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Thread: Large scale imports of bees into Scotland

  1. #11

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    Just had a thought. Richard Lochhead is my MSP. Seriously thinking of trying to meet with him about this. Myself and my OH have had dealings with him concerning our disabled son and found him to be a reasonable man to deal with.

    So....if I do meet with him I have some ideas of my own of what I'd like to say. Ie concerning the development of a national strategy to help make us self-sufficient in bees. Sounds like an (overly?) ambitious aim maybe but hey you've got to shoot for the stars! My feeling is that if we talk about it endlessly nothing positive will ever happen and those that shout the loudest (in this case the commercial guys) will shape policy. Someone has to do something and it's time the campaign shifted away from eg the banning of neonics towards something which will actually help our bees. If I have to be the one to get the ball rolling on a campaign so be it. And the neonic thing shows that you can get something done if you go about it in the "right" way.

    If anyone could share some information with me which I could arm myself with in advance of the meeting I'd be very grateful. The sort of thing I'm looking for is a breakdown of colony numbers in Scotland between commercial and non-commercial beekeepers. I suspect we (the little guys) have more than them which again makes the help they're getting pretty galling. Also if anyone (Calum?) could describe to me how the queen breeding stations in Germany and other European countries operate and how they benefit ordinary beekeepers that would also help.

    I don't see why we can't with the proper will and funding emulate how other countries support their bees and beekeepers. Surely that'd be better than throwing money at commercial beekeepers willy nilly. We should be trying to help people like the John Forzey you mentioned DR. And creating more of them the length and breadth of the country.

    Am I the only one who is thinking this?

  2. #12
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Gerry, you are already on the right track starting your local queen rearing group.
    What you are proposing does not necessarily need a lot of funding.
    The main thing is getting people singing off the same hymn sheet and working with local stock.
    You need to get more people involved and try and get as many beekeepers and as many local associations involved as you can manage.
    If people keep looking for a quick fix by (a) importing and (b) bringing in a mix of bee subspecies, there is no hope.
    The commercial breeders complain of a lack of local queens - but stirring up the genepool all the time with imports of different subspecies makes bee breeding next to impossible in these areas.
    Last edited by Jon; 30-04-2013 at 02:37 PM.

  3. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    How many packages of bees can you buy for £200,000 (or is it a total of £400,000?)?
    A few thousand looking at the prices of some of suppliers, like in the link below. Could become a bit like a few other northern parts of the world, buy new bees every spring, collect the honey, give away or sell the bees in the autumn, or...
    http://www.apiservices.com/fert/fert_us.htm

  4. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pete L View Post
    A few thousand looking at the prices of some of suppliers, like in the link below. Could become a bit like a few other northern parts of the world, buy new bees every spring, collect the honey, give away or sell the bees in the autumn, or...
    http://www.apiservices.com/fert/fert_us.htm

    I thought depopulating hives in the autumn was largely becoming a thing of the past, even as far north as Alaska.

  5. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by mbc View Post
    I thought depopulating hives in the autumn was largely becoming a thing of the past, even as far north as Alaska.
    Maybe, but it could be catching on here.

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by drumgerry View Post
    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......
    It would be a massive step forward if something like you suggest could be implemented throughout the British Isles, we would still be a century or so behind much of continental Europe mind !
    From an outsiders perspective it seems commercial interests hold sway over the environment when it comes to the Scottish governments approach to rural issues, at least this appears true when reading about salmon farming vs recreational salmon fishing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pete L View Post
    Maybe, but it could be catching on here.
    I can see that going down well with the bunny huggers, not !
    Perhaps it is fairly in line with "natural" beekeeping though ?!

  8. #18

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    Jon - I'm starting to think that leaving it to unsupported volunteers like you and others like you isn't enough. It needs a national (and in this instance I mean Scotland!) approach to the problem. It seems easy enough to put concepts like "neonics are bad" into politicians minds to the extent that they'll act on it. So why not a properly thought out strategy for our honeybees? One that means we don't have to import from mainland Europe or even south of the border. Not sure why the SBA isn't shouting more about this. The current situation isn't working and there seems to be funding around (the £200k mentioned above) so why can't we who know what the problems are lobby for change? Someone needs to do it!

    MBC - I think a lot of the problem is that the commercial (and environmental) interests lobby more effectively. I believe we could change the politicians minds if we went about it in the right way. Hell we're supposed to live in a democracy so let's use it!

  9. #19
    Senior Member fatshark's Avatar
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    How many queens/packages are imported annually to Scotland? Similarly, what is the demand for nucs early in the season? Only when you know the scale of the issue is it possible to determine whether it will be possible to have a home-grown solution.

    In the UK I've seen figures of 5-10 thousand queens a year imported in 2009/2010. I suspect with the increasing interest in beekeeping this figure is now very much greater. That's a heck of a lot of queens to graft and get mated. Particularly with the weather we're often faced with.

  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by fatshark View Post
    In the UK I've seen figures of 5-10 thousand queens a year imported in 2009/2010. I suspect with the increasing interest in beekeeping this figure is now very much greater. That's a heck of a lot of queens to graft and get mated. Particularly with the weather we're often faced with.
    Is it really a heck of a lot of queens ? I reckon I do at least 1/50th of that each season myself, and I'm not close to being the largest producer of queens even in this tiny corner of the country.

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