Issues and Trends
The Pest Management Strategy for American Foulbrood became law in October 1998. The National Beekeepers'Association (NBA) is responsible for managing and funding the programme. They raise money for the strategy, as well as other activities, by way of an apiary levy which all beekeepers with more than 10 hives and/or more than three apiaries must pay. Evasion of the levy, the costs of levy collection, the management of NBA affairs and the strategy continue to be controversial. The NBA is struggling to design and adopt a management and financial structure that is appropriate to the business it conducts. Currently the executive are all volunteer beekeepers supported by a professional secretarial service.
The varroa mite has disrupted the industry in the Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty areas since its discovery in April 2000. It will continue to have a significant effect on all New Zealand beekeepers and dependant industries, whether an attempt is made to eradicate it or not.
Many issues are still to be resolved if varroa is declared endemic. These include movement control of bees to the South Island, surveillance of South Island hives for varroa to ensure area freedom, registration of chemicals to treat the mite, and residue testing.
The cost of treating varroa will be significant, assuming Apistan miticide strips can be registered in New Zealand. Beekeepers will need to use 2-4ÿstrips/hive per treatment and two treatments per year. The strips are expected to retail for over $4 each so each hive treated could cost $16-$32/year depending on the size of its bee population. Application costs of the treatments and increased hive management costs, which will be needed to combat the mite, are extra.
If a significant number of hives are depopulated in an attempt to eradicate varroa (over 76,000 hives could be involved over the 2000/01 season), there may not be enough hives left in the North Island to repopulate these in time for pollination requirements in the spring of 2001. This number represents 44% of the hives in the North Island and 25% of New Zealand's total hive numbers.
Currently there are few imports of honey into New Zealand so beekeepers have a protected market. However, there is the risk of importing Melissococcus pluton, the bacterium that causes the exotic bee disease European foulbrood. The bacteria could enter New Zealand in honey, bee products and on live bees. Honey can be heat sterilised but beekeepers are not convinced on the effectiveness of the heat treatment or the certifying processes of foreign governments. Whether bee products are imported or not, depends on the assessed risk that product poses to the New Zealand beekeeping industry. The NBA is working with MAF on revising the risk assessment for imports of all bees and bee products.
The continued move by supermarkets to generic packaging (around 47% of honey retail packs are sold as generic house brands) is concerning the industry, as is competition from other spreads.
The NBA contracts a marketing consultant to help in branding honey. Some success has been achieved with the discovery of antibiotic properties in manuka honey. Research is under way to find other honeys with unique therapeutic properties as well as unique ways to exploit the antibiotic properties of manuka, such as impregnating bandages and dressings with manuka honey.
Other marketing initiatives are going into promoting honeys by named floral sources, and developing unique descriptions and uses for these honeys.
About 30 beekeepers are producing organic products either through Bio-Gro or AgriQuality's Certenz programme. The effect of varroa and the need to use chemical controls on organic production is unknown at this stage. Similarly, the effect on compliance for organic orchards or crops of having pollination hives with miticide strips in them is unknown.
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Farm Monitoring Programme Manager
Monitoring and Evaluation
MAF Policy
PO Box 2526
Wellington
NEW ZEALAND
Phone: +64 4 894 0623
Fax: +64 4 894 0741
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