I appreciate what you're saying Gavin about some bee farmers helping out in the wider beekeeping community. But as bee farmers their businesses are their priority. I don't personally know any bee farmers and can only go on what I can see is happening. And what's happening is that they and their umbrella organisation have campaigned for and got funding for a short term, arguably destructive solution to a long term problem which affects us all. I sincerely wish we and the bee farmers were on the same page as we'd get to where we need to be a damn sight quicker.

I don't want their businesses to fail. I want them to operate on a sustainable footing. In the same way that every other business has to.

We hear them complaining about how there's not enough queens produced in the UK to meet their demands. Well maybe they should get up off their backsides and rear them themselves. Perhaps they need to set aside a portion of their operation to doing that. And another portion to splitting into nucs for overwintering with their newly raised queens. Then they'd have colonies suitable to build up for the rape and they wouldn't need their packages and imported queens. What they seem to prefer to do though is throw everything they have at the honey and import bees to replace their losses. It's a business model which can't succeed in the long run. They need to adapt or give up and get a job in a call centre.