Hi prakel. I think we are pretty much in agreement.
Hi prakel. I think we are pretty much in agreement.
Ah, yes, Jon. I can see that wasps would be a nuisance to apideas, though you must have considerably more wasps than we ever get. We don't even have problems with wasps eating plums (on the few occasions we get any on the trees) here, which is a blessing as I grew up having to be very cautious when picking fruit in Yorkshire.
The secret here is the wasps life cycle
In the early part of the year they collect protein
Luckily that includes lots of caterpillars --hooray !!!
The reason is that they feed this protein to the wasp larvae
The larvae reward the feeding by producing a drop of sweet liquid
Adult wasps work for the reward Hooray again !!
Later in the year the queen wasp slows her laying and the number of larvae drops
That means there is less sweet rewards available for the adult wasps Aawww!!
Then adult wasps get grumpy and sting everything BOOO!!!
They go delinquent and look for anything sweet like jammy dodgers Booo!!
And if they find a box full of lovely sweet honey they are striped hooligan shoplifters
Bar stewards!!!
So in spring/summer be nice to wasps but in summer/autumn take them out :)
[QUOTE=prakel;12368]I think it's a shame that there have been so many threads recently which have taken a rather agressive tone due to differing views with regards to the neonics debate.
I also acknowledge that the neonics arguments get heated and aggressive.
There's a good reason for this. It's the imbalance of the resources of the protagonists. Basically the fact that the pro-nics include several multinational companies with massive vested interests, in-house scientists, publicity systems (probably including 'shills') etc, whereas the antis are a disparate bunch with fewer resources of money, time, organisation etc.
This can lead to the antis feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, and shouting louder to compensate .
It's reminiscent of the rows about the benefits and harms due to soluble nitrogen fertilisers, which started, maybe in the sixties, and still go on today but with a much clearer understanding of the issues at hand.
For many years, there was denial, or at least downplaying, of such things as run- off pollution, suppression of clovers, increased susceptibility to disease of crops which were also less dense in nutrients ,and so required additional fungicides, etc.
The pro blue bag camp had all the backing that pronics have today. Tree huggers, wooly- jumpered hippies, Japanese rice farmers and local anglers all felt they had to shout pretty loud to be heard past the massive commercial interests, mainsteam opinion and disinformation they were faced with.
I don't say that the two situations are exactly equivalent, just nearly.
If someone who gets shot with a gun is persuaded by his mates just to be thankful at least it wasn't a cruise missile,and just accept it gracefully,guns become acceptable generally.
Yes, it is the farmers, agribusinesses, biofuel producers, governments and regulators who most need persuading, but that only happens if individuals and pressure groups kick up a fuss.
The fuss also has to be well-grounded, correctly informed and seen to be in humanity's, and in our case, bees', best interests.
We'll have to disagree on this.
Maybe, but shouting the wrong things don't make them right.
re the varroa/viruses are a sympton quote. Interesting, especially in the light of a post which I made a couple of weeks ago on another thread
http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...pring-Without- (POST NUMBER 16)
regarding Richard Adee who lost 30,000+ colonies to CCD; he was very clear that the findings of laboratory analysis of what was left of his collapsing colonies indicated that they had succumbed to viral infections. Sure, anyone can put a spin on this and say that they were initially wakened by neonicotinoids but that fails to explain why since starting to treat them his colonies have displayed no major health issues.
Whilst there may be cause for debates becoming heated, there is never a good enough reason for them becoming aggressive. All parties entering a discussion need to accept that everyone is an individual and therefore has their own personal points of view, just like religion.
Pesticides still have a lot of issues to be debated, however aggressive arguments are not going to resolve them. One point to consider though is if it is later shown that the effects of pesticides are not as bad as those shouting the loudest are claiming, what will the impact be on the public to believe anything bee keepers are concerned about in the future?
Just like to point out that my own most outrageous insult on this thread has been 'limited perspective'.
Gavin, our illustrious admin, has used 'bollocks', 'bonkers',' fantasy','garbage'etc. in his analysis of the article in question.
I agree that insults and aggressive comments are rarely effective.
The most outrageous comment by a country mile is the insinuation that people are being paid to act as stooges of big corporations.
It is also a laugh to suggest that the debate is some sort of a David and Goliath contest with all the cards being held by Bayer and its ilk.
For a start the entire UK mainstream and tabloid press is publishing articles claiming that Neonicotinoids are killing bees and causing CCD.
This happens because the anti pesticide campaigners are feeding lazy journalists with inaccurate press releases which get printed almost verbatim in some cases.
If you read the likes of beekeepingforum it seems that the vast majority of posters have already decided that neonicotinoids are a big problem for bees.
