Irish bees untroubled by colony collapse

I came across a link to this article on the biobees site where the poster found it 'thin and unconvincing' presumably due to the lack of hysteria about bee holocausts and pesticides. I actually found the article quite accurate compared to the drivel posted about bees in the Independent, the Guardian and the general UK press. I would question whether AMM is 'dominant' as there are a lot of yellow banded bees here which are obviously mongrels or hybrids. Could be that AMM is more dominant further south due to the work of the Galtee group and the fact that the North still has its Buckfast aficionados.

Quote:

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Coinciding with the International Year of the Honeybee, the study shows that the indigenous Irish honey bee population is healthy and may not currently be at the same risk of colony collapse experienced in other parts of the world.

“We don’t believe things to be all that fraught,” said Dr Michael Geary, of the institute’s department of applied science. “Our study shows we have a robust native strain of Apis mellifera mellifera [the dark Irish bee] still alive and, more importantly, dominant in Ireland.”

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Those who are losing a lot of colonies here are those who do not treat for varroa or those who treat for varroa using home made untested concoctions of essential oils and other stuff.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...296752943.html

http://www.biobees.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9047