After losing 2/3rds of his bees a Shropshire farmer imports £10K of Italian bees.
This is going to be a regular expenditure for this farmer unless there is a change of course. Forage yields have dropped dramatically for bees over 40 years while bee stresses continue to rise (mono-crops, pesticides, varroa, beekeeping bad practice, weather). Understanding the fact that the landscape for bees has changed leads to conclusion that is not a problem that can be fixed with cash. Importing a genetic pool of climatically ill suited bees just adds another stress.