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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
Robin Dartington <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 4 Jan 2014 13:54:25 +0000
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 Mark Berninghausen wrote:  >Peter is right. Education has always been the best defence against diseases and pests of honeybees.<

A point being missed is the enormous impact a few apiary inspections can have on education of individual beekeepers.  During my 50 years of beekeeping in UK,  I have been blessed by a visit from a Bee Inspector about six times, twice when I had requested advice on a disease problem and have a rest when I was lucky to come up in the random selection of apiary inspections for government monitoring of disease levels and of what substances  beekeepers are using to control disease. Each time, while the inspector spent an hour or more going through my hives, I had a one-to-one tutorial with a beekeeping expert when I could ask questions on anything that worried me or on which I felt insufficiently informed. I first learnt beekeeping from a book and practical demonstrations by a rather weird old man at a local college and although I have always been a member of some beekeeping association or other I never found these be more than clubs for beekeepers - and the apiary meetings to never be anything more than the blind leading the blind.  Beekeeping clubs are generally run by volunteers without reference to their educational qualifications or how up-to-date their beekeeping knowledge is. 

There are of course some exceptionally good beekeeping associations in UK, mainly I suspect when they act for a whole  UK county and not only a local district.   That increases the resources but favours only beekeepers living close enough to the central site. The advantage of beekeeping education being supplemented by the work of Government inspectors is that it provides opportunity for every beekeeper to access the highest level assistance (particularly when faced with a disease crisis) irrespective of where they happen to live.

Of course volunteer beekeeping associations should provide all the education they are capable of as a first level of assistance to new beekeepers. However, in UK and likely also in US, there has been a  recent flood of interest in beekeeping as a way to get closer to nature. Many of these new entrants are essentially 'tourists' who drop out of their local bee club  after say three years, and I fear leave their bees to become feral even if still living in hives.  Only sufficient inducements/ compulsion to register apiaries for inspection can stop these under-managed hives lowering the standards of bee stocks and bee health, in particular within urban areas that have a high density of small static apiaries. 

Peter has listed the limitations all inspection regimes face in UK as well as US, but our imperfect, under-resourced system has reduced AFB infection to very low levels over the last decades,  combined with enforced burning of all infected material. Treating disease control as only a matter for individual beekeepers to sort out according to their own self-interests would be  a very dangerous backwards step and in UK we hope the government bee inspection/educational service will survive and prosper. 

Robin 



 

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