The BeeHolder, April 2010

The reason for leaving the BBKA and all associations in it ten years ago was the simple reason of the amount of unnecessary drivel that is talked about in the bee world. A prime example is the forever trying to find the best bee for use, the British black bee. Well ladies and gentlemen, the fact is quite simple:-it never existed as you all would like it to have done. In the mythology of British beekeeping you have all seen the pictures of the veil-less beekeeper or the lady with only the long flowing dress on tending the bees. Well for any class of beginners I can do the same thing, weaken the stock, subdue it prior to the class or photograph and low and behold a calm easily manageable stock!

Many people ask me is there a problem with bees? Are they dying out? Are they disappearing, will they survive? I normally answer that despite the beekeeper, they are all doing fine, however, something is wrong and losses are up. So what are we doing about it? Breed our own? So how can someone think they can change the bee in half a life time, when they have been around for the last 35 million years in their present form? Can anyone argue that the person with the most time and experience was the late and dare I say the great Brother Adam. Anyone who cannot see that he and he alone on this island had the best chance for finding the British black bee and failed are simply living in cloud cuckoo land. Please read the book “Breeding the Honeybee” by the man himself and you will find the quote “You cannot breed something that never existed”

I cannot believe people in today’s climate of bee losses; because their stocks get a little larger than they have seen before and thus the bees defend themselves more readily, they destroy the stock, yes destroy the stock and blame the aggressive bees. Not that they are not used to handling large colonies or that it was the wrong time of day to go messing with the bees, or simply that they have had the colony exposed to the outside world for so long so they can find the queen for the fourth time that week, no its the bees that are aggressive, so destroy. No ladies and gentlemen there are times bees get a little feisty, sometimes a little moody but never a bee that deserves to die because of a bad beekeeper.

I run a fair number of stocks so I don’t have time to play with Mother Nature and create the “ultimate bee”, so I import mated Carniolans (Carnica) bred with Italians. These are black queens that keep a very tight brood nest; I have found these to be the best in our climate even with the changes going on under our very noses today (I won’t bore you with the statistics and characteristics of the breed, please if you have time, read up on them yourselves.) All I can say is that I put a nuc. of five frames with a new queen in a national hive, six feet away from the established Branch hive and it produced 67 lbs of honey to the branch hives 34 lbs. Was that better beekeeping or a better bee? The Branch members inspected that colony when they did their own.

Mr Oliver Field once suggested that I breed my own queens and I pointed out that I can’t get mated queens in this country soon enough to replace losses or increase my stocks. I need to continuously expand, (have you seen the price of fuel?) and where on this island can you isolate? Unless you artificially inseminate! You cannot secure breeding. Now if the Carniolans supersede they are at least 50% Carniolan x Italians and within three years are normally replaced. So if and when I produce a batch of queens, I know at least their heritage back one generation.

What I am trying to say with all this, is that what people want are bees, new people coming into beekeeping want bees, not hours of needless talk about the latest bee that can overcome Varroa after destroying how many colonies because of not treating and infesting (if that's the right word ) hundreds of colonies locally; or the locally produced queens that are the best in Wiltshire or Yorkshire or the Outer Hebrides but they can’t have them, because the local queen breeders had a off year and only produced three in Wiltshire BKA. February August and maybe next year with a bit of luck you might get a queen to head a colony that they may get. They want a colony or a nucleus now or at least in May so they can start beekeeping.

So I might be an importer of queens and an enemy of the state but I can at least provide a nucleus of 100% Carniolans x Italians in May to produce a colony of honey producing, mild mannered bees, that are used to a climate very close to ours. By the way, each batch of queens are inspected by the National Bee Unit for any disease prior to introduction to the UK and the attendant workers destroyed.

Terry Cooke

I am sure that many of you would like to comment on Terry’s article! Please put pen to paper and let me have them.

Editor