Was SHB, Now more queen and nuc raising

[fatshark]

If people are going to import packages from Southern Italy we will have SHB this year for sure.

I fear that you could extend this to imports from the places that either overwintered their bees in Southern Italy or imported nucs from Southern Italy last year. There was clearly a long period when the beetle went unnoticed … if it's already in Germany or France, for example, then the horse has already bolted.

We've been over this ground before and there appears little movement from the national associations. The BBKA stance is particularly disappointing. Previous importations have, I believe, all been with bees or bee products. NBU analysis indicates that bees/equipment/products are the real threat (risk analysis posted elsewhere in this thread).

I was fortunate to again hear Michael Palmer give his Sustainable Apiary talk this weekend … what he preaches should and could be expanded to cover a entire country.

[No worries, but this last comment prompted a long diversion into queen and nuc rearing from the point of view of making beekeeping in the UK more sustainable and negating the need for these imports that risk the health of everyone's bees. I found a new home here for that discussion. G.]

[Jon]

… what he preaches should and could be expanded to cover a entire country.

I heard his two presentations last week in NI and I concur.
Nothing he is doing is that complicated, and beekeeping in the British Isles could become sustainable and avoid the need for imports if there was a will to do so.
It is easy to make up a number of nucs equivalent to the number of full colonies you work every season and if you rear a few decent queens to queen them with then you are up and running.
The reason the commercial guys import packages and queens is that it must work out cheaper than going down the M Palmer route.

[Wmfd]

I heard his two presentations last week in NI and I concur.
Nothing he is doing is that complicated, and beekeeping in the British Isles could become sustainable and avoid the need for imports if there was a will to do so.
It is easy to make up a number of nucs equivalent to the number of full colonies you work every season and if you rear a few decent queens to queen them with then you are up and running.
The reason the commercial guys import packages and queens is that it must work out cheaper than going down the M Palmer route.

It probably is cheaper to import but that could be because the costs of bringing anything nasty in have been externalised. They will be paid by everyone else if it results in SHB arriving here.

I had a quick look at the forms required for import (what an exciting website on European procedures). They talk about a 'visual inspection' - that could cover a very wide range of practices, from some very good to some not so good.

David

[prakel]

I was fortunate to again hear Michael Palmer give his Sustainable Apiary talk this weekend … what he preaches should and could be expanded to cover a entire country.

Frustratingly, a very similar sustainable apiary plan is outlined in a book which most British beekeepers (at least, the ones who've bothered to read a book at all) claim to have read -Ted Hooper's 1976 Guide to bees and Honey. Yet it still hasn't sunk in.

[Jon]

The possibility of overwintering nucs seems to be a eureka moment for the package orientated US beekeepers but it is not so much of a novelty in the UK.

[prakel]

Not so sure about that Jon. The number of UK beekeepers that I've personally met, who wouldn't dream of using a nuc in the summer let alone the winter seems to suggest that it's still an arcane art for a lot. The 'mating nuclei' section in Hooper's book is almost identical to Mr Palmer's lecture (with the odd technical difference here and there) and yet there's still a hobby level scramble for April queens from Greece etc.

[Jon]

Maybe so at the level of those with just 1 or 2 colonies but anyone with a few more should certainly make up the insurance of a few nucs.
I take the insurance to a second level by trying to overwinter a few queens in apideas. 12/12 double apideas still alive this winter and most of the nucs are looking good as well.
If we can get a sea change re the social acceptability of imports our beekeeping will become a lot safer but the commercial guys are the biggest risk takers in that area and all of us have to live with the risk that they are taking.

[prakel]

I'm not disagreeing with any of that but will add that i think a greater emphasis needs to be placed on rearing queens at home -and making sure that there's a few spare to go into winter with too. Practical hands on experience will change attitudes to the bigger picture much quicker than back and forth debate about the pros and cons (not saying that's not important too, of course) because there's nothing as powerful as the knowledge that we can do something ourselves. We're at risk of becoming a nation(s) of compartmentalized specialists.

[Jon]

The current Bibba queen rearing workshops are a step in the right direction. Seem to be quite a few planned.

[drumgerry]

Not being a member of BIBBA anymore I had a look at their website for the QR workshops (in passing noting their website despite big promises a year or two back remains unchanged). Surprise surprise nothing in Scotland. I suspect I'll be a cobweb covered skeleton with swiss grafting tool clutched in my bony fingers before they live up to the British Isles part of their former title - I can see now why they changed it! In organisational terms yet another reason we have to go it alone here in Scotland.