Recent content by Richard Bache

Reprint is now listed on Amazon if you are after the information and not the collector's value. I have one on order...

Is it really? What makes you think that you are superior or more deserving than other lifeforms on this planet? Are you not just showing signs of the selfish disregard to the natural world by thinking we are somehow above the world which we depend upon? So are the honeybees that are present in...

I don't wish to be antagonistic, but I think you have overstated the point a little: Question 1: agreed, if you don't have a Commercial hive, although you might expect an authority on beekeeping to know that Commercial hives take a 16x10 inch frame Question 2: Again you could argue that it is...

I think these are the same specimens that Ruttner, Dews and Milner in their little booklet, 'The Dark European Honeybee' refer to. They measured several wing characteristics as well as other ancient specimens and modern specimens. Although they concluded that they fit within AMM reference ranges...

Thanks very much Tongue Firmly in Cheek I am afraid;)

BBG, that is the price for the correspondance course per module, i.e. getting someone to give some tuition (distance learning style), per module. It is not necessary to pass the exams, but some people find it useful.

Exams aren't for everyone, but certainly some people will benefit from them as an incentive to expand their knowledge and challenge their views. I speak as someone who has gone through the bulk of the BBKA examination system. Does it matter that they count for nothing on your CV? It didn't to...

I've heard that as well, but I have always picked them early (initially as early as late August). This was initially out of necessity (being away from all things green once the academic year started), but now more out of habit. I think it tastes better when made with honey in place of sugar...

I think part of the problem is that there is a lot of variation within strains and that sweeping generalisations about any strain of bee are often unhelpful. I don't doubt that something approximating to the local strain of Old English Black bee may well be well suited to many areas, but I also...

You could contact the national bee unit: they sent their apiary manager to a course fairly recently (i.e. the last couple of years). I think it was in Europe somewhere, for some reason I am thinking Poland, but don't quote me on that (in English or Polish!)

...A honeybee! :D:cheers2:

I am sure that most beekeepers were more than just the gloves:smilielol5::rofl::laughing-smiley-004:laughing-smiley-014

Those are the sort of records that I would be very interested in. Did they assign a race to the suvivors of the "IoW disease"?- many contemporary accounts either state that losses were high and that Native bees were lost first, but don't quantify the losses of native bees or the % of survivors...

I think they have quoted Brother Adam (and referenced it rather oddly in the text-shouldn't it be "Adam 1974"?) because his account is one of the more accesible. There are many other accounts that are very similar buried in older beekeeping text books and journals that the native bee did indeed...

Ok, now you have started to read, start to question what you read... The first article is the only study that (to my knowledge) has looked at the genetics of the honeybees of Britain. It was not set up to test the 'purity' of the specimens in question. They measured introgression of other genes...