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    Default Scottish Honeybee Restocking Programme 2013-2014

    On BBC2 at 9pm tonight What's Killing Our Bees? A Horizon Special.

    -------------------------------------------------------

    This series of posts started under the 'Neonics are killing our bees' thread but as the discussion has since focussed on the SG-subsidised 'restocking' issue - and due to the importance of this issue - I've moved it to a new thread here. This area, 'Scaling up and marketing' was originally intended for commercial beekeeping issues. On you go ...

    Gavin

    PS I should add that Lindsay wasn't the one taking the discussion to the current import issue - he just pointed us to the BBC Horizon programme as something of interest regarding bee 'die-offs' and I've given this thread its current title in its new home.
    Last edited by gavin; 06-08-2013 at 04:17 PM. Reason: Explaining the moving of posts

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    Quote Originally Posted by lindsay s View Post
    On BBC2 at 9pm tonight What's Killing Our Bees? A Horizon Special.
    Should be interesting. There is a clip here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01dl1cj

    No responsible journalist should ever claim things like 'dying in their billions' without checking the facts with people like those at the National Bee Unit. Last I heard they were estimating a 20% increase over some period of time I forget now. But everyone (except many beekeepers) says so, so it must be true. Strictly, dying in their billions they do - given that colonies produce huge numbers of short-lived workers every summer.

    I was lucky enough to see those transponders in action one summers day on a visit to see a colleague at Rothamsted. They were following butterflies that summer which was a little frustrating as they tended to flop into the grass whenever the sun went in.
    Last edited by gavin; 02-08-2013 at 05:56 PM.

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    Quite a good programme I thought. Worth catching on iPlayer if you missed it.

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    Must have a look then. I assumed it would be the usual ill researched sensationalist tripe extrapolating from US beekeeping.

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    I thought the programme was balanced and informative. The bumble bee research will hopefully reveal the quantity of pesticides that are picked up in their natural environment. I agree with Drone Rangers post in the queen cage thread about the Italian bee imports that were featured in the programme and I wonder how many seasons they will last in their new environment.

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    Totally agree Lindsay. It is a pity that the results of the study on the effects of Varroa on navigation are not yet available - could add some perspective to the stuff on bee disorientation with pesticides.

    This morning I caught up with the start of the programme on iPlayer having missed the start last night. Hasn't helped the blood pressure to see all those Italian packages being shaken into empty hives (partially filled with new foundation but also old comb too - I thought that it was a condition of the funding that the comb was new?). These could be the very workers that drifted into my and the association's hives earlier in the summer .... along with their Italian strains of Varroa and other pathogens. And no doubt the workers emerging now from the queens mated this summer will have some yellow individuals amongst them.

    The local association will discuss this on Tuesday. We really need to make our voices heard on this. As does the SBA membership.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...rizon_Special/

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    Default Scottish Honeybee Restocking Programme 2013-2014

    The commercial bees arrived this weekend on the heather - about 1/2 mile from us in a bee line. I checked my three hives this week for varroa and all were clear. We'll see how long that lasts. Luckily queen in apidea was mated before they arrived.

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    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_bee
    quite a good description of the Italian bee
    They are nice bees
    But like they say in gardening a weed is just a flower(plant) in the wrong place
    http://www.beeworks.com/morphometry/index.html
    There is a small overlap in italian amm morphometry workers
    The drones don't overlap in CI index

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    Default Scottish Honeybee Restocking Programme 2013-2014

    On the BKF Murray related NBU comments from a BFA meeting (too many acronyms!) that since 2005 (I think) there has been a 20pc increase.

    Sent from my BlackBerry 8520 using Tapatalk

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    Default Scottish Honeybee Restocking Programme 2013-2014

    Quote Originally Posted by greengumbo View Post
    I watched this last night on aye player. Pleasantly surprised at the balance shown. I would love for someone to give an accurate account of colony numbers and losses over the past say 20 years. Bill had a figure from 2002 - 2005. I mean that's 8 years ago now ! I still struggle to find accurate numbers for this and the NBU are hard to pin down as well. Those transponders on the bees were brilliant.
    BBKA have 12/13 figures for England ... an average of 33.8% (see http://www.bbka.org.uk/files/pressre...1371062171.pdf). This also has figures for all winters from 07/08. Why didn't they include Scotland? Northern England were higher, mid forties. Remember that this was a straightforward poll of members so - a bit like Amazon reviews - might reflect an average of responses from "Doris Disaster" who lost all her colonies and "Stevie Smug-Git" who lost none and wants the world to know what a good beekeeper he is.

    With apologies to Doris and Steven. You know who you are. No offence intended ;-)

    I too thought the programme was reasonably well balanced but was disappointed that it dwelt overly on the fancy machines - harmonic radar and electron microscopes - rather than significance of the results obtained from using them. I would have liked more detail on the stuff from Simon Potts, including practicalities and the impact on farming methods.

    However, it's clear from the opening of the programme that the evidence supporting the statement that bees are in decline is so well accepted by everyone - beekeepers, scientists and the public - that it no longer needs to be presented. At all.

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