How much of this is based on hearsay and internet forum comments as opposed to diligent reading and research, I could not possibly comment.
The main issue here is that one camp wants to ban neonicotinoids irrespective of best available evidence and the rest are digging for the truth, sometimes with a pin!
As I have said many times, if the evidence were there I would be first in line calling for a ban.
I love my beekeeping hobby and would not knowingly take decisions which were detrimental to my bees.
My colonies are beside oil seed rape and my colony numbers just keep increasing. 26 including nucs at the last count. No swarms yet either. Last year I got 110 native queens mated. The number will be lower this year because of the weather.
I suspect that some of those complaining about the effect of oil seed rape on bees have no experience at all of having bees anywhere near it.
I hope this link works.I'm not very skilled at these things. It's one of many studies suggesting that the special effect of neonics is that, in social insects, its main lethal effect is not on those creatures which ingest it, but on the general colony health and defensive systems, once they return home. Exactly the same claim made by Bayer relating to the efficacy of Imidacloprid against Termites.
The link is http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...9.02123.x/full .I will attempt to give a more user friendly link later.
Look,Jon, I don't really think we're on different sides. I certainly hope not. But to suggest that Bayer, Sygenta, Monsanto etc. do not resort to underhand behaviour to protect their products is naive. It's like saying 'trust your bank/ insurance company/pension fund to look after you'- experience surely suggests not.
I agree. We should not be on different sides. We are both worried about the state of beekeeping and agriculture.
I trust the likes of Bayer as far as I can throw them but that does not mean all the science relating to neonics over the past 20 years is a lie. For that to be true you have to invoke a massive conspiracy that most of the scientists and researchers are paid stooges and I do not believe that to be true.
There are some papers which suggest that neonicotinoids could be a problem for bees but there are dozens if not hundreds which have looked at field realistic doses in pollen and nectar and found no signs of ill health - sub lethal effects or otherwise. With a product like imidacloprid, pollen and nectar usually have pesticide residue levels of 1-5 ppb and problems do not seem to kick in until levels of 50-100ppb, ie there is a fair margin of safety. the LD 50 is higher still but I agree with those who point out that LD50 is not a particularly useful concept when problems could occur at sub lethal levels.
I can only reiterate what I see in my own bees and I manage a reasonable number of colonies.
I had problems with nosema in nucs the winter before last but this seems to have disappeared after adding thymol to the winter feed last October.
My bees have never looked healthier which in a way is a surprise given 3 months of solid rain.
Guys like Murray Mc Gregor who manage thousands of colonies sing the praises of oil seed rape.
Why would he do that if it was economic suicide?
There are certainly some problems with neonics but they really do not seem to apply to the UK.
Planter dust during maize drilling, soil injection around fruit trees, chemigation etc.
We don't really go in for that but the Americans do bigtime.
As someone above pointed out, crying wolf by overstating the damage will lead to beekeepers losing credibility.
It seems to me that you think that neonics, when used responsibly, are fairly innocuous to honeybees, bumbles, ladybirds, butterflies, moths, worms,and nice beasties in general.
I refute that. The concept of farmers creating green deserts yielding only their cashcrop is very flawed. The only way to go in such a scenario it to continually compensate one excess with another one.
If you think neonicotinoids are more harmful than other types of pesticide sprayed over plants you would need to provide proper evidence.
I don't think that anyone denied that pesticides can be harmful to non target species but the exaggerated focus on neonicotinoids is not healthy imho.
I think the real problem is monoculture, as you say green deserts, and lack of diversity in modern farming. That is not solely a pesticide problem although it is clearly a factor
There are many ways that modern agriculture could create better and more diverse habitat without necessarily having to ban neonicotinoids.
Hedgerows, forage strips, heritage varieties of crop, etc.
The roundup ready type of agriculture lends itself to monoculture and that is herbicide rather than pesticide.
The focus on neonicotinoids masks some of the wider issues about keeping a species rich environment.
The yellow bar which displays the forum guidelines says
I don't know who wrote it, but Gavin seems to be oblivious to it.Quote:
... Like all internet discussion fora it can contain humour and banter that may not be appreciated by all. The only rule is not to be abusive. ...
Having met Rosemary Mason while she was up in Orkney I have to say that she is a wonderful person who knows exactly what she is talking about and who hasn't come to her conclusions lightheartedly.
For anybody to hurl such insults at her is outrageous and that this should come from the administrator himself, who is supposed to assume a neutral position, is indicative of a major flaw in the setup of this forum.
You might need to re-read what Gavin wrote as it was directed at the ridiculous statements and claims rather than the person who made them who I am sure we can all agree is probably a very nice person. Rubbish claims though. No evidence. Wonder if someone spoon fed her that nonsense. Has a familiar ring to it.
Thanks for the 'illustrious' tag, Doris! Didn't know that Jon was writing something similar while I was drafting this, but here goes anyway.
I have no doubt that Rosemary is a lovely person to sit and have a cup of tea with. The trouble is that she is in cloud cuckoo land regarding bees. Doris claims that to 'hurl such insults at her is outrageous'?!! Doris, my strongest words were reserved for the blog, not the person. Calm down dear, calm down.
As for 'major flaws in the setup', ah yes, I am aware of the trouble being fomented by, erm, troublemakers so your return to the forum is most timely. All I want to say is that anyone coming relatively fresh to this thread really must inform themselves of Doris' earlier behaviour and be aware that 'JohntheFarmer' is Doris' partner.
She made accusations in one late-night posting spree all across the subfora here and on other UK national and international bee fora that there was some sort of secret conspiracy with discussions behind the scenes suddenly revealed for the world to see (?!) and that the forum was being abused by 'shills', paid propagandists. I tidied the mess she'd made and put a single copy of her post into this thread:
http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...sbees-outburst
If you didn't click the Beesource link in that thread above and wish to see how her accusations were received there (Beesource is a US-based beekeeping forum, probably the largest internationally), here it is again.
http://www.beesource.com/forums/show...ekeeping-Forum
Quite an insight to what was going on in Doris' head.
I really don't know why we tolerated Doris on here after that. Looking back on it, it doesn't make sense. However we did, and she continued to divert threads, blogs and the News front page comments to the neonic issue until we restricted her activity to the main forum.
So, for those being directed to this thread with no experience of the history of this forum, Doris, currently secretary of the Orkney Beekeepers Association, has shown herself to be not just robust but aggressive and - how can I put this politely - somewhat bizarre in her conclusions. Just go and read it folks. Read around some of the other threads too, and remember that we have tidied some of this but not censored anything that has been said.
So for those who care to object to me being passionate about things I feel passionate about (like the misuse of science to prove a point) then, too bad. Passion is what you'll get.
The comments are bonkers Doris and the blog is pure fantasy.
Lighten up. You have made more personal comments against other posters than the rest of the forum combined.
maybe you should re-read some of your own posts.
Let's hope he did not use the word bollocks in the Buster Gonad thread.
He could get a ban for tautology.
Am I the only man (or woman) who feels like we have a sense of humour deficit in this thread at the moment.
What is a bigger insult bonkers or shill?
LOL, you really need to get out more Doris.
Do you really believe the comments on Varroa to be accurate?
Apparently simple exposure to the colour yellow acts as a magnet for varroa.
That must be true. I read it in a blog on the internet.
I am still looking out for the apology about shills on biobees.com where you posted a load of smears about this forum and some of the posters who frequent it.
If you want to get on a high horse be careful about accusations of hypocrisy.
You never post anything about bees or beekeeping anymore.
Is beekeeping really just all about neonicotinoid pesticides from your point of view now?
Jon, you never did comment on this http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...9.02123.x/full which seems to me relevant to the current discussion. I think it finds in favour of the Mason and Thomas claim regarding a synergy between Imidacloprid and nosema: ie.if bees take one they're more susceptible to the other. Would this be a correct interpretation of their findings?
I have mentioned myself several times on this very Sbai site that an interaction between nosema and neonicotinoid pesticides is one to keep on the radar.
Jeff Pettis whose research mirrored that of Alaux did comment that what he saw in the lab was not being seen in the field for some reason. But I agree it is an area which needs further research.
Well, you know what happens when you try to use humour to defuse the tension when Doris is around.
Your BOLDING and italicising did almost raise a wry smile. Actually, not italicising but underlining.
I think I'm going back to just blank Doris again. Have the feeling I'm feeding a troll. (Was that an insult? No, just an observation.)
I love this thread.
Only 5 posts but contains three conspiracy theories including one from Uncle Phil himself
Given the rising amount of feedback about the tone of the forum, carry on as you are and you won't leave me with much choice. It's frankly, tiresome that I have to spend so much of my time on here wondering what shenanigans team Doris are going to pull next.
I said I'd no longer engage with you except as a moderator of this forum and so here I am still having to get involved in your petty efforts to goad people into reacting to you so you can complain how hard done by you are.
It's a shame, I remember when you used to come here to talk about bees rather than pick fights.
You go first on biobees!Quote:
Is it so difficult to come up with an apology for this objectionable behaviour?
Are neonicotinoid pesticides responsible for the demise of bees and other wildlife?
