It seemed a half-baked 'filler' story, perhaps on a short news day (though there's no shortage of news at the moment). I liked the story for two reason - I used to keep bees there so know those mentioned and the photograph of a beesuited and gloved reporter interviewing a bare-headed beekeeper.

There are a lot of beekeepers in that area - large amounts of OSR (canola) but still reasonable small copses and hedgerows, so the forage is good for the bees - and there's barely a field without hives on it. There's a very active beekeeping association there who perhaps need to run a refresher course or two on swarm control.

Warm early spring followed by a prolonged cool period and then the OSR flow and warmer temperatures have made for an intense swarming period ... and repeatedly demonstrated the benefits of clipped queens.

It always amazes me how training, whilst discussing swarm control, really does not emphasise the impact it has on the summer honey and the problems the lost swarms cause ... or the likely fate of the swarm. The never-ending callouts and cutouts are a huge waste of time, there's the cost - in some cases - of the scaffolding, brickwork or whatever to get the swarm, and there's the reality that most unrecovered swarms will perish from starvation or disease.

But queen clipping is 'barbaric'.

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