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Author Topic: Asian Bees  (Read 13565 times)

Offline Lone

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #20 on: February 24, 2011, 12:14:21 am »
Yes, Oz, or there is the agriculture minister Joe Ludwig whom Mardak pointed out.
We do need to make sure we get our facts right though.  A couple of people have said that cerana interbreed with mellifera, but that is apparently false.  The DPI site says that cerana rob out mellifera, but I checked with the Japanese cerana keeper on here, who says that the robbing goes the other way.  He is going to see a cerana researcher on the 5th of March, so I've asked him to find a couple of things out.
The main problems I can see with being overrun with cerana are the competition for flowers, poor pollination where cerana has taken over too much for mellifera to find residence, and if the program is stopped, it will hide the time when another colony of cerana does come here that hosts mites. 
I'll send you a copy of the email I sent.

Lone

Offline Lone

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #21 on: February 24, 2011, 01:02:26 am »
Mr Katter just left a message on my phone and apologised for his staff member, so I should be able to speak with him shortly.

Lone

Offline OzBuzz

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #22 on: February 24, 2011, 01:09:12 am »
Just a thought - but how about if we get a list of facts together - and then each person writes their own letter to either minister - i reckon federal and state - can anybody get the email addresses and list them here? we also need someone who has the experience/knowledge to gather the relevant facts - some of our US counterparts might be able to jump on board too in regard any potential risks they perceive to our live bee export

Offline ozbee

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #23 on: February 25, 2011, 09:27:25 pm »
 hi i have  just found this forum is there a profile area anyhow about cerna i am a queen breeder as well as a large crop polliator south of Townsville luckily in dry tropics . the money spent chasing cerna is cat and mouse in that there following feeding stations  . great it has caught over a 100 nests but  are mainly  in town areas.  much who har was made about the few they caught in mangroves abutting  cairns  .point is i raised at the  2nd last conference (nearly two years ago  ) in which i stated as soon as the  sugar crushing  season start sugar bins move up and down the east coast against the rain forrest . because mareba is  also now growing cane the risks from cartage is also there . it must be noted Queensland  7 times the size of england only has 2 apiary officers so quarantine is a joke . i pointed out that large market growers are using gatton then bunderberg bowen / burdekin /mareba / Northern terrioty in stage by stage to concede with growing weather and temperature conditions . they don't care they buy hives anywhere chuck them on there semis  and go .there is very little caring done just buy and dump.

with well over a100 nest caught   i asked this question to those who were running  the program . they felt that it came from one incursion . if one nest  does  get inbreed 100 times with its own drones  to survive would this be possible to have strong colonies . reply not likely . they are now starting to think melfira drones may cross breed if not there has to be more than one incursion . they have attacked  this with the resources given to them and those involved have worked all there might bute the simple fact is far more could be done but the government is not really interested as afis melifera is seen as a pest as well from the strong green movement up    here  .

Offline Geoff

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Local Area Network in Australia - the LAN down under.

Offline Mardak

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #25 on: February 27, 2011, 02:44:40 am »
Now is the time to have the true independent voice of Bob Katter and the others to step and voice the concerns of the electorate. We are all tired of the party politics surrounding agriculture. Bob comes from Queenland so would have a genuine appreciation of introduced pests such as the Cane Toad and extreme loose radical Greenie creatures. Bob K and company should talk very seriously with Ms Gillard and her mates about spending our money on protecting food security rather than the lifting of import restrictions on some fruits that threaten the liveliehood of local farmers.

Offline Lone

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #26 on: March 03, 2011, 11:05:00 pm »
Hello,
Has anyone heard how the meeting in Canberra on Wednesday went?

Lone

Offline Mardak

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #27 on: March 04, 2011, 04:53:11 pm »
The meeting in Canberra had quite a lot of beeks but a very sparse number of politicians available to talk with. One of the beek hirearchy had a very brief meeting with the Ag minister. We just have watch this space to see what happens.

Offline Lone

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #28 on: March 05, 2011, 10:00:27 am »
Hello,

I've been trying to look for some articles about the meeting but they seem to be a bit light on.  This is not a bad one  http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/02/bee-invasion-flying-asian-cane-toad-a-6-billion-threat/
But still, I think at the moment there should be a distinction between apis cerana and varroa.  Varroa will devastate the food industry, but I wonder how much harm the bee by itself will be.  I am assuming that the mellifera numbers in the solomons were depleted by varroa, and not so much by apis cerana?

It's great to hear from you, Ozbee.  At last there's someone who knows where North Queensland is!  
I'm not exactly sure what you are meaning by quarantine...are you saying that beekeepers in Mareeba are moving their hives to other areas?  
I don't understand how preventing movements of bees will slow spread of apis cerana.  And I don't think it would stop varroa either.
Native bees are great at pollinating native plants, but Woolies doesn't sell a lot of rainforest figs.  Imported foods seem to require imported bees. Maybe the asian bees will pollinate the chinee apples  ;)  I wonder what exactly the greenies eat.

Ozbuzz,  you can find email address and contact details here for your or other MPs  http://www.aph.gov.au/house/feedback.htm  Maybe some of those pollies are wondering why they were given honey last week.  Yes, let's keep informed about this and if we are going to help nip it in the bud it is getting to be urgent.

 I haven't managed to catch up with Bob.  I've been busy, but hopefully I can alert him to some of the issues before the funding is stopped.

Lone


« Last Edit: March 05, 2011, 10:16:24 am by Lone »



Offline Lone

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #31 on: March 16, 2011, 01:51:58 am »
I tried calling Mr K again, but apparently he has a 4 month waiting list to be able to talk to him, with 500 people wanting him a day.  But when his diary worker gets back they might slot me in.  If there's no success I'll try an annoying email again.  Has anyone been emailing or contacting the pollies?

I heard from Beecanbee recently, who keeps Apis cerana, and in his experience the robbing is by the mellifera. The experience of Atherton Tablelands folk though is that cerana will rob out the smaller weaker native bees.  His researcher friend was not available, who has run experiements with AI to see if the cerana and mellifera will cross breed, but he doesn't think this happens in nature.  And let's think of our beekeeper brother Beecanbee who is from an earthquake affected area of Japan in Chiba.

Lone

Offline Lone

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #32 on: March 28, 2011, 01:13:52 am »
G'day folks,

I am reeling a bit still from my experience with politics.  I had to call Mr K's office a couple more times to get this phone appointment time but apparently he has 500 people a day wanting to talk to him and they were too busy.  There is someone in the office though who has been dealing with the asian bee issue.  They said to send her another email, which I've just done.  They told me he'd attended the beekeeper's meeting in Canberra, so I was pleased to hear that.   I saw him on the weekend at a concert and he was adamant that I get a phone interview time with him.  I don't fancy the battle with his staff again but I reluctantly said I'd try. 
There was a good article in the North Queensland Register last week 
http://nqr.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/why-the-asian-bee-must-be-stopped/2099695.aspx?storypage=0
This does help to explain some things like whether they interbreed with apis mellifera.  It sounds as though the drones mate but the sperm is not fertile.  I assume this decreases the viability of the queen.
I am also a little upset at the thought our little native bees could be robbed out or taken over by the larger apis cerana.
My brother is a mathematician.  I asked him how many colonies of bees there would be in one year and 5 years given they swarm 5 times a year.  He told me 32 in one year and 33,554,432 in 5 years.  Of course there are lots of variables, but there is no doubt the spread will be rapid if nothing is done to control them.

Lone

Offline yantabulla

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #33 on: March 28, 2011, 04:41:59 am »
This website

http://www.securefoodsavebees.com/index.html

has lots of info about what we can do in relation to the cerana issue

Offline westmar

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #34 on: March 30, 2011, 11:48:12 pm »
hi
   i got a email from QUEENSLAND BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION.
                                                                                   THE STORY ON ASIAN BEE ERADICATION WILL BE ON ABC 7.30 REPORT TO NIGHT.AND A EXTENDED VERSION ON ABC LANDLINE ON SUNDAY 10 TH APRIL

Offline Lone

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #35 on: April 06, 2011, 08:45:01 am »
It looks like there is some light on the horizon.

http://senatormacdonald.org/media705.html

Offline philinacoma

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #36 on: April 11, 2011, 12:21:02 pm »
Lets hope.

Offline josethayil

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Re: Asian Bees
« Reply #37 on: May 24, 2011, 01:05:41 am »
Hi, I am a new member to this forum. I am currently keeping bees in New Zealand. I used to keep Cerana and Mellifera in India before.

As far as I can say. The type of cerana you guys have got in Australia will swarm a lot and make small colonies. Not very good for honey production but good for pollination(More than 70 percent of cropes which need bee pollination in India is pollinated by Apis cerana. A different strain of cerana from what you have in Australia).

The robbing issue goes both ways. The stronger Cerana colony will rob a weak Mellifera colony which is near by and a stronger Mellifera colony will rob a weak Cerana colony near by.

Cerana and Mellifera cannot interbreed. They will mate with each other, but the resulting offsprings are always diploid drones which are killed by the worker bees in the hive when the eggs hatch.

The case of solomon islands is probably the cerana which was introduced did carry varroa with them and thats what would have killed the mellifera. This would have made the spread of cerana much easier. But in Australia, cerana does not carry varroa at the moment. So it will be hard for them to replace mellifera colonies which are usually stronger and larger than cerana colonies.

Cerana does nest in a lot of different locations which are not usually prefered by mellifera. So if they are not controlled, they will spread very rapidly. Competition for food sources can be a problem between mellifera and cerana in places where food sources are scarce, but usually cerana does not forage the same distance as mellifera. So mellifera has an advantage in that.

As far as i can say, if Australia stays free of varroa, you will not have a big problem with cerana. But if Australia gets varroa, then most of the feral mellifera colonies can get wiped out and this will give cerana a boost because the cerana can then utilise the empty space left behind by mellifera and resources. This could create problems in honey production industry because the commercial mellifera hives will need to be treated agaianst varroa for survivaland you dont get much honey from the strain of cerana you have in Australia. At the same time cerana will thrive and pollination by feral bees(cerana) may not be a problem.