horizon, I can think of 6 intending to go that way in Scotland. Some of them are clearly under 40, certainly three of the serious contenders are. All good for the health of bee farming in Scotland. But yes, the majority of new entrants to the craft as hobbyists are older. Not the overwhelming majority, I'd say our beginners class is about 65:35 over:under 40 (rough guess, never stopped to think about it at the time).

But aren't those early nucs responsible for most of the bee imports into UK
That's the impression I get since its apparently not viable to overwinter nucs on a commercial basis
And its not possible to supply complete hives later in the year
That must mean we have to import packages and queens etc from warmer climes
Theres nothing else for it
Off back to the land of nod or dreamland as its been described :)

This is back to a key argument, thanks. Overwintering nucs for the spring empty boxes or for sale. If you do this well and overwinter strong units in polystyrene nucleus boxes, they overwinter really well. Almost as well as full boxes. It is possible to set them up in late summer and, with some care, build them to full units on six frames by the end of the season. It doesn't take a lot of work to do this with natural queen cells or you can make them with a queen of your own choice, either raised by yourself or bought in. You can even requeen late in the season a split made with the old queen as part of your swarm control. That uses some of those late season queens that we hear don't have a ready market.

Saves you ordering packages for your empty spring boxes. Gives nuclei for sale. OK, there will be winters when losses are higher, but the report shows that there are bee farmers who report only 20% losses in the worse winters and most of the rest are in the 20-40% bracket instead in the worse winters. Easy to recover from that and if they were carrying their own nuclei, well made and well prepared for winter, then it is likely that even in a bad year over half of them would survive to repopulate empty boxes in spring. Proven yet young queens heading units ready to go exponential.

All I'm saying is that there are ways of making things better, more sustainable, and that is a sensible direction to work towards. It has multiple benefits.

Most of that above was written with commercial beekeepers in mind but it also applies to association apiaries.

prakel

05-04-2016, 09:50 AM

Most of that above was written with commercial beekeepers in mind but it also applies to association apiaries.

A well thought out post G. All I might add is that the model you're outlining is probably *more* suitable for the associations where volunteers are willing to shoulder the labour and absorb the extra cost. I've thought a lot about the overwintering idea -excellent for increasing our own stocks and also potentially easy sales if that's what you're after because there's already a growing culture which could be capitalized on in the amateur sector for overwintered nucs and queens (thankyou Mr Palmer for doing the initial leg work) BUT if we're being honest, there's got to be a surcharge for the extra work/risk/losses or there needs to be volunteer labour offered willingly to boost the association funds.

gavin

05-04-2016, 09:58 AM

On the question of paying for services such as training, I can see both sides. If there is an army of volunteers doing this because they want to, as a leisure activity, then charging a commercial rate isn't going to happen. There is a tradition amongst local associations of providing that service, so switching to a fully paid model will not happen easily. Currently our beginners get an exceptional bargain at £40 for four indoor and two outdoor sessions.

As we must generate such a lot of business for Thorne perhaps they should be subsidising us. However there is a good diversity of suppliers now so I guess that would not work either.

When I started there were few beginners and most received their first bees as a gift, a free swarm or a split. It was only as numbers grew and it became a significant drain on bee power and finance that we started charging for the bees. Time to review the price though.

The Drone Ranger

05-04-2016, 10:00 AM

Your right Gavin I do wander off
Move those posts by all means and replace them with this

It still makes little sense to me for all the beekeeping Associations to suggest that the best way to start beekeeping is to buy a nuc in Spring
Then in the next breath they say how terrible it is that all the new beekeepers rush off to order an imported nuc online

Every beekeeper will need a beehive so why not just buy one with bees in it

p.s.
Thornes are subsidising us
If you buy your hives and stuff at the shop Brian will help keep you on track while you get through your first season or so

Finno

05-04-2016, 11:40 AM

There are some cracking posts on here tonight! Nice to see the tolerance and understanding from such different vantage points.

Agreed; I write as a small scale hobbyist and supporter of the native bee in Ireland and it was a pleasant surprise to see this issue discussed without the usual sneering and contempt found on most fora. Especial thanks to to C4u for his elucidation of the economic forces at work.

fatshark

05-04-2016, 07:14 PM

This is back to a key argument, thanks. Overwintering nucs for the spring empty boxes or for sale. If you do this well and overwinter strong units in polystyrene nucleus boxes, they overwinter really well. Almost as well as full boxes. It is possible to set them up in late summer and, with some care, build them to full units on six frames by the end of the season. It doesn't take a lot of work to do this with natural queen cells or you can make them with a queen of your own choice, either raised by yourself or bought in. You can even requeen late in the season a split made with the old queen as part of your swarm control. That uses some of those late season queens that we hear don't have a ready market.

This is a significant component of Michael Palmer's Sustainable Apiary talk of course ... available at a YouTube site near you (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nznzpiWEI8A). You know it, I know it, most of the readers of - and certainly the regular contributors to - this forum know it. But how many actually do it? In an association apiary just a few miles south of your own there's a solitary poly nuc, but lots of hives. In my previous BKA shared apiary there was probably a 10:1 ratio of hives to nucs over the winters I used it. In my experience even experienced beekeepers relatively rarely overwinter nucs.

It can't be due to lack of suitable equipment as the currently available poly nucs are extremely good and inexpensive enough to pay for themselves in a season or two through sales of surplus (note that this is hobbyist economics, not the cold hard reality of commercials ;) )

The combination of better preparation for the winter (in terms of timely Varroa treatment and feeding) coupled with training in preparation and overwintering of nucs might well fill that 20% shortfall in Scottish Association nuc demand your report describes.