Beekeeper Laurence Edwards argues that killing honey bee colonies is rarely necessary. Aggressive bees can be calmed by re-queening for about £50, and wild colonies can be relocated through humane removal services. Only American Foulbrood disease justifies destruction, enforced by the National Bee Unit.
Stop killing your colonies of bees. Do this instead. So that's going to seem like a very strange intro. I'm a beekeeper. I love bees. But why do beekeepers kill colonies of bees? In this video, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about why sometimes there is a requirement to kill bees, and I'm going to try and debunk some of the reasons for actually killing that colony and provide you with an alternative instead. It just seems like absolute craziness to me. Everyone wants to save the bees, and whether that's a good term to use or not is another argument, definitely for another video. But I do see on Facebook, on the internet, various instances where people are killing their colonies of bees or they're killing wild colonies of bees. Personally, I have never ever killed a single colony of bees. I do understand though that there are some very few instances where that might actually be the only thing that you can do. But in this video, I just want to talk to you about all of the other things that you can do before you have to resort To killing your bees. So the first thing I want to talk about is anger, aggression, and temperament. And I'm not talking about me when I get a little bit grumpy, I'm talking about angry colonies of bees. I see people get pinged by bees, they get stung, they get hurt, and they say, that's it, I've had enough, I'm killing the colony, I'm going to pour petrol on them, and that's it, I've had enough with the bees. That is an absolute cop-out. Do not kill your bees because they're aggressive. Seriously, Speak to a local beekeeping association, speak to a professional beekeeper, and ask them to help you assess your options. Requeening an angry colony of bees with a mated queen of known origin that's really calm will transform them in a matter of maybe 6 to 8 weeks. Definitely within 6 months, you will not have any of those horrible genetics left, and you've saved that colony of bees. You didn't need to kill it, and it's probably going to have cost you about £50. I'd say that's the number one reason I see for people killing their colonies. Of bees. I would never kill a colony of bees because of that, and no, I don't think you should do it either. Add a mated queen, or if you just don't want to keep bees anymore, give those bees away to a professional beekeeper. They will take care of them, they will sort them out. That's one colony of bees that isn't going to get killed. The next reason for killing a colony of bees is killing a wild colony of bees that has set up their home, set up their environment in somewhere that doesn't suit you. This could be in your porch, under your decking, in your chimney, anywhere that's unsuitable for humans, and you think, I don't I don't like the bees buzzing around the place. I'm going to get a pest controller to come in and I'm going to get them to kill that colony of bees. That's also high up on the list as to why colonies of bees are killed. There is another option though, and this is becoming ever more popular in the US and the UK. So I was approached on my emails by a gentleman called Martin Belcher. He's a fan of the channel and he wanted me to do a little bit of promotion about a Facebook group that's been set up in the UK that do humane bee removals. I'm all for this. I'm going to stick the link up. I'll put a link up there. I'll put it in the description as well. If you are in the UK, you can go onto this Facebook group here and you've got an option to take those bees away. They'll take them away, cut them out, put them into a beehive, give them everything that they need, and you have saved the destruction of that colony of bees. I know it seems easy calling the pest controller in. They'll spray it with something nasty. Trust me, the things that they spray it with are absolutely horrible. And then you get wild bees coming in as well, or bees from my beehives going and foraging on the leftover gunk that's left in the chimney and they bring back the poisons into my beehives as well. It's not good for the bees because they're dead and it's definitely not good for the environment. I've given you another option there. Hit that link, check out that Facebook group. That is a humane bee relocation service and they take on some super challenging projects. So we've spoken about 2 options there, 2 options to save bees that otherwise potentially could have been killed. The third— Hello? Hi, will you be back at 5? Yep. Because Hannah was saying about the new— Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I was missing something. All right, bye. The 3rd and final scenario that I'm going to talk about is disease, and here is the only real reason in my view where you should be killing a colony of bees. And I know that sounds really harsh, and people will probably look at this video and think, you're a beekeeper, there should never be a reason for you to kill a colony of bees. But if I have the bee inspectors round and they identify that my colony has got AFB, There is no other option other than to kill those bees. It seems a little bit harsh, it seems like a massive sacrifice, but what you're doing is you're sacrificing those bees for the greater good of all of the wild bees in the area, all of the bees within my apiary. AFB can spread really, really quickly, and the National Bee Unit in the UK are all over this to make sure that it doesn't spread and all cases identified quickly, and then all beehives within the surrounding areas are monitored for signs of AFB. So for me, I'd be quite comfortable killing colony of bees because they had AFB. It would never feel right. I certainly wouldn't enjoy it, but for the greater good of the wider bee population, I think it's a necessary evil in some instances. Difficult conversation, that one. No one likes to talk about killing bees. That is the only instance where I would ever dispatch a colony. If you want to see what the National Bee Unit inspectors look like, how they come along and inspect my colonies, check out this video here. We had a full visit from the bee inspectors last year.
