Healthy Bees Plan 9th Quarterly Newsletter

[HealthyBeesPlan]

https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/index.cfm?sectionid=41

[gavin]

Many thanks, Healthy Bees Plan person. Good to see these newsletters.

I know that the bee health staff in Scotland talk to their NBU colleagues frequently. You can see the Scottish Government bee health pages here:

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

G.

[Jon]

Compare and contrast the information in the Fera document (Page 3) with the ridiculous headline in the Herald last month - Mass death of British bees.
Fera sampled nearly 20,000 colonies in the UK and found no evidence of CCD - yet the herard runs a front page story re bee Armageddon based on a press release by our old friend bonkersbeeman.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/environment/scientists-link-mass-death-of-british-bees-to-farm-pesticides.1326596745


The final part of this exercise was to
look at 13 pathogens in adult bee
samples collected from each visit,
including viruses, fungi and bacteria.
We can confirm that every one of these
pathogens was detected across
England and Wales, but the prevalence
of each ranged from being very
common, to a single finding in the
survey! Some good news is that the
viruses linked to Colony Collapse
Disorder in the United States were of
very low prevalence, and none of the
19,615 colonies assessed in the
survey, were suffering from this
condition. The final report for this
surveillance exercise will be
shared with beekeepers in spring
2012, so look out for updates in
magazines, on BeeBase

Even more curious, I see an estimate of 270,000 colonies is being bandied about for uk colony numbers - up from the previous estimate of 220,000.
If this is Armageddon I would hate to see a period of sustained colony growth. We would be choking in a sea of invertebrates.
But hey - don't let the facts get in the way of all the bees are dying the sky is falling stories.
I am sure the Herald journalist checked his source with the utmost rigour.

But just for the record for any googling journo - THERE IS NO CCD IN THE UK!!

[Mellifera Crofter]

...I know that the bee health staff in Scotland talk to their NBU colleagues frequently. You can see the Scottish Government bee health pages here:

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

G.

There are a lot of interesting courses listed in that newsletter - but they're all in the south of England. Do you know, Gavin, if there are going to be similar courses offered here in Scotland - particularly queen rearing?

Kitta

[GRIZZLY]

There are a lot of interesting courses listed in that newsletter - but they're all in the south of England. Do you know, Gavin, if there are going to be similar courses offered here in Scotland - particularly queen rearing?

Kitta
Andrew Abrahams has 6 places I think on his Q rearing course on Colonsay.I am going together with the wife - its in June.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Thanks Grizzly - I'll check it out. I've heard about Andrew and his courses before. Sounds good.
Kitta