The BeeHolder, October 2009

Sarah Farrington is coming on the 22nd October to replace Tony Spacey. Sarah Farrington, who represents the third generation of beekeepers in the family, has been working at the National Bee Unit (NBU) in York. She will give a talk on the work of the NBU and some of the latest developments in the search for cures for Bee diseases. The talk is titled A Vets perspective on bees & diseases. And she’ll concentrate on her research on the mite that causes acarine disease. (science is trying to get ahead in what could become a problem to British bees in the future). Even some of our newest members will be aware that the Government’s NBU is the foremost bee research station in the world: underfunded of course, but that is a reflection of the near universal neglect of the impact of insects upon the world economy.

Tony Spacey would have brought controversy with him. He splashes it round like a rampant teenager with the Lynx bottle. Essentially he blames the amateur beekeeper for all the woes of the world and the professional commercial beekeepers as the font of good sense. Many of us feel it is the other way round.

I give here some of his ideas because they do deserve consideration by all beekeepers. He explains that thousands of amateur beekeepers nationwide have overused the treatment to combat varroa, and the end result, over a period of time, has been the development of treatment resistant mites. ‘For every good amateur beekeeper there’s thousands that shouldn’t be allowed to keep goldfish, let alone bees. People just don’t realise the potential damage that they are doing.’

His argument bears some weight. If you keep cattle or pigs and keep them badly, you’re being cruel. But without direct contact you don’t affect the farmer five miles up the road. But bees fly for up to 5 miles, so if you keep them badly and they are infected, they could infect bees from colonies up to 10 miles away. He will cite several different instances of bad management to back up his case, such as one in Staffordshire last year where a senior amateur beekeeper was selling nucleus colonies (starter colonies) which he knew had foul-brood, a disease so contagious that, once proven, DEFRA* come along and dig a hole three foot wide by three foot deep, light a bonfire in the bottom and tip the hive into it – ‘foot and mouth for bees’, as Tony has it.

‘We are the last Western country that allows unlicensed beekeeping,’ he explains. ‘The sooner we ban it the better for the environment, the better for the bees and certainly the better for the honey industry.’ He adds that just a couple of weeks earlier, DEFRA’s senior bee inspector told him that 85 per cent of British bees should be put down because they are so badly bred.

In fact, Tony explains, the situation is now so bad that most commercial honey producers in the UK are having to import their queens, either from Scandinavia, or more typically from the Greek Islands. It’s a system that has little of the romance of local beekeeping. They find an island too remote for bees to reach other islands, eradicate the native strain of bee, and then breed a stronger train of bee – ironically, originally an English variety, the Buckfast, but bred in Greece to ship to the UK for our hives. Clearly this is exactly the opposite of what the National Bee Inspectors are telling us... “Don’t import bees from other areas”. Let us quiz Sarah Farrington on whether there is an NBU attitude to all this.

On November 26th SBI Peter Guthrie will talk to us about The year past and the preparations for the year to come. Peter has hinted that he will try to persuade us to revive the Honey Shows that the MBKA used to have many years ago. They were more of a honey competition than a show and often judged by Brian Goodwin from Shrewsbury. Peter’s remit has now been extended from March until October inclusive. He and his fellow SBI are tasked to visiting 5000 apiaries in the next year and so he is quite eager to be called in. Contact Peter of John Bevan for any bee problem.

There will be an announcement in the next BeeHolder about the speaker for the AGM on February 18th But do put it in your diaries now because we will be having a free raffle of a new National Beehive for all members attending. Doug Wood, Jessica and Dave Bennett and I will all be making announcements that this will be the last year we will be standing in the posts of Chairman, Secretaries and Editor. Obviously anyone can take over from us February 2010 but by announcing our intention to retire definitely in 2011 it does give time for the association to push forward some new blood and ideas.