The Last Flight of The Honey Bee.........

[Nobbyman]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/31/animalwelfare.environment

:-[

[Nobbyman]

[Sinbad7]

What a sad article, but after reading the first couple of paragraph's you have to know 'MAN' is behind the destruction of the Honey Bee.

Sinbad

[caroline7758]

Read this at the weekewnd- very depressing. :(

[saddad]

One of our Plotholders has just started keeping bees, but was delayed starting for a month as her supplier had lost so many bees over winter...  :-\

[Robert_Brenchley]

That Einstein 'quote' comes up all over the place, but there's no actual evidence that he ever said it. Still, they are indeed vital, and greatly underappreciated. Bee losses have certainly mounted over the last ten years or so, and while the causes are evoidently pretty complex, a lot of it comes back to varroa, the viruses it carries, and the chemicals we fill our hives with to control the horrible things. The only good news there is that the fully resistant bee is on the horizon. The other thing which is likely to be affecting them is pollution. That's apart from the habitat destruction which decimates wild bees.

[saddad]

Decimation would be an improvement... as 90% would survive...
Sorry for being a pedant, I'll get my Coat.....  ::)

[caroline7758]

Pedant...mathematician! ;D

[Robert_Brenchley]

Is it maths or ancient history you teach? In the strict sense, you're right; maybe I should have said something stronger, but I don't think things are as bad as some try to pain them. They are pretty serious though. Honeybees are too adaptable to disappear, whatever anyone says, and they do have all the genes necessary to combat varroa, except that they haven't been selected for. The serious bit is that world agricullture is dependent on very large numbers of honeybees, plus masses of other pollinators.

[Eristic]

I've not seen a honey bee on my allotment in 3 years and they are not required by the small grower. Bumble bees are plentiful and do all the pollination but are no good for working large industrial scale fields. No honey either.

I too believe that the honey bee will adapt and survive. Swarms have taken to deserting hives and sites on a regular basis and while this represents a total loss to a beekeeper, it my be a survival mechanism for the bee.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Most unlikely in my view. Someone did some research in the US some years ago, before varroa, in an area with a similar climate to ours. They found that only 25% of swarms leaving the hive established themselves well enough to survive overwinter. Colony desertion is most often a late-season phenomenon, leaving the bees no time to build up their food supplies. It looks at the moment as though bees 'abandoning' the colony in the recent epidemic, if that's what it is, simply die away from home, leaving nothing to establish itself elsewhere.

Fortunately, it has been shown that a very few feral colonies have withstood varroa successfully, presumably by having the right combination of genes to give resistance. In some parts of the US, they seem to be building up again as resistance spreads. In which case, it should be only a matter of time before resistant ferals start to reappear in the UK as well. Before varroa, an estimated 75% of all colonies were ferals, so the importance of this can't be overstated.

[cambourne7]

How hard is it to keep bees?

We have loads of spaces we can put bees near us.

[Robert_Brenchley]

The basics (ie pre-varroa beekeeping) aren't hard. The only real problem is keeping on top of mites, which are real tricky so-and-so's. If you want to go ahead, join your local Beekeepers' Association; with any luck they'll have a local source of good-tempered bees, and maybe know where you might pick up some second-hand gear. Join the Irish List at http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/irishbeekeeping/?yguid=12343609 to keep abreast of recent developments, this is really important.

[cambourne7]

thanks robert

[Robert_Brenchley]

You should be able to find the contact for your local BKA here: http://www.britishbee.org.uk/local_associations_about_us.php .

[Toadspawn]

Cambourne 7
If you live in Cambourne in Cambridgeshire there is a Cambridgeshire Beekeepers Association. If they have kept the same location, they meet at Wandlebury, they have a teaching apiary there and they used to run beginners classes. They have a library of beekeeping books in the Cambridge library and the library would be able to give you the name and address of the Chairman/Secretary.