amateur beekeepers said to be...

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gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18415

Posted: Tue Mar 03, 09 11:51 pm Post subject: amateur beekeepers said to be...
responsible for decline in bees ?

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 09 5:58 am Post subject:

I know virtually nothing about bee kepping but unless money is invested in scientific research to find out why the bee declide is occuring then such reports aren't very helpful. I do wonder how much of this is an attempt by governement to interfere in agriculutral practices, something whuch they don't have a good track record in.

Admittidly amateur bee keepers need to be well informed but as far as I can see the report doesn't mentioned the professionalism of amateurs and is simply saying they need to be regulated, despite any convincing evidence to show regulation is the solution to the problem. While the government continues to avoid the issues of the effects of some herbicides and pesticides which are known to be detrimental to bees then it's not surprising the bee keeping community would see this is a an unwarrenred attack on them.

gorbut

Joined: 03 Sep 2006
Posts: 137
Location: Border of London and Essex

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 09 8:15 am Post subject:

My husband is planning to keep bees and is doing a course about it at the moment. This covers spotting diseases and to do the course he has had to join the local beekeepers association which insists that hives are inspected.

I would be surprised if many people kept bees without doing such a course and being part of a local group where more experienced members would give help if needed. Some will always go it alone of course but this does not always mean they don't know what they are doing. I would have thought it is much easier to spot disease when you only have a few hives than if you have hundreds.

This has parallels with the current attempt by the govt to 'investigate' home education yet again. They seem very worried about anyone who does anything for themselves. What next? Laying down rules about how to grow vegetables on allotments. I wouldn't put it past them

Susan

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91� N

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 09 9:01 am Post subject:

Quote:

suggests a new campaign by inspectors to persuade all beekeepers to join a national register. So far only 17,000 have done so. If that fails, it suggests that ministers should examine the viability of a compulsory scheme

ie they don't like anyone doing anything without being surveilled so they're interested in a reason to justify more control.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 09 9:14 am Post subject:

vegplot wrote:

I do wonder how much of this is an attempt by governement to interfere in agriculutral practices, something whuch they don't have a good track record in.

Or the government trying to divert from the truth because the truth is (IMO) that large chemical companies are to blame for CCD.
The problem with the capitalist society we live in is the more money you make the more power you can wield & it's far easier to blame amateurs than Bayer et al.
I'm all for better education & more inspections but the truth has already been discovered & the research already done, done by the very beekeepers the national audit office is now blaming.
I agree with DEFRA (or MAAF as it was then) partly being to blame for the now resistant varroa mite.
If you only approve one chemical at a time to treat a pest or disease then resistance is formed quicker.
Its basic A level biology & I'm very suprised that it seems no one in MAAF where qualified to that level at the time.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 09 9:19 am Post subject: Re: amateur beekeepers said to be...

gil wrote:

responsible for decline in bees

The epidemiology makes sense.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 09 9:21 am Post subject:

As usual rather a misleading headline. As the article states "The audit office is concerned, however, that the control of varroa is being hampered by the lack of colony inspections by the National Bee Unit, part of Defra." then if people did register there's not enough inspectors to cope anyway.

Also agree with Tavascarow, it seems there are at least some other possibilities for CCD but if they are not also taken into account it seems little more than a blame exercise without actually trying to solve the problem.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 09 9:23 am Post subject:

gorbut wrote:

I would have thought it is much easier to spot disease when you only have a few hives than if you have hundreds.

I agree whole heartedly.
In america where colony colapse disorder is most prevalent the evidence says the same.
It's the large commercial migratory bee farmers who are suffering most.
My theory is not that they can't spot disease aas easily as lets face it its their livelihood so they should but the very crops they work are poison to their bees. large commercial monocultures are sprayed with pesticides to maximise yield & profit & the insect that is a most necessary link in the production is neglected.
Neonicitinoids have been proven by independant research to kill bees by parts per billion.
& CCD has been a problem since these chemicals became prevalant.

cassy

Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 1047
Location: South West Scotland

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 09 9:51 am Post subject:

The solution already exists in law; beekeepers have legal responsibilities to control disease and inspectors can enter any premises to inspect and destroy colonies if necessary, registered or not.

It is hardly the fault of amateur beekeepers if the number of inspectors is so low that they are unable to have a presence at a local level.

There is less than 1 inspector per county in England and Wales.

Also, broadly speaking, it tends not to be amateur beekeepers who import bees and who keep apiaries of large numbers in small areas, so increasing the 'disease load' in a given area.

