It has been posted recently and in the past that there is a growing body of beekeepers that are anti-import in the UK and if this is correct we would expect to see a decline in import numbers. The figures given by DEFRA show exactly the opposite - 2011:4163 2012:7989 2013:8625 2014:9782 2015:10306. An increase of 150% over the past five years. When we consider that the UK has about 250,000 colonies of bees, the percentage of colonies with imported queens is around 4%. One cannot but wonder what the other 95% are headed by. Most people understand the importance of biodiversity and the need to protect what exists at a species level – there is a lot of EU funding for these projects. The motives behind the study quoted are obvious. The fact that certain selected high performing strains were excluded from the study brings up the question was the study “customised” to fit the results? Obviously if we bring mellifera or carnica type bees to Southern Europe they will not survive very long. As a bee breeder that follows Buckfast ethos I am a supporter of the conservation of the various subspecies and strains of honey bee as these form the basis of our strain. I do not understand how it is possible to make a dogmatic statement that “Locally adapted bees are best” when it cannot even be defined. What are local bees? The autochthonous subspecies? Joe blog’s five colonies in his back garden or just the general population occurring in the surrounding area – if it is this, then the general population in the UK consists mainly of hybridised bees anyway. Many beekeepers, including the original poster, move their bees around to different honeyflows, so declared adaptation to a particular area does not hold water as the environment can be changed overnight. For example, moving bees to the heather flow in the UK. In addition to this is the possibility of other migratory apiaries being within mating distance of the local bees when queens are mated. Whilst local bees and the autochthonous subspecies may be great survivors and worthy of conservation/protection, not all of them meet the requirements of beekeepers either behaviour wise or with their honey production. Germany changed from the widespread use of mellifera to carnica. Israel also replaced the local population with ligustica and Buckfast. Local bees are not best in Syria, Cyprus, Greece or Turkey where caucasica has replaced many local strains. Mellifera has been replaced in Scandinavia by ligustica and Buckfast – very few people keep mellifera type bees now. According to the reports coming from beekeepers visiting Italy, they are not very keen on ligustica there. The disease/pest status, other than the present SHB detections in Italy, is the same across the whole of the EU. The idea that Nosema ceranae is an exotic species that was recently spread by the bee trade is erroneous and providing it as an example of pest proliferation is misleading . It was a cryptic species within the Nosema apis population that was recently discovered. Old bee samples clearly show that the two species have been present together for a long time. Best regards Roger White. Superbee apiaries, Cyprus. *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html