Bee Zaagar - Apiary and Beekeeping News

Beekeepers back moves to keep out killer varroa bee mite

By TIM CRONSHAW

01 July 2005 - Beekeepers are throwing their weight behind a new agency in charge of keeping a honey-bee killer out of the South Island. The Varroa Agency Incorporated (VIA) will today take over from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in controlling the movement of bees to prevent the varroa bee mite from crossing Cook Strait.

The New Zealand Bee Industry Group chairman, Milton Jackson, said beekeepers were right behind the new agency and prepared to pay the $2 levy per hive towards a national strategy for managing varroa.

"Everything that can be done will be done – we are quite confident of that. The new agency is stepping up surveillance and MAF's surveillance was right down to a minimum because of a lack of funding because the Government would not throw any more funding at it."

VIA chairman Duncan Butcher said the South Island should remain free of varroa for years to come, as long as movement-control conditions were closely stuck to.

"Movement controls have kept varroa out of the South Island for over five years already, which reflects the high level of compliance and support from beekeepers in both islands."

Varroa was first detected in Auckland in 2000 and has now spread throughout the North Island.

The movement of live bees into the South Island has since been prohibited, while other beekeeping and bulk bee product goods need a permit.

Under the VIA, transport controls of some materials to the South Island have been increased.

The range of restricted goods has been extended to include bulk wine grapes, unprocessed logs, and buildings, because bees have been linked to their movement in the past.

Their transport will also need permits to reduce the risk of accidentally introducing varroa.

Butcher said the VIA would work closely with beekeepers, local authorities and AgriQuality to control bee movement, surveillance and varroa awareness.

He said the changes would not impact on day-to-day beekeeping activities.

Jackson said beekeepers and pastoral farmers would be out of pocket by big money if the mite arrived south. North Island beekeepers were paying $45 to $50 a year to lay mite strips in each hive.

Grapes had been included on the restricted-movement list after Blenheim beekeepers became alarmed about the transportation of grapes on open trucks, especially when loading occurs during the day when bees are flying, he said.

The VIA will begin putting more effort into auditing the movement of risk goods and increasing awareness of movement controls over the next few months.

Biosecurity New Zealand's senior policy analyst, Paul Bolger, said the handing over of varroa responsibility was brought about by a new national pest-management strategy for the bee pest.

He said it was in line with other strategies for bovine tuberculosis and American foulbrood disease of bees.

Funding of the $720,000-a-year strategy will come from rates by South Island councils as well as the levy from the beekeeping industry.

Nelson councils have refused to contribute to the varroa agency and believe it should be funded by the Government.

New rules keep bees mite free

July 4, 2005 - CBC News - A west coast company's lobby efforts have paid off after the provincial government brought in restrictions on importing honey bees. The Newfoundland Bee Company says the new rules will protect the purity of the province's bee and honey industries.

Newfoundland and Labrador is one of the few places in the world where bee colonies aren't infested by the Honey Bee Tracheal mite and the Varroa mite.

Tracheal mites suck the blood in a bee's respiratory system. Too many mites in a bee's system can cause it to suffocate. Varroa mites can cause deformed bees and weakened colonies.

Andrea Skinner, a part owner of the Newfoundland Bee Company, says the local industry has been lucky.

"To keep bees alive in the rest of the world they have to treat with a lot of different chemicals, and we don't have to do any of that here," she says.

Skinner lobbied the provincial government to stop the importation of bees from other provinces and other countries where the mites are present.

"That's the legislation that the Department of Natural Resources has brought in. No adult bees into the province, and they have to be inspected, or from a certified area," she says.

The new regulations went into effect this April.

Varroa mite concern in US

6 Apr 2005 - The prevalence of varroa mite among bees in the US is causing concern among fruit growers.

Key export crops such as apples, cherries, strawberries and cranberries could all be affected to varying degrees if a new treatment to control the bee parasite is not found, or a new mite-resistant bee developed.

Beehives are being shipped around the vast country to areas where they are required and even imported from as far away as Australia in order to meet fruit-crop pollination needs. “We’ve never seen a crisis of this magnitude of loss of bees,” American Beekeeping Federation president David Ellingson said.