I think the only answer is a return to more environmentally friendly beekeeping as advocated by the Barefoot Beekeeper. However, as always, big business needs to sell chemical products and bee farmers need to make honey at the expense of everything else - the bee is expendable.

Much better for everyone if us amateurs leave it to the expert who know best.

IMHO

arvo

Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Posts: 3321
Location: Somerset

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 09 10:34 am Post subject:

Now that the govt. have *finally* decided to spend some bloody money on the Bee Unit (they only had less than �100,000 to run the whole bloody thing last year), I would be very bloody cross indeed if that gets spent on chuffing leaflets. You get enough of those as a bee-keeper as it is. And we read all of them.

Its a bit choice blaming the amateurs. As if there's some kind of government endorsed 'professional' beekeepers??? Its the same kit, same hives, same bees. What amused me most about the article was the shock horror over the varroa mite.
Wake up and smell the coffee journalists, those amateurs have been keeping the numbers of Varroa at bay by sheer graft. Varroa in the wild bee population (whats left of it after the pesticides) is rife, bumble-bees included. Not so ar*d about that eh Hillary? Way easier to blame the amateurs.

Easy target.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 09 12:37 pm Post subject:

This says it all.
Maryann Frazier, Senior Extension Associate of the Department of Entomology at Pennsylvania State University giving a talk on CCD, and specifically, chemical contamination of wax, pollen& bee bread.
Its 90 minutes long but if you keep bees or are thinking of keeping them you should listen to it.
As I said earlier in this post they (The politicians) already know what (or who) is to blame for CCD & it's not amateur beekeepers.
History is supposed to teach us so we don't repeat mistakes made by our ancestors but as far as I can see this is 'Silent Spring' all over again & the perps are the same companies that whwere responsible then.

arvo

Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Posts: 3321
Location: Somerset

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 09 2:26 pm Post subject:

Tavascarow wrote:

As I said earlier in this post they (The politicians) already know what (or who) is to blame for CCD & it's not amateur beekeepers.
History is supposed to teach us so we don't repeat mistakes made by our ancestors but as far as I can see this is 'Silent Spring' all over again & the perps are the same companies that whwere responsible then.

Man! Agri-business shafts the little folks again. I know we've all seen it before, but it never stops making me cross.

arvo

Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Posts: 3321
Location: Somerset

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 09 9:23 pm Post subject:
Just watched most of the vid. Man, they get funding and everything. Thanks for the head's up Tav. Here's us still thinking it was Nosema. And it turns out we might be poisoning our own bees doing what defra told us. Grah. Oh well, back to Thymol and Oxalic Acid, eh?

Mrs Baggins

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Posts: 837
Location: West Kent

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 09 9:38 pm Post subject:
Just spotted this and I think that they should be supporting beekeepers rather than torching them. Couldn't watch the video as the sound seems to be skuppered on my machine... a job for MrB methinks... would love to hear what it had to say.

arvo

Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Posts: 3321
Location: Somerset

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 09 12:30 pm Post subject:

Worth watching if he can fix it. (Mind you the sound isn't *that* great when its working properly.

).
It's a uni-professor-expert-type from a US uni (where they have things like funding and government grants) giving a lecture on her findings to a local bee-keepers association.
Basically they're investigating *all* the possible causes of colony collapse disorder to rule out what it can't be and leave us with whats left.
Roughly they found:
1) It ain't mobile phones
2) It probably ain't Nosema Apis/Ceranae either
3) 85% ish of the colonies that collapsed had some other wacky disease called Israel Acute Paralysis Virus as well (she expressly said, this wasn't causing it but was a good indicator).
4) There were really high (toxic to bees) concentrations of neonicotinoid pesticides in the bees and the brood of all these hives. Although they can't conclude anything decisively yet, it seems this is the most likely avenue. The pesticides (some of which we're using to treat the bees with) could either be killing bees directly or stressing the bees so much that its a bit like AIDS and they fall prey to something else that they'd otherwise shuck off. She said what with resistant Varroa as well, it may be that the pesticides are the straw that breaks the camels back.
5) They have done a lot of tests to see what toxicologists call the 50% point (the point at which a substance kills 50% of test subjects) of some of these pesticides and it seems that a lot of the manufacturers claims for the safety of these products is incorrect. (I.e they're a lot more posionous than they initially claimed they were).

Did I miss anything Tav?
Ps where the heck did you ever *find* that vid in the first place??? Great internet searching.

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