Bee Vaccine
Global population and changing climate is the greatest challenge for our bee's and remember folks without bee's we cant harvest fresh food. So we would all eventually die if all the bee's died. A time line figure banded about is four years for this to happen , if all our bee's died.
The vaccine is to prevent a disease call foulbrood. Its the first ever bee vaccine and is added to their food. Foulbrood is an aggressive bacterial disease. The prophylactic vaccine prevenst the bacteria spreading quicky from hive to hive. The previous treatment was to burn all hives.So you have to feed it to the bees'.
As of next year I am stopping feeding my bee's because I am trying them to be totally sustainable, this means I will also reduce the amount of honey I take from my bee's . I used to sell honey is jars, but extraction and filtration is really hard work and takes days, so I only sell honey comb that is cut from bee frames of honey from now on.
All I know is that the environment's worldwide are in crisis, and so are bee's . They are confused about the weather, as it fluctuates so they go out foraging in January when there are no flowers or crops to pollinate for example. This is behaviour I witness in my apiary. I am also aware that the USA lost 50% of its total honey bee population last year, and the war in Ukraine has also destroyed a great many bee farmers sites. Any changes, including vaccines are welcome, as we need bee's.
My customers are lucky to buy fresh honey from me, when ever I sell it usually in Leicester city centre on a Friday lunch time, during the summer, when the sun is out, and it sells fast. I also make limited apprearances in the town centre because I only tend to produce around 100 kg of honey per year.
I guess a bee vaccine is good news in a world predominately dominated by bad news.
My primary interest these days is in bee breeding and selling bee's to as many people as possible, because we need more insects in this country, not less.
Remember if you wish to buy any bee's or start bee keeping, please get in touch by pressing on the 'click me' icon on my website and sending me a message.
Happy Beekeeping folks!