Editorial
I am afraid that I have to draw your attention for the second Newsletter in succession to another extremely serious threat to our bees. I was first made aware of the very serious nature of a ‘new’ parasitic mite at a National Honey Show Lecture about four years ago. This rapidly spreading threat is the Tropilaelaps mite (about 1/4 – 1/3 the size of a Varroa mite) which was identified in Georgia (about 2000 miles from the UK) last year, and it is suspected that it is also present in Belarus and Crimea. There is an article on page 14 in the October 2025 issue of BBKA News describing this mite and its effects; I think this is essential reading for all of us beekeepers. I am sure that we all think that varroa is bad enough, but this miteis so much more serious and the author ‘found herself questioning what joy will be left in beekeeping when faced with a constant battle to manage Tropilaelaps’, and she thinks ‘we should do all in our power to keep it out of the UK’. The author of the article, Maggie Gill, will be giving a talk on Zoom later this month, (see EVENTS IN OCTOBER, p. 2), and also a lecture at the National Honey Show on her experiences of Tropilaelaps inAsian countries. We may well wonder what we can do in order to deal with this latest threat. Well, there is one thing that we can all do: we should ensure that any queens we buy are not imported, (the suppliers do not always make this clear whether they are or not). The importing of queens (each with a few worker bees), which is going on with only limited government control, is a major source of entry of many ‘nasties’ such as Tropilaelaps. We should also support the petition to the government, detailed on page 4 of the September issue of BeeCraft, which seeks to ban the importation of queens to Great Britain via Northern Ireland. The petition can be supported via the link:
www.petition.Parliament.uk/petitions/726878
Tropilaelaps talk on Zoom, Tuesday 21st October, 7pm
Here is the invitation from the BBKA:
The next in our series of Zoom talks will be ‘Tropilaelaps’ with Maggie Gill on Tuesday 21st October 2025 at 7pm. A recording of this talk will be available afterwards on YouTube for those unable to watch live.
Maggie Gill has been involved in beekeeping for 20 years, producing queens and colonies on a small commercial scale and conducting research. As a senior scientist at Defra for the UK government, her focus is on how agri-environment land management affects pollinators as a part of the Future Farming and Countryside Programme. Additionally, Maggie spent 10 years working for the National Bee Unit as part of the UK governments bee health monitoring programme as both a seasonal and regional bee inspector.
Driven by her passion for bees and environmental conservation, Maggie has engaged in honey bee research, examining pollinator nutrition, as well as pests and diseases. Her collaborative efforts have spanned universities, government departments, and research institutes across Europe, North America, and Asia.
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81233819992?pwd=DYMZxTImJjpRCLJjYjvbIxgybQQdSZ.1
Meeting ID: 812 3381 9992 Passcode: 527929