Large scale imports of bees into Scotland

[gavin]

Don't have a scanner to hand and it doesn't seem to be online but only in the print edition. In today's Courier (Dundee) in the farming pages and under the headline 'Aid Package for Beekeepers':

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Mr Lochhead [Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment] did, however, make a firm commitment to help one particularly hard-hit sector. He is to make £200,000 of Scottish Government aid available to commercial beekeepers to help them restock their hives.

The announcement was made during a visit to the Moray Beekeepers' Association where he was due to open a new training apiary.

Scottish bee farmers have had a difficult time of late for a number of reasons, but to add to their woes it is now estimated that around 4,000 colonies have been lost due to the prolonged winter weather.

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Murray was quoted, talking about the poor summer and bees in poor condition plus the interminable winter. 'This would be a 12-15 month project and would involve individual beekeepers at least match funding the government package.'

How many packages of bees can you buy for £200,000 (or is it a total of £400,000?)?

[prakel]

Any mention, at a minimum, of the number of packages an individual can import on this scheme being tied to proof that they're genuine replacements for losses? Or is it an open door for the unsrupulous to start a sell on business backed by Government money?

[fatshark]

How many packages of bees can you buy for £200,000?

Significantly fewer than you could last year I suspect. In the midlands I'm hearing many experienced beekeepers have lost 30-50% of colonies. Assuming this reflects the situation countrywide demand for queens and imports is therefore likely to be very high. Prices for nucs within our association are one third higher than last year ... but still much less than the 'open market'. I appreciate commercial pricing and scale of orders mean the markets are probably rather different, but would think that the high demand from 'amateurs' will inevitably have an impact on supply for larger enterprises.

Those of us who favour (and promote) local queen rearing over imports are going to be in the potentially tricky situation of being advocates for an activity that cannot meet demand. I fear this will lead to a loss of credibility ...

On a brighter note (that is, unless you have nucs and overwintered queens to sell ), I discovered last night that the farmer here has ploughed under the failed autumn sown OSR and planted acres and acres of field beans. Typically, this fills the June gap, but at the rate this year is going it'll be mid-July at the earliest.

[prakel]

Those of us who favour (and promote) local queen rearing over imports are going to be in the potentially tricky situation of being advocates for an activity that cannot meet demand. I fear this will lead to a loss of credibility ...

Not sure we've anything new to worry about there!!

My attitude is just 'keep going'. I know that I'm doing something right (that assumption is based on the fact that I'm definately not 'lucky'!) so I'll continue rearing queens through the summer, over wiintering them and then using the good ones the following Spring. I did contemplate the possibility of buying in (from within the UK) what I believe to be some very good stock to fill a few of my many empty boxes and then use as future base to breed from but circumstances slowed things down long enough for me to back away from the idea. Looking at what I've got coming through now, I'm glad I didn't buy -and no reflection on the breeder in question; starting from scratch he'd be my first port-of-call. After years of struggling with nasty bees things seem to have finally turned the corner.

[Jon]

Those of us who favour (and promote) local queen rearing over imports are going to be in the potentially tricky situation of being advocates for an activity that cannot meet demand. I fear this will lead to a loss of credibility ...

Fatshark, that is our problem in a nutshell.
On the back of our queen rearing initiative we have 3 associations starting to work together to supply nucs and queens headed by native stock.
Six of us representing the 3 associations met up in January to set targets, sort out nuc supply and get a mentoring scheme in place.
Then came the losses with many experienced beekeepers losing most of their stock.
We also have a list of beginners keen to get their first bees.

We need to be careful how we manage the situation as creating high expectations and then failing to deliver would be bad for credibility.
We have told the beginners that they are a priority and we will do out best to get them bees at some point over the summer.
Meanwhile, we are organising a summer programme at the association apiary where the beginners will get a chance to handle and work with bees which should take some of the pressure off.

I think we should be ok for producing a reasonable number of queens but the problem is going to be finding enough bees to put them to in order to make up colonies. You can only split a box of bees so many times.

