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Thu, 6 Nov 2008 15:34:45 -0000 |
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Bob Darrell wrote:
> Do British beekeepers make their bee suits spotless before visiting
> Downing St or are those hired activists in bee suits? More important than
> that, what is the state of Bee-L beekeepers' bees in Britain?
Yes, we were asked to wash suits before going - but most beekeepers that I
know wash their suits regularly as part of a hygienic approach to keeping
bees. Ours go in the wash at least twice a week, often more, in the active
season.
I can vouch that there were no hired activists amongst us!
As to the state of our bees, I think that Chris and Gavin have summed it up
quite well.
The year has been very patchy - our best queen produced 295lbs (4 produced
> 200lbs, 12 produced 100-199lbs, 31 produced 50-99lbs), but many produced
nothing (average 35lbs on autumn count going into winter, 50lbs on spring
count) and we have finished at 50% of expected crop (i.e 27 year average).
As to the reasons:
Winter losses were 30% - most of it down to queen failure following the
disastrous summer and autumn last year.
The very poor spring made it difficult (and costly in terms of crop) to
rebuild numbers.
A very wet summer with very little sunshine then compounded our problems.
We go into winter hoping that things will be better next year - crucially we
need that spring build-up, something that we used to take for granted but no
longer seems to happen.
On the disease front we, like everyone else, worry about varroa - but we are
perhaps more concerned about N. ceranae as we do not have the experience or
knowledge to deal with it efficiently. We definitely do not have CCD, but
given the association with IAPV (which is in Europe, but not yet we think in
the UK) and N. ceranae it is something about which we have to be concerned.
Meanwhile the price of bulk English honey in 300kg barrels has hit £2.40 per
lb - how I wish I had some to spare!
Best wishes
Peter Edwards
beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk
www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/
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