Hi Jim and All

Being in Scotland, keeping honeybees, and knowing a bit about bumble bees and indeed beans perhaps this one's for me.

> Bumblebee numbers in Scotland are
> suddenly noticed as lower only
> because crops are suddenly going
> unpollinated.

By
recent standards we're having a poor summer and the spring was late. 
Bumble bees are around in numbers, but maybe when that gentleman's
broad beans (= faba or fava beans) were in flower the bees were
elsewhere.  We hosted a 'Bumble Bee Walk' at my workplace earlier in
the summer, and running up to the event I was a bit concerned that they
were very thin on the ground.  All that was happening though was that
the early bees were off working the massively abundant resources
offered by the local oilseed rape fields and, when they went over, the
bees returned.  Perhaps that is what happened in Selkirk.

In the
UK we regularly hear the cry that bumble bees are on the decline.  That
may be so in the S of England with global warming, urbanisation and an
increasingly tidy countryside taking their toll, but up here we have
some bumble bees (and butterflies) increasing their range and I see no
sign of a decline in numbers.

> To my knowledge, CCD symptoms have
> not been found in the UK to date ....

We
have N. ceranae, and we have occasional reports of 'Marie-Celeste' or
'Disappearing Disease' but no-one (well, no-one who gets my respect!)
is declaring that we have CCD.  We did have high losses through much of
the UK last winter, but most are putting that down to a poor summer
last year, miticide-resistant Varroa now being widespread, and maybe
new pathogens adding to those stresses.

all the best

Gavin

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