Scottish Beekeepers Association - Volunteers Required

Scottish Beekeepers' Association
Supporting Scotland's Bees and Beekeepers

Scotland's New Honey Bee Health Strategy For 2022-2032

The Strategy was published on the 30th of June, and has been developed in conjunction with the Bee Health Improvement Partnership (BHIP). It has taken into account the review of the previous strategy and the results of the recent Scottish Government honey bee health survey. To download the Strategy please click here or on the image above.

Its main aim is “Working in partnership to achieve a healthy and sustainable population of honey bees in Scotland”.

The strategy details five pillars which will outline the ways of working which we will base our actions over the next 10 years:

1. Education, Training and Knowledge Transfer

2. Communication and partnership working across government, operational partners, stakeholders and all of those with an interest in honey bees in Scotland

3. Pest and Disease surveillance, prevention, diagnosis, and control

4. Research and Development.

5. On-going review of the regulatory framework

The Strategy will be the overarching document which will be accompanied by an Implementation Plan. This will be a ‘living’ document detailing more specifically the actions which the BHIP will deliver in order to achieve the desired outcomes for honey bee health in Scotland. The Plan will be updated regularly following quarterly BHIP meetings and published on the Scottish Government website on our Bee Health pages.

Additional background information and previous publications:

· Scotland’s first 10 year Honey Bee Health Strategy (Published June 2010)

· Review of the first 10 year strategy (Published October 2021)

· Honey Bee Heath Strategy Survey Report 2022 (Published March 2022)

Any additional questions should be directed to the Scottish Government’s Bee Health Team at: Bees_mailbox@gov.scot

The COLOSS CSI Pollen Project 2016

csi

The COLOSS CSI Pollen project has run successfully in Scotland in both 2014 and 2015. We are just starting it again in 2016, and many of our 2015 volunteers are continuing in 2016. A few have had to drop out however, and as a result we do have some spare pollen traps available for new volunteers this year. We are particularly short of volunteers from Angus and Fife.

What volunteers need:

Three colonies of honey-bees that will be kept in one location throughout the summer, preferably in National hives, but Smith hives will do.

Enough time to visit your apiary to close the traps on the hives for 24 hours on given week-ends at three week intervals throughout the summer. See the picture above!

About another hour or so where you - or if you suffer from colour-blindness, a friend with full colour vision - can sort the collected pollen pellets from your three hives into colour classes.

Access to an email account where the invitations to collect pollen can be sent, and from where your returns can be sent to the International Coordinator. Data returns consist of answers to a few simple questions.

Below is an example of the kind of colour sorting that you might do.

pollen

If you think you might like to participate, then please get in touch as soon as possible with the Scottish National Coordinator, Magnus Peterson, on magnus.peterson@strath.ac.uk and you will be sent full details along with the volunteers' Picture Manual with full instructions.

Magnus Peterson and Alison Gray, University of Strathclyde