Hi Bob and All



> Do British beekeepers make their bee suits spotless before  
> visiting Downing St or are those hired activists in bee suits? 

The former.  These are real beekeepers with real concerns.

> More important than that, what is the state of Bee-L beekeepers' bees in  
> Britain?

The high losses cited for last winter come from real data and ring true around here with some beekeepers losing a high proportion of their stocks.  I lost three out of five and that is unusual.  After a wet summer with poor queen mating and continuing problems with miticide-resistant Varroa some predict a similarly poor winter to come.  As far as I can tell the queen mating this year was not as bad, and there was a good autumn for many so the level of winter stores and the youth of the winter bees is better, so maybe survival will be better.

Thankfully, some of the earlier hype has gone from the current campaign.  For example the President of the BBKA was amplifying things said by a government minister and claiming that a series of similar losses would leave us with only 20% of the current bee stock.  This was clearly unsupportable, as the current losses are driven mostly by poor beekeeping weather and that will change, and the calculation discounted the fact that most beekeepers make up colony losses during the next summer.

It's not a CCD thing, and, although there are many that would like to think so, it doesn't seem to be a pesticide thing either.

best wishes

Gavin

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