BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • BBKA and bee imports

  • Please Ensure all sale of bees are checked & sold within the correct guidelines, State the location, Type and package/nuc/hive
Please Ensure all sale of bees are checked & sold within the correct guidelines, State the location, Type and package/nuc/hive
 #10439  by AdamD
 01 Apr 2021, 09:01
I note that there are now over 10,000 respondents to the Government petition on banning imports via NI. This means that the gov will have to respond. If you look on the map, the people of NI have the highest density of petitioners. They are in the front line of any disease/pest imports as the bees from Italy have to fly before they can come to the mainland. The BBKA have voiced their concern about the practice of getting around the import ban by bringing bees in through Ireland and then to N Ireland and wanted to stop the advert of the 'offending' company in the BBKA magazine. However it will be interesting to see whether all bee adverts are banned in the future unless they are known to be of UK stock.

Apparently there is a lot of mud being thrown about on facebook - no surprise there - although I don't use it - gave that up years ago. What tends to happen is that the different views become very polarised so the whole thing becomes an argument between two sides followed by a trading of insults rather than a debate.
A plea, please debate and don't argue on this forum. :)
 #10443  by Patrick
 01 Apr 2021, 16:49
Amen to that Adam. Taking to Facebook to have a spat doesn't have a great track record.

Not clear if the petition is suggesting all bees (i.e. packages and queens) should now be stopped or is it just shorthand for packages via N.I.? I had understood queens were not an issue currently, subject to the normal checks. It's one thing closing a loophole, another thing extending the reach of the current rules.
 #10444  by NigelP
 01 Apr 2021, 17:30
Given that guy (Patrick) is breaking no laws it's difficult to see how the government can react other than to say he's not breaking any laws.
I saw the profit word used in one BBKA debate....if you are in business that is the aim.
 #10445  by Patrick
 02 Apr 2021, 00:05
NigelP wrote:Given that guy (Patrick) is breaking no laws....
You had me going there a moment Nigel 😁 ...
 #10446  by NigelP
 02 Apr 2021, 09:07
;)
I'm puzzled as the legal importation of bees into UK from Southern Italy has been going on for years. Why now?
They come from regions that obviously aren't infected with SHB. The BBKA seems to imply by default that they are infested...Perhaps they thought that a non EU UK meant no more bee imports....
I think it's a very bad thing if (in the unlikely event) of the BBKA getting legal importation banned as it will drive it underground and into black market territory.
This was already happening with packages of Spanish black bees which were being illegally imported by "white van men" and sold as Amm's due to their dark black colour. Iberian bees are notoriously savage but this was never given a second thought.
The fact that the petition is aimed at depriving a small company of it's income/livelihood seems to have been brushed under the carpet.

I also see that the BBKA will no longer accept adverts from the company importing packages of bees, yet will still take adverts from importers of queens.
I would also take issue with the claimed 20K loss in USA whgere I quote "Despite the fact that small hive beetles may cause considerable damage in bee colonies in the U.S., they increasingly are considered a secondary pest of bee colonies, much like the greater (Galleria mellonella Linnaeus) and lesser (Achroia grisella Fabricius) wax moths (Ellis and Hepburn 2006). Colonies hosting other bee diseases/pests appear more likely to suffer small hive beetle damage than healthy ones.".

Circulation: All Area and Branch Secretaries.

You may be aware that there is an intention to circumvent the restrictions on the movement of bees from the EU and in particular Italy, by moving the bees via Northern Ireland into the UK.

Some of the Italian bees are known to be infested with the Small Hive Beetle (SHB). If this is imported into the United Kingdom the risk to our bee population would be catastrophic and it would be almost impossible to eradicate it from our shores.

Within two years of its discovery in America, at least 20,000 colonies were destroyed, costing millions of dollars to the economy. A similar impact on beekeeping in this country would be devastating.