Letter sent (February 22, 2010) by Stefano MAINI to Science .
Honey bee: Let’s Talk about Colony Losses Puzzle
According to F.L.W. Ratnieks and N.L. Carreck (“Clarity on Honey bee collapse?” 8 January 2010, p.152)
(1) the “consensus seems to be that pests and pathogens are the single most important cause of bee colony losses”. Actually, many other scientists are concerned about the inappropriate or even misuse of insecticides. So, not only the beekeepers are seriously affected by bee colony losses, but also farmers, seed companies and pesticide producers. The fact that they state the main cause of bee losses are “diseases” may give the false impression that insecticides can be sprayed without the attention that is needed. For example, Integrated Pest Management strategies rely on pest monitoring, and these IPM principles are being neglected in the case of sowing of seed coated with neonicotinoid imidacloprid for a simple reason: the insecticide has been applied even if the pest infestation is not present. According to (2) cited by (1) imidacloprid “seems unlikely to be responsible for the French bee deaths”. This appears to be a biased opinion and a conflict of interest in light of the fact that the author of (2) is a researcher employed by the producer of imidacloprid. The authors of the perspective (1) have neglected to cite other articles published in the same issue, which demonstrate the sub-lethal effects of imidacloprid on bees (3) Why were these results ignored ? More recent articles have also confirmed the neonicotinoid side effects on bees (4). Regulatory guidelines in both the USA and in Europe aim at protecting bees by limiting the use of insecticides harmful to pollinating insects. Farmers and beekeepers should work together to find solutions which result in effective pest control while protecting bee health. Needless to say, healthy bees are less susceptible to diseases (5) and vice versa.
References:
(1) F.L.W. Ratnieks, N.L. Carreck, Science 327, (2010)
(2) C. Maus et al., Bull. Insectology 56, 51 (2003)
(3) P. Medrzycki et al., Bull. Insectology, 56, 59 (2003)
(4) E.C. Yang et al., J. Econ. Entomology. 101, 1743 (2008)
(5) C. Alaux et al., Environ. Microbiology. doi :10.1111/j.1462-2920.2009.02123.x
Why should I apologise for this one?
- The term 'fishy' goes very well with the quote relating to otters, don't you think?
http://www.biobees.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11737
I had at one time hoped to add my tuppence worth to topical bee related debate as I struggled through the early years of beekeeping but will have to admit defeat. In truth none of the regular contributors on this thread are acting with any great objectivity. Those involved have dug trenches and retreated to the rehashing of personal points of view without recourse to truly debating the 'facts' - which are normally wrapped in sarcasm at best. While Doris' use of shill was inappropriate I recollect an apology - but nonetheless it's time for all to get over it. Equally, patronising Doris and declaring her personal relationship to John on the forum was inappropriate. I'd rather a point of view was undermined by solid, sarcasm free, debate than this tortured path of innuendo and mud slinging. Like many others, I'll continue to use the wealth of information and experience held on get site without the need to post, or consider posting.
Time to get back to talking about beekeeping and park neonicotinoids in the too hard to talk about box until you can all agree how to interact with each other in a civilised manner.
Well said Alex J I agree totally
So how do we get back to sensible, rational debate? We have been able to have that debate in the past, but not while we have the occasional individual posting who has an opinion that cannot be questioned.
On the relationship between John and Doris, I was not bringing this out to score points or make anyone uncomfortable. They have been open about it on here in the past and I didn't think (still don't) that they would see this reminder as unkind in any way. That, and the links back to places showing the start of Doris' campaign against this forum, were deliberately brought into this thread by me for one reason. New people are being brought here by criticism of the forum elsewhere. People are seeing some of this and not understanding the full picture. I made a judgement that it was very important that no-one came here and went away with a partial understanding of the situation. I tried to make those reasons clear, and didn't feel that I could be more explicit than that.
As for the too hard to talk about box, this is it. The discussion was threatening the rest of the forum (to be frank, one person was trying to spread it across the rest of the forum). We tidied up, putting all this stuff here so that people can read it or ignore it as they wish. There should be a yellow flashing light over this area: Watch out! This area gets heated. But there isn't, my skills don't go that far. Feel free to use the rest of the forum to discuss beekeeping. Many people are. I regard that as a sign that the policy of isolating this kind of stuff here was right.
As for sarcasm, I'm not going to say that there is none on this forum because I'm sure that folk could point to the odd post here and there. But, once again, the humour that this forum brings is one of the things that makes it a great success, in my view. There will always be a small proportion of people who don't appreciate that or see one person's humour as sarcasm, but I can't legislate for that and it shouldn't stop people continuing to try to keep things light.