While the presence of the bacterial disease in Mid Canterbury hives is so far limited to hobby beekeepers, without skilled management there’s a real risk it could spread to commercial hives, Ashburton beekeeper and New Zealand Beekeeping member Geoff Bongard said.
More than 40 beekeepers from across Mid and South Canterbury turned out to a meeting in Ashburton last week.
Bongard said the attendance represented a cross-section of beekeepers from experienced apiarists to some who are very new to the hobby.
The meeting addressed management measures and ensured less experienced beekeepers understand the seriousness of the disease, its management and regulation under the national pest management plan set in 1998 to eradicate AMF from NZ.
“It’s our industry’s equivalent to foot and mouth disease,” Bongard said.
“If the disease is not located and isolated it does have quite an impact. No other primary production activity has potential to spread a notifiable disease 5km away.”
Beekeepers affected by the outbreak were at the meeting but none of them could shed light on where their bees might have got the disease, Bongard said.
“This will now become a waiting game to see if other hives in the district succumb to AFB.”
The main directive that came from the meeting was the issue with beekeepers new to the game, consequently with minimal experience.
All beehives must be registered and are required to be examined by someone who has been approved to inspect and diagnose hives for AFB.
“This is extremely important as a hive with AFB will eventually die, any honey left in the hive will be stolen by robber bees from different apiaries.
“The honey in a hive infected with AFB can be very contaminated with the bacterial spores, robbing bees will take this honey home and infect their own hive so the problem escalates.”
AFB is very long term because clinical symptoms might not show for another year or 18 months and the disease cannot be confirmed in a live hive until clinical symptoms are obvious.
Beekeepers can send samples of bees away to have them analysed for AFB infection.
This service is free and can be accessed through AsureQuality at Lincoln or the NZ AFB website.
Hamilton beekeeper and NZ Beekeepers president Jane Lorimer said AFB is the most serious honey bee disease in NZ.
“There’s hot spots flaring up around the country and it’s of real concern to the industry,” she said.
In particular there have been flare-ups in Waikato, Auckland, Northland and now Canterbury.
“Over the past couple of years there’s been a significant increase in outbreaks of AFB reported,” Lorimer said.
“Our industry’s goal continues to be an eradication outcome but that will only come with a change of thinking.”
Lorimer said the manuka gold rush brought more people into the industry and that is contributing to the increasing prevalence of AFB.
“There’s a lot of people think they can make really big money out of it but there’s limited manuka resource and more and more beekeepers are going into the condensed areas, creating greater risk of spread.”
The other risk is the growing numbers of unskilled people entering the industry.
Antibiotics are used to manage AFB overseas but in NZ their use is illegal
“We get overseas beekeepers coming into the industry here and their skills and those of their staff are inadequate.
“We did have a good education programme available but because of the rapid increase in numbers the programme is now not big enough.”
In 2009 NZ had 2680 recorded beekeepers and 357,789 hives. Now there are 7975 beekeepers and 825,630 hives with 50% of the industry new entrants.
Changing technology means a resource review is needed to better and more efficiently support the AFB disease pest management strategy, Lorimer said.
AFB poses a serious risk to the horticultural industry in the North Island and the cropping sector in Canterbury if it continues to spread at the current rate, especially if it hits commercial beekeepers.
The kiwifruit sector takes upwards of 80,000 hives for pollination and with its industry growth up to 140,000 hives are expected to be needed in the near future.
“That’s a lot of bees being trucked around.
“If we lose significant numbers of hives it will have these sectors reliant on bees absolutely screaming as even though they are doing some artificial pollination it won’t be enough.”
While the AFB bacterial spores are deadly for bees they have no effect on human health and the honey is safe to eat.
