Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
Only a matter of time though if imports continue and lets hope this scare focuses a few minds.
I know you are an experienced beekeeper of long standing and widely respected. You MUST have known what the picture showed. Your views on imports are of long standing and widely known. Busybeephilip is of (as far as I know) similar views on imports, yet observed, commented, and stuck to the evidence.

If you jump in on an obviously false or erroneous story and knowingly use it to support your cause you do it no good. Thats just fanning the flames of a scare campaign.

Whilst we have no wish to be dealing with SHB and should always be taking sensible (yes, I know that can mean vastly different things to different people) to keep the risk of it arriving very low, its important to stick to facts and keep things in proportion. However it is something that will at the very worst be merely a secondary pest of the hive (its not a bee disease) and folk with a powerful agenda about imports are making a major scare out of a relatively minor pest. All the really scary pictures are from tropical or sub tropical areas.

Given its main historic vectors of international spread it is most unlikely that it has not been to these islands before. Probably several times. Do we want it? Of course not, but even if it does arrive it will be a rarity most will never see. An apocalyptic and catastrophic arrival as some are choosing to portray it it is not.