Gavin's idea is great.
Compulsory registration of course will be needed to make it work. Which means cost. No doubt beekeepers will pay...willingly.
And then there is the slight matter of enforcement and ensuring penalties for non observance and etc etc...
What about importing bees from England? I assume the rules will HAVE to treat those as if imports from abroad: to prevent backdoor importation.. Who is going to man/woman the border crossings?...(see N/S Ireland)
I agree with you DR (post #10), it is likely that imports this year will rival those after the "Isle of Wight Disease". The best way forward is I believe for local bees to be bred, where possible. The difficulties with this have already been identified and expounded upon and there is obviously no easy solution. Large scale importations are not the answer, except perhaps in the short term, but the long term problems will negate any initial benefits.
Interestingly I was reading elsewhere of some hapless individual who sent payment to an overseas supplier for queen bees. When they failed to arrive, he made enquiries from the vendor; he received but little sympathy or help and still has no bees, nor has the vendor been able to show him any evidence they were ever sent. It is not for me to comment on that specific case, but will say because of the present shortages it is obviously an area ripe for exploitation by conmen.
Last edited by Dark Bee; 29-04-2013 at 12:35 PM.
Was I being serious? Well, yes and no. Deliberately provocative perhaps, and certainly keen to get some debate on a better long-term vision rather than the ad hoc reactive and naive stuff that is going on now. I'm thinking, by that ad hoc and naive stuff, government support for something that plainly isn't working and without any linking of the support, that I can see (maybe I'm blind), with improving standards of beekeeping, having additional measures to improve sustainability, making beekeeping management better, or improving the nation's bee stock (unless there is a push going on to convert a large part of the country to Carniolans, which I doubt and which I hope everyone would see as foolish).
Food and Drink really is one of those areas the Scottish Government have identified as important to Scotland and her economy. High quality, well-respected produce with a Scottish character. Aquaculture features highly, and from my recent foray into that field thanks to a research project on providing home-grown protein for salmon feed, I think that a lot of the suspicion of the effect on native stocks may be misplaced. Aquaculture's neonics perhaps. There may be something in it, but the important factors are different and we shouldn't forget them. Anyway, commercial beekeeping particularly in heather areas fits into that Food and Drink priority area very well. OK, the jobs directly in beekeeping are limited (and the East Europeans are lovely people, to a man ... and woman!) but the value of a vibrant Scottish beekeeping sector goes beyond that to retail and even tourism and promoting the country abroad and is seen as a very good thing. But from where I'm sitting, the beekeeping industry needs to get its act together if it wants to give the impression of a sustainable, Scottish, healthy, well regulated industry. It needs to raise its game and it needs to work together to renew itself.
I'm out of the loop as to what is really happening with this £200,000 windfall the beekeeping industry seems to have secured for itself. I could go and chat to folk to see what I can find out, but at the moment there are a lot of calls on my time. However it strikes me as not impossible that some of what is going on might not be so far from that stuff about parnerships with breeder and propagators in other places. Maybe that link Pete posted shows the sort of partner that could help satisfy the demand for early season packages or queens, if it could operate in a way to demonstrate traceability and high health standards.
From what I can see, breeding better bees isn't difficult (bar the occasional disastrous summer-autumn-winter like the one we've just had). Select from your better stocks and deselect those with unwanted traits and your bees get better, as mine have.
As for the SBA, it wavers and changes from time to time, depending on the views of those who do the talking at the top table. Perhaps we should have a Scottish equivalent of the Irish Native Bee Society, but put the focus on breeding better near-Amm bees rather than 100% native, and try to get at least some commercial beekeepers on board? Would that be an impossible task?
Banning imports? If it was phased in (10 years is probably too long) then people should adapt (or get out of beekeeping). Some will put their own measures in place to reduce their commercial risk. Others may move into nuc and queen raising. Or all of the above. Those who do neither but hope that government will bale them out again will go out of commercial beekeeping.
Compulsory registration? No need. The rate is already impressively high in Scotland. More than 1000 already I believe? But part of this could be an obligation on those registering for this chartermark to reveal all of their apiary locations to the authorities. If people break the rules, they would be debarred from using the badge showing that they are beekeepers of quality and presumably their sales would suffer.
My understanding is that the importing of bees cannot be prohibited, because of EU legislation. Perhaps I am mistaken or perhaps we should vote UKIP.
Of course.. voting UKIP will solve every problem from varroa to stopping the Japanese from building their cars in the UK...Originally Posted by Dark Bee
My understanding is that the importing of bees cannot be prohibited, because of EU legislation. Perhaps I am mistaken or perhaps we should vote UKIP.
Thankfully the Tory-UKIP spat as portrayed in the media lately is a complete irrelevancy from where I'm sitting!
A bit of clarification. The £200k bee farmer restocking subsidy is separate from the EU Apiculture programme (as consulted on and as discussed on here). The latter might have a different kind of approach, who knows. Perhaps it may need to be refocussed to repair the damage done by banning seed treatment neonics (I'm joking! I think.).
There is a little more detail here.
And as to the legality of closing the doors to imports .... well, once I'm Prime Minister of Scotland everyone will have to do what I say ! Mwwwwwwwwhaaaaaa! Anyway, the Sustainability Charter thingie wouldn't close the doors to them, just ensure that anything imported met standards of both health and genetic provenance (spelled it right this time).
How does Slovenia manage its closed-doors policy? Can't we do the same?
Actually, I think that I am. A message I had today does imply that people are listening. So here's something for the Scottish beekeepers out there. If you were about to give out a subsidy to help commercial beekeepers who have lost quite a lot of stock (bearing in mind of course that beekeeping was always a game where you lost - and made up - stock much more than, say, a sheep or cattle farmer), what conditions would you attach? I mean right now and in 2014.
No carnies? Only carnies? Anything goes? Would you investigate historical (or recent) over-stocking for the available forage before agreeing to each request? All commercial guys are eligible, or only those 'suspected' to be the better beekeepers? How on earth do you exclude those who, informed opinion has it, are not very good at looking after their stock and who lose too many bees too regularly? Is the whole thing daft and should commercial beekeeping in Scotland be allowed to sink? Should any consideration be given to beekeepers whose stocks will be influenced, through drones if nothing else, by high-productivity, high-maintenance (presumably) stocks preferred by those with bank managers breathing down their necks? Should 'restocking' money also be available (presumably to buy in stock from abroad) to smaller-scale beekeepers who sometimes sell to the public? What is the cut-off in terms of size of operation?
Just asking .....
Re. banning imports (at least until my Right Honourable friend for Tayside becomes PM) ... Going by the plans for an Amm reserve on Colonsay it might be possible to use a simple addition to the relevant act ... something to do with banning non-native species. I can't remember the precise wording but it was on a document that Gavin MP circulated here.
Isn't George Galloway a Dundee man as well?
Hard act to follow Gavin.
How is your oratory?
What would be the effect of allowing bee farmers to go under if they continued to sustain losses? How may hobby beekeepers get stock from them? Would local associations have sufficient colonies between them to provide pollination services to farmers?
I suppose it could be a good thing. Honey would become a luxury product and worth the expense of keeping bees. Folk might, just might, look after their bees better if there was a good return from honey. On the other hand there might be cheap imports of honey from places where anything goes, rather from our well-regulated UK sources.
Maybe we would end up with the situation that occured during WW2 with folk being encouraged to keep bees by being given extra sugar rations. If we all got subsidised sugar (rather than paying at least £1.09 per kilo), and maybe free or subsidised varroa control products life would be so much easier!
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