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Dave-Stokes

Listed below are comments made by Dave-Stokes between Tuesday, 12th May 2009 and Friday, 22nd May 2009.

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The Farming Today beehive 11:53pm on 22 May 2009 Melliotsmith should be aware that the colonies that survived the 1915 Acarine epidemic were not Italian bees but Italian X black bee hybrids, a case of hybrid vigour perhaps in times of strange weather patterns and an epidemic? During the years that I've been beekeeping in Scotland, I have periodically found a proportion of yellow bees in my hives, crosses with imported bees in the area. After a few years they disappear as the black bee genes reassert their dominance. We should not be surprised that thousands of years of evolution makes the local black strain more suited that the foreign breeds to our local climate. Rumours of the black bee's demise are strangely exagerated.
The Farming Today beehive 9:35pm on 12 May 2009 The idea that chemicals are involved in colony collapse doesn't hold much water, the bees are subjected to the chemicals in spring & early summer, where-as the bees are dying over winter. I unexpectedly lost a colony last December, they were on pasture a long way from any arable crops.
The deformed wings are not caused by chemicals but by a virus transmitted by a virus.
Having said that, I'm very unhappy about the aggressive use of chemicals these days.

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