Anyone know this plant?

[gavin]

Anyone seen this plant before?! 10th April, fields now open for business. Maybe this is a record in these parts? I'm surprised given the very cold Nov-Jan we had here.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/back%20of%20errol.jpg

The bees are 2km away from where I took these pictures so they are well within reach although they don't seem to have discovered it yet.

These darn neonics can't be doing their job correctly as they are covered in pollen beetles which will be vying with my bees for the crop of tasty pollen. (Note: I am aware that the levels have diluted sufficiently by now that they don't control pollen beetles.)

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/darn%20pesticides.jpg

One colony has almost filled its box with bees (brood on 6 frames) and will need more space after a week of reasonable weather. The others are in varying levels of unpreparedness but another two ought to build up enough on the rape to fill a super by the time the feast is over.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/ready%20for%20action.jpg

Do you welcome the rape season? Do your bees do well on it? This year the ground is a little too dry at the moment to yield well but a couple of days of warm rain and the nectar will be flooding in.

Happy days. Bill and Sean came to see the bees today, and they were all on their best behaviour - including Sean and Bill.

G.

[Jimbo]

Never seen this plant over in the west!

[gavin]

Well, you can continue to watch gentle springs creep up on your bees, and not feel obliged to dash for the extractor the minute the yellow flowers start turning!

[Jon]

I have just discovered a 6 acre field about 200 metres away from my colonies and I reckon it will be flowering within a week.
I will have to get supers on the stronger colonies this week.
What are the main insects killed by the seed coating, both target and non target?
I have had oil seed rape close by in the past and never noticed any problems.

[gavin]

Flea beetles on seedlings? Cabbage root fly? Aphids on young plants? Oh, and bees, bees bees!!

The lack of problems you report seems to be the same across the UK, including (as you know) by some very major bee farmers who have a bottom line to protect. These same bee farmers have their honey tested to stringent standards for their supermarket customers and report no finds of imidacloprid in their rape honey samples.

[GRIZZLY]

Don't forget the spraying against POD MIDGE Gavin and the "glue" spraying to prevent premature pod opening before the whole plant has set its seed up the full height of the flower stem.

[gavin]

They spray GLUE on them too?!!! No wonder the bees are in trouble. These darn agro-nastie corporations will stop at nothing to ruin the planet's pollinator populations. Their conspiracies and cunning know no bounds.

However they do also thoughtfully spray the same pyrethroids on OSR that get made into strips for Varroa treatment. The purpose is to control pollen beetle, but in the right area it might give you a little extra Varroa control too ...

[Jon]

I came across this comment from a poster below one of the recent Independent articles on pesticides.


What the politicians don't grasp is how revolutionary these new pesticides are:
1. They are INSIDE the crops, inside the sap, pollen, nectar, leaves, fruit, grain - which means you and I are eating neonicotinoids in every slice of bread, every apple etc.
2. They are neuro-toxic - they affect brain cells in bees and in humans
3. They are fantastically poisonous - 6,000 times more toxic than DDT
4. They PERSIST in soil for decades: Clothianidin has a 'half life' of 19 years
Finally, they are everywhere: in the UK, around 3 million acres of wheat, barley, maize, oilseed rape, peas, beans, potatoes, sugar beet,tomatoes, peppers are treated with neonics.

The end-game is that if you see ANY field of arable crops in the UK - it has been treated with neonics and it is completely sterile of all insect and invertebrate life: below the ground - all the worms, beetles and woodlice are dead. Above the ground, all the bees, butterflies, bumblebees, hoverflies etc are dead. Bayer don't want wildlife of any kind; they want a vast, sterile, soil-substrate stretching from coast to coast in which to plant their deadly seeds. And they could care less that your children are eating nerve-poison every day at every meal.

This is the level of misinformation being put out.
There must be at least ten completely fabricated claims in that one post. Obviously noone told your pollen beetles that they are eating nerve poison every day at every meal or if they did, they have come back for seconds anyway.
The post was recommended multiple times so the man or woman in the street obviously believe this.
Must be what they mean when they talk about dumbing down.
It appears that anyone who wants to educate himself by doing some proper research is on a hiding to nothing as the general public prefer a simple diet of misinformation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/government-asked-to-investigate-new-pesticide-link-to-bee-decline-2256737.html#disqus_thread

[GRIZZLY]

I came across this comment from a poster below one of the recent Independent articles on pesticides.



This is the level of misinformation being put out.
There must be at least ten completely fabricated claims in that one post. Obviously noone told your pollen beetles that they are eating nerve poison every day at every meal or if they did, they have come back for seconds anyway.
The post was recommended multiple times so the man or woman in the street obviously believe this.
Must be what they mean when they talk about dumbing down.
It appears that anyone who wants to educate himself by doing some proper research is on a hiding to nothing as the general public prefer a simple diet of misinformation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/government-asked-to-investigate-new-pesticide-link-to-bee-decline-2256737.html#disqus_thread

A case for Eric perhaps?