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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