Scottish Bee Health Surveillance report

[Trog]

Drumgerry, you're preaching to the converted as far as I'm concerned. I personally think you have a good idea and would love you to write what you've just posted - and a bit more - and send it in as a letter to the magazine. That has a much wider readership than here (sorry Gavin!). If you have more you want to say, make it into an article and submit that. I do appreciate the limitations of being tied to home for whatever reason but these days with the internet we're a lot less isolated than we used to be. You could write to anyone on the Exec or your area rep, or the whole lot. Meanwhile there's plenty of money out there for local associations to get going with breeding local bees - it just takes someone with the time and energy to set it up and keep it going, the latter being the hardest bit!

[drumgerry]

Aye you're right Trog. Maybe I should. At least it would make a change from the endless exchanges between Eric and A N Other about pesticides. To me this is the real issue facing Scotland's bees. Not Neonics, not GM crops not CCD - red herrings all. If we were self sufficient and had a thriving bee breeding scenario where it was one of the things you learn in your first season as a beekeeper rather than the perception of it as a mysterious dark art - then things could only be better for all of us. Maybe I'm just a dreamer (cue John Lennon this time!) but I hope I'm not the only one - lol!

[The Drone Ranger]

Drumgerry, you're preaching to the converted as far as I'm concerned. I personally think you have a good idea and would love you to write what you've just posted - and a bit more - and send it in as a letter to the magazine. That has a much wider readership than here (sorry Gavin!). If you have more you want to say, make it into an article and submit that. I do appreciate the limitations of being tied to home for whatever reason but these days with the internet we're a lot less isolated than we used to be. You could write to anyone on the Exec or your area rep, or the whole lot. Meanwhile there's plenty of money out there for local associations to get going with breeding local bees - it just takes someone with the time and energy to set it up and keep it going, the latter being the hardest bit!

The right breeding stock is important as well though and that's a difficult problem
To get better bees you probably need several elements, location, foundation stock, skill, and commitment

Primarily bees that are gentle (easy) productive (not so easy) disease resistant (tricky)
If you also include Wing plots and the restriction the bees must be locally sourced

Then mating conditions that favour them staying that way without being located in a bee keeping desert
So all that can be and is being done but not in many locations
Hence the reason that many people call for bee imports to be curtailed

That sounds a bit doom and gloom but it's not meant to be I am with Drumgerry it needs an overall strategy

[gavin]

Gerry, let's ensure that at the November Council meeting (you can attend by Skype if you prefer, but in person would be ideal) there is a proper discussion and vote on: a) SBA policy on native and near-native honeybees, and b) SBA policy on imports by members, by LAs and by bee farmers. Maybe we can start the discussion in the magazine. Trog is right about it being the vehicle to reach the membership.

[Jon]

If you also include Wing plots and the restriction the bees must be locally sourced

Actually the variation within AMM populations is much greater than the variation between them so that is not strictly true.

In the present paper, we have shown that several relatively
pure populations of A. m. mellifera
still exist in northwest Europe. These populations are genetically quite homogenous
as most of their genetic variation occurs within popula-
tions and not between populations.

Molecular Ecology (2005) 14

Varying degrees of Apis mellifera ligustica introgression in
protected populations of the black honeybee, Apis mellifera
mellifera, in northwest Europe
ANNETTE B. JENSEN et al

Some beekeepers want a return to the fabled black bee of yesteryear

Yesteryear!!
To paraphrase Gerry Adams, and contradict the brother Adam, who claimed Isle of Wight disease wiped out the native bee population, AMM never went away you know.
And parts of Scotland are still strongholds - in areas where the commercial beekeepers or the fast buck nuc sellers have not wrecked local breeding efforts by swamping the area with imports.

[Jimbo]

Do you not think the 200k would have been better spent on some bee research like the varroa knockout gene work at Aberdeen or to extend the pilot study of Acarine in the Scottish bee population or used to help with plotting of the Amm areas or varroa free areas in Scotland and to protect these areas with some publicity material or some DNA/Wing morphometry work to identify the pure bee stocks or to help fund the introduction of a bee keeping module into the undergraduate vet degree courses like Glasgow University is trying to do to make vets more aware about beekeeping and beekeeping treatments. There are lots of other ideas that I am certain researchers and scientists could come up with and which the SBA could also be involved in.

[The Drone Ranger]

Gerry, let's ensure that at the November Council meeting (you can attend by Skype if you prefer, but in person would be ideal) there is a proper discussion and vote on: a) SBA policy on native and near-native honeybees, and b) SBA policy on imports by members, by LAs and by bee farmers. Maybe we can start the discussion in the magazine. Trog is right about it being the vehicle to reach the membership.

Gavin you must be faced with the problem of improving stocks in an area flooded by imports and random crossing
Grafting helps but only Artificial Insemination would give the ESBA apiary a fighting chance
Whats your take on getting suitable foundation material does it have to be local (how close is local)
If you get stocks you are happy with how can you retain the qualities of those founders when all around the migratory beekeeping is filling the sky with drones you don't want
It would seem the main area of imports is commercial so are they the key can they operate without importing queens ?

[drumgerry]

Right guys I've taken the plunge and sent a letter to Nigel at the magazine. Slight about face on my part but there you go. This lady is for turning!



I can probably make a one off Perth meeting in person Gavin. And you can probably tell I feel quite strongly about this!

Cheers, Gerry (a bloke!)

[Jon]

Amen to that Jimbo.
We are looking at ideas for our long term strategy in the Irish Native bee group and if we had £200,000 on the table, I imagine we could develop quite an interesting programme.
Giving that amount of money to commercial beefarmers to make good recent winter losses with imports is a scandal.
What questions were asked about why their losses were so high? - before awarding that amount of taxpayer money?
As someone pointed out earlier, 'save the bees' is flavour of the month and there is a distinct sense of jumping on the bandwagon by ignorant politicians here.

[The Drone Ranger]

To paraphrase Gerry Adams and contradict the brother, AMM never went away you know.
And parts of Scotland are still strongholds - in areas where the commercial beekeepers or the fast buck nuc sellers have not wrecked local breeding efforts by swamping the area with imports.

Ok lets say that's true my questions would be
In an area where imports are common and ongoing year after year can bee keepers buy queens from a breeder in an AMM rich location although that is not local
Once the queen is installed what method exists to stop subsequent daughter queens from out crossing with unsuitable drones

That's the basic problem and the only route out is to stop importing and allow bee populations first to normalise then allow queen sales across Scotland not just from the next door beekeeper