[fatshark]

We have a mentoring and 'beginners get priority' scheme already. However, with even experienced beekeepers losing many colonies over winter, there is going to be a shortfall. I overwintered queens but could only produce strong nucs now by sacrificing my queen rearing colonies for this season. Since I'm intending to scale up queen rearing this year that is not an option. I'm hoping a combination of managing expectations and - in due course - providing good quality nucs with local/native queens will work. In the meantime we're discussing a mentoring scheme spanning two seasons - getting beginners from nuc to overwintered full colony and then through to splitting off their own nuc the following year (all in the association apiary).

If only it would warm up a little (below 10oC here again today, with a chilly easterly) ...

[prakel]

We have a mentoring and 'beginners get priority' scheme already. However, with even experienced beekeepers losing many colonies over winter, there is going to be a shortfall. I overwintered queens but could only produce strong nucs now by sacrificing my queen rearing colonies for this season. Since I'm intending to scale up queen rearing this year that is not an option. I'm hoping a combination of managing expectations and - in due course - providing good quality nucs with local/native queens will work. In the meantime we're discussing a mentoring scheme spanning two seasons - getting beginners from nuc to overwintered full colony and then through to splitting off their own nuc the following year (all in the association apiary).

Sounds like a nice scheme to get on. I especially like the idea of holding the participants for a second season to make sure the first year's training has really sunk in.

[Jon]

Our proposal for beginners is to move away from late summer supply to spring supply via overwintered nucs.
A beginner who messes up in August will almost certainly lose his colony over winter.
The nucs will be placed in an association apiary and beginners will receive weekly mentoring starting in April, weather permitting, for at least 4 or 5 sessions.
The beginner will pay for his nuc and it will stay in the association apiary until he/she is ready to take it home.
Locally, we have not been preparing beginners properly, ie they are getting bees when they still have a lack of practical experience.

Problem is, we lost most of our overwintered nucs so there were not enough to pilot this.
We have just enough colonies to run our queen rearing programme this summer and most of those are mine.

We hope to hold on to our beginners via membership of the queen rearing group and/or the summer skills programme.

[drumgerry]

I think the truth of the matter is that we'll always be in a difficult position to argue against imports as long as we can't produce enough home reared bees to satisfy demand. My sincere wish however is that more was being done by the Scottish government (and the relevant authorities for the other parts of the islands) to help us get to that goal. Nothing will ever be achieved if they're going to get duff advice time and again and make available large sums for what can only be large scale imports. It's throwing good money after bad as it's pretty much guaranteed this situation will recur the next time we have a protracted winter.

As to the "more being done" what about some investment in a breeding programme to benefit everyone using native stock as a foundation. Form a working party with interested parties to formulate a strategy and throw some money at it. We could get something long term going then. The cynical side of me says though it'll be a cold day in hell when we have breeding stations up and down the country, a substantial number of people trained in II and nucs being produced at a subsidised rate for commercial and small scale beekeepers. Just imagine what could be achieved with £200K though......

[The Drone Ranger]

think it's bad news for the most part
It's not just perpetuating the situation where this years imported queens are expendable and replaced next year
Now we are likely to see package bees imported i.e. whole colonies to replace losses

Anyone who wants to increase their colonies should try a swarm board in a period of nectar flow
Think of it as collecting seed from your own garden plants

Not everyone should try to become a queen breeder because the material they are breeding from is often not ideal
Most people don't breed their own sweet peas

If you have a couple of hives then queen selection would be nonsense unless you join a breeding group
Likewise most people should not really sell bees or produce nucs for sale unless they have some handling and honey gathering qualities

SBA used to carry ads from small operations like John Forzey etc selling queens they had bred for £12 or so

I think they had a positive effect on beekeeping and can't see that any real harm was done in fact productive gentle bees help everyone

The principle of buying local is a good one but by demonising people breeding and selling UK bees has become counterproductive