Walter:
> what is the percentage of the total no. of hives in Scotland 
> /England/Wales
> that have been affected by both afb and efb.
See:
https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/public/BeeDiseases/diseaseIncidenceMaps.cfm

> and is that percentage a factor in the so called disappearing bee losses
> numbers that everyone is crying/worrying about?

No.  I would say that foulbrood is generally of very little consequence in 
the UK.  Because we take it seriously (burning all AFB and heavy infections 
of EFB, shook swarming light infections of EFB) the incidence is very low. 
Of course, there are occasional large (by our standards) outbreaks - such as 
the current one in Scotland, but they play no part in so-called 
'disappearing bee losses'.

My view is that we do not have 'disappearing bee losses' in the UK that 
cannot be easily explained.  Most losses I believe can be put down to bad 
weather over the past two or three years, with many queens failing to mate 
properly and colonies going into winter with few young bees.  In my area we 
had losses of around 15% last winter (hardly a disaster) and 30%+  from the 
winter of 2007/8 (again not particularly  disastrous - we have had much 
worse in the past - and very predictable given the weather during 2007).

Of course, the press has had a field day predicting the demise of the 
honeybee and the end of the world as we know it.  What they fail to report 
is that numbers have then been restored during the following season as 
beekeepers make increase to replace lost colonies - but that is not the news 
that they want.

Personally, I have just had the best year ever - I replaced all lost 
colonies easily and extracted more honey than I have in my previous 29 years 
of keeping bees.
Best wishes

Peter Edwards
beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk
www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/

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