It would appear that the intention is to import the bees into Northern Ireland, hive the bees there and allow them to fly freely, then package them to come into the UK mainland. The risk of spread due to this action would be horrendous both in Northern Ireland and here on the mainland.

There is a petition from the BBKA, arranged by Anne Rowberry our Chair, currently on the internet to ask for support requesting the Government to prevent this import. Can I ask that you do support this petition but also raise awareness, by whatever means you can, to help persuade the Government to prevent the import of bees from Italy, through the Northern Ireland route.

Here is the link: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/577603

In the course of events for the BBKA News, we take advertisements from organisations who pay for the privilege, which helps with the cost of operating it and ultimately keeps the costs down for our members.

We are very careful who we receive adverts from, and one such advertiser was an existing customer, so their advert was accepted. We have subsequently discovered that it was the same organisation trying to import bees from Southern Italy where the SHB is prevalent. We were unable to pull the advert for the April edition of the BBKA News as it was already at the printers, but all other adverts have now been refused.

Keep safe

Margaret Wilson, President
 #10448  by AdamD
 02 Apr 2021, 09:55
I am not clear what the BBKA policy is; whether it's to call for a ban on all imported packages and nucs forever; whether that includes queens. Whether it's a ban on bees from S Italy only or whether it's the profit motive they don't like.
And whether bee supplies companies will have to swear that they only sell UK queens to be allowed to advertise in the magazine?
And if the rules are being stretched because we now have adopted the EU rules (post Brexit) that any other country is <temporarily> a third country (So the EU is a third country to us and we are a third country to the EU) and sooner or later some harmonisation will occur and we'll back to the post brexit rules, the spat is a waste of effort for one season only when it's too late to stop the bees coming in anyway.
 #10453  by MickBBKA
 02 Apr 2021, 19:34
I wonder if its a back door way of achieving the objective of having native black bees which is very much promoted in several areas of England.

Also, are there any restrictions on Italian bees being imported to Ireland as an EU member? If not then swarms and SHB are just gonna fly across the border into Northern Ireland anyway.
 #10463  by AdamD
 04 Apr 2021, 09:56
In Ireland, the bees are quite "pure" AMM, so they would not like and don't take many, import themselves. Stastically the chances of something unwanted arriving into the island of Ireland will be much greater if they are used as a staging post before bees can enter GB. So I can understand their concern. Many will be keen to promote purity.

There's a Buckfast Ireland website which has not been updated for years - posting an event that's due to happen in April 2014, so it's not a very busy club, it seems.
 #10658  by SuesBees
 25 Apr 2021, 09:05
I have been reading the thread on imported bees. I started my beekeeping journey a few months ago and I ordered a beehive kit from Bee Equipment, and also a nuc of bees.
At that time I was very naive about the subject and didn't realise I could probably have got bees locally.
A couple of weeks ago I received an email from BE saying that my bees would be delayed due to bad weather in Northern Italy .
I am wondering if and when my bees will arrive and if this delay is anything to do with the importing questions.
Should I cut my losses and cancel the order and seek local bees?
Any advice welcomed.
 #10659  by NigelP
 25 Apr 2021, 16:52
Sue the first thing to do is ask if your local bees attitude is suitable for someone starting out in beekeeping. Their temper is very variable and sdiffers from area to area. I was talking to a farmer friend of mine from Co Durham who has had to ask the beekeepers who keep hives on his land to move them as they are constantly attacking him and his son whenever they are working a few 100 yards away from the hives. This is not good.
Italians are very good bees to start beekeeping with as very docile and queens are very obvious to spot.
Depends how long you want to wait.....
As 2 hives is the minimum I'd advise any beekeeper to keep, I'd go for one of each if you have room and the equipment, assuming the locals are deemed friendly enough.
Alternatively it might be worth contacting Exmoor bees (Pete Little http://www.exmoorbeesandbeehives.co.uk/) and ask if he has any overwintered nucs of his UK bred Buckfast bees left
They are really good gentle bees. and are in high demand.