Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 43

Thread: So, about this restocking .......

  1. #1
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Tayside
    Posts
    4,464
    Blog Entries
    41

    Default So, about this restocking .......

    Doing a spot of Googling to try to find a Scottish Government page I saw a while back that promised more details of the subsidised importation 'to follow'. In the process I came across these documents. An interesting read for anyone interested in the 'restocking' (importation) programme and maybe this is a good point at which to start a discussion on where the SBA should go from here.

    The scheme. The bee farmers lost '4,000 colonies, equating to more than 50% of the bee farmers stock'.

    www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00425856.docx

    Application form: www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00425871.docx

    I see that the form is explicit that a Freedom of Information Request might force the government to release details given on the form.

    Annex A: www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00425858.docx

    Including .....

    4. The Programme is also open to Local Beekeeping Associations which are formally constituted and affiliated to the Scottish Beekeepers Association and that have training apiaries. Replacement stocks will be restricted to a maximum of 6 colonies per Association. In addition educational establishments with established training apiaries that have suffered winter losses may also be eligible.

    Also, anyone who lost 20 colonies or more can get a piece of the action.

  2. #2
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Tayside
    Posts
    4,464
    Blog Entries
    41

    Default

    Found the page with the details. £50 a pop.

    It is a grant of £200k to the BFA to run the scheme, so if each imported package costs, together with expenses to administer the scheme, £100, and the bee farmers pay half (don't remember seeing this obligation to pay half but I remember hearing it) plus all of the money is spent then £400k/£100 means 4,000 (the claimed number of colonies lost) imported colonies coming into Scotland over the two years of the scheme (this year and next). Great. In the meantime the number of colonies lost by amateur beekeepers has already likely been made up by this season's increase .... and these winter losses are seen as an entirely normal part of beekeeping. You need those empty boxes to cope with the inevitable splits as the season progresses. Several of our beginner beekeepers locally now have bees, and a few established locals lost theirs .... as always some leave beekeeping, some get back in again within the year or in the one after, sometimes wiser, sometimes poorer.

    http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/fa...lfare/bee/News

    If 4,000 colonies is the plan, then the SBA should be demanding to see risk assessments of the impact on other beekeepers, and of the effect of replacing genepools that were to some extent native and locally adapted, with something that is pre-adapted for then actively bred for conditions very different from ours.

  3. #3

    Default

    Where's the smiley for steam coming out your ears when you need it?! I've said it again and again and your posts confirm it Gavin. The £200k will achieve a grand total of bugger all except to eff up even further the plight of what's left of our native/AMM strains. I'm rapidly losing any sympathy for commercial beekeepers and how they conduct their affairs. Right now I'd happily see any who participate in this travesty of a scheme go belly up. Businesses like that don't deserve to survive.

  4. #4
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Isle of Mull
    Posts
    799
    Blog Entries
    18

    Default

    Surely the beefarmers weren't farming AMM in the first place, so will it make much difference? Whatever they were using before will have flooded the areas around their apiaries with non-native drones for years.

  5. #5

    Default

    I believe some such as Chainbridge use/used native types. So clearly not impossible to do. But on the whole you're right Trog. Maybe what I was getting at is that this is a further £200k of funding which will bring no benefit to native/AMM bees and in that sense make their plight a harder one than if the money was directed at them.

  6. #6

    Default

    Hi ,
    As far as I know the Bee Farmers use the imported bees as the hive builder using their own proven local queens after a couple of months their hives are working with their own strain of bees only a few imported drones left. The amature beekeeper like myself who cant breed his own queens yet and does a split and uses an imported queen ends up with a colony of imported bees after a couple of months. Who,s the the villan
    How,s about all you experianced beekeepers getting together and developing a queen breeding system with proven hardy queens suitable for scotlands climate and sell them ( you,ll get plenty of sales) Might even get a grant to get started.

  7. #7

    Default

    Interested to know where you got that from Gscot. Strikes me as an awful round about way to get a colony of bees when they've not been too bothered about importing a package and queen in the first place. As to their own strain - Murray McGregor of Denrosa (the biggest bee farmer in Britain) uses Carniolans the seed stock of which came from Germany, went to New Zealand and came back to the UK. Not exactly his own strain.

    And I think if you read the forum you'll see that many of us are breeding our own queens. What sticks in the craw is the bee farmers getting huge government subsidies to bail them out when the same cash could be used to develop something to benefit all of Scotland's beekeepers.

    The "villains" here are a group of people who are only bothered about their short term needs and to hell with the rest of us.

  8. #8

    Default

    Hi Gscot
    The biggest beekeeping operations import thousands of NZ queens
    This is so they have strong colonies before the rape crop
    Their drones do impact on all local bee populations
    The bees are carniolans which are nice bees in themselves and well suited to harsh conditions
    Breeding programs in those areas are usually badly compromised
    Here's a link to an interview with one of the UK largest operators
    http://biobees.libsyn.com/interview-...rray-mc-gregor
    I like the idea of a queen breeding program but there are few areas where a particular strain can be bred and mated
    meanwhile buying or getting an AMM queen in most locations is a waste of time because all daughters will be mated with local carnie X drones

  9. #9

    Default

    A Queen breeding program with proven hardy queens what ever the breed suitable to Scotland. as you say no pure AMM left I recon the bee farmers have tried and tested to find the best for them(crosses) I see most of you guys breed your own queens but will not have any for sale, Even the B man is struggling to supply.What we need is available queens for sale to the hobby beekeeper Would help to stop imported queens

  10. #10
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Tayside
    Posts
    4,464
    Blog Entries
    41

    Default

    GScot is right as far as one major beekeeper goes, I understand, but not others. The main bee farmer areas (just like many hobby beekeeper-only areas) have had imports before but their stock drifts back to something with an element of Amm in the mix. This is, however, a vary large-scale importation and will change the bee genetics of parts of Scotland with, in my view, no effective consideration of the effects of that.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •