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Author Topic: Can you confirm this?  (Read 1788 times)

Offline BjornBee

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Can you confirm this?
« on: March 09, 2012, 01:52:09 pm »
I had an interesting chat with a beekeeper this morning. We were talking about packages and he mentioned that one of the local guys who normally has bees available very early in the season, had his order pushed back into the last half of May. He would normally have packages the first week of April.

He asked if I knew why this happened? I said I had no clue as this person has been dealing with the same outfit for years and I was surprised that he was bumped.

He stated that some of the big package producers were shipping bees overseas and pushing domestic orders back. Seems from what he said, China and a few other places were paying upwards of 350 dollars per package as long as they were filled within a certain timeframe.

I know I started hearing of delays very early this year, but was thinking it would be the standard week delay due to weather, etc. And delays are a part of the beekeeping industry. But are we now an exporter of packages, and missing the season here while U.S. packages are headed overseas?

Anyone hear anything concerning this?
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Offline rdy-b

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Re: Can you confirm this?
« Reply #1 on: March 09, 2012, 03:02:11 pm »
  yea china needs $350 packages so they can produce honey at 50 cents a pound
not likely- :-D maybe they should buy africanized bees from Mexico i hear the make alot of honey--RDY-B

Offline backyard warrior

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Re: Can you confirm this?
« Reply #2 on: March 09, 2012, 03:09:38 pm »
i dont doubt any of it Mike we gave everything else away why not the bees.   

Offline BlueBee

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Re: Can you confirm this?
« Reply #3 on: March 09, 2012, 03:12:40 pm »
Is selling a package for the alleged $350 a "give away"!

I'm with Rdy-bee, it doesn't make economic sense.  But I could be wrong  :-D

Offline AllenF

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Re: Can you confirm this?
« Reply #4 on: March 09, 2012, 04:01:52 pm »
I don't believe we ship any bees to China.   They can raise bees year round in south China and import form packages from there.   I just don't see it.  I googled shipping bees to China and all I got was importing honey.

Offline BjornBee

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Re: Can you confirm this?
« Reply #5 on: March 09, 2012, 04:33:10 pm »
I am not suggesting we are, just trying to find out if we do.

However, I find some of the replies very interesting.

Wouldn't suggesting that they could raise all the bees they need down south, and suggesting they would not need to import bees, be on par or exactly what happened to the U.S. just in the past 5 years? You would think that with our southern producers there would be no need for importation of bees to the U.S.  But we imported thousands of packages.

Is China impervious to the same problems seen around the world with huge bee losses? They use fluvalinate like it is going out of style. So mites are a huge problem.

And China also uses other chemicals that would not surprise me if it contributed to the demise of many beehives. They still use DDT, and other chemicals, which should surprise nobody.

I also remember seeing footage somewhere that had some regions of China hand pollinating crops for the lack of bees. Of course I always wondered how they were exporting millions of pounds of honey if they didn't even have enough bees to pollinate crops. But don't we also produce a good bit of honey here in the states while claiming to not have enough bees over the years of late to pollinate? Truth is, most of our imported honey does not come from China. It comes from Canada, and South America. But China is the whipping poster child when it comes to appeasing those anti-Import types. Not sticking up for China, just pointing out that media and press hype make this a bigger thing than it is sometimes.

It would not surprise me if China needed bees. And I am sure if they did, it would not be for justification of producing honey. I would think that it probably has to do with food production. And when we pay 175 dollars for one single pollinated crop such as Almonds, how much would a package bring for the right market if absolutely needed?

Just remember a few things....it was not until a bunch of beekeepers started chatting that foreign Chinese pollen was confirmed being passed along to beekeepers a few years back. And it was kept a secret for most for a few years that bees out of almond pollination were being used in the package industry. And to this day, there are migratory beekeepers who deny that any illegal chemicals were ever used in the bee industry.

So sometimes it takes a few beekeepers chatting on a forum, or some beekeepers asking the right questions, for the real story to come out.

It would not suprise me at all if this situation turned out to be true. And it would not surprise me if China was in desperate need of packages.
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Offline rdy-b

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Re: Can you confirm this?
« Reply #6 on: March 09, 2012, 05:02:41 pm »
 this is hoe they been doing it for the past 20 years they dont need our $350 packages

 http://www.apinews.com/en/news/item/12780-china-hand-pollination  i saw a video about this
  :) RDY-B

 http://www.beewatchers.com/2010/02/why-not-just-bring-in-more-bees.html

Offline AllenF

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Re: Can you confirm this?
« Reply #7 on: March 09, 2012, 06:00:30 pm »
One thing to remember, in red china,  labor is cheap, maybe cheaper than a honey bee.   And if the state may decide to employ thousands climbing trees to pollinate rather than paying them to do something else like raising bees.   Easier to train someone to climb a tree than to raise bees.  With farming practices becoming less labor intensive, you have to do something with all these farm boys.   

Also, I just think it would be cheaper to import Aussie bees in the springtime.   Or Indian, Viet Nam, or S. American bees.  I would like to see some articles/documentation on this.