User's Guide to the Pest Management Strategy

Prepared by Mark Goodwin, Peter Sales, Bruce Stevenson and Nick Wallingford

Background to the Strategy

The Apiaries Act provided the legal powers to control American foulbrood for over 90 years. It was replaced in 1993 by the Biosecurity Act, and using this Act, the National Beekeepers' Association has created the Biosecurity (National American Foulbrood Pest Management Strategy) Order 1998, which came into force on 1 October 1998.

The aim of our strategy is to eliminate American foulbrood disease (AFB) from New Zealand.

The PMS will be used to both encourage and require beekeepers to rid New Zealand of American foulbrood disease for good. Elimination of AFB can be achieved - we are already well on the way. Using the principles of the PMS over the last few years, we are progressively ridding the country of AFB.

Beekeepers who put honest effort into reducing AFB will be encouraged to rid their hives of this disease through the agreements (called 'DECAs') they have with the Management Agency. They will be able to call on all of the expertise and information we now have available to help them.

Those very few beekeepers who fail to control AFB in their hives, whether through neglect or ignorance, will no longer be able to avoid their responsibilities. They will not be allowed to perpetuate the problem that affects the entire beekeeping industry.

Put simply, if you don't attempt to do the job right, someone will do the job for you and send you the bill. The choice is yours...

Purpose of This Guide

This guide has been written to make beekeepers aware of their obligations under the new legislation. Most of these obligations are the same as, or at least equivalent to, those in the Apiaries Act. The Guide is not intended to provide all the detail covered in the Biosecurity Act and the PMS Order in Council, but rather to attempt to isolate out most of the important points.

Legal jargon has also been avoided to make it more understandable. This Guide is only a summary of selected parts of the Act and the PMS Order and should be treated as such, rather than as a legal document.

The Management Agency

The legislation names the National Beekeepers' Association as the Management Agency responsible for implementing the strategy.

In fact, the Management Agency employs contractors to carry out many of its duties under the Pest Management Strategy. The main contractor is AgriQuality NZ (formerly MAFQual). Any questions you have about the operation of the PMS should be directed to your local AgriQuality NZ officer.

If you are not able to contact them, you can contact the Management Agency directly. Any time you need to write about an an 'operational' aspect of the PMS (such as for registering hives, gaining permissions, notifying AFB or notifying actions you have taken, etc.) the correspondence should be directed to AgriQuality NZ (unless you are instructed to do otherwise.

AgriQuality NZ will pass on to the Management agency any of your correspondence that is required by the Management Agency.

Additional Information

If you require additional information on the strategy or AFB control, the following documents are available:

The Biosecurity Act 1993, from bookshops that supply government publications
The American Foulbrood Pest Management Strategy from the Management Agency
The AFB disease elimination manual from the Management Agency
"Starting with Bees" booklet from the Management Agency

Education and Other Services

The Management Agency is putting in place several educational opportunities that beekeepers should try to participate in. These include:

annual branch AFB elimination field days held throughout the country
AFB Disease Recognition and Destruction courses, and
Disease Recognition and Destruction Competency Tests

You will be contacted about these when they are held in your area.

The Management Agency also provides a laboratory service if you need confirmation of a suspected case of AFB. If you wish to use this service, contact your local AgriQuality NZ (formerly MAFQual) Apicultural Officer who will tell you what you need to do to use the service.

What is a 'DECA'?

A Disease Elimination Conformity Agreement, or DECA, is a formal agreement between you as a beekeeper and the Management Agency. The agreement sets out a 'code of beekeeping practice' to ensure that the incidence of AFB in your hives will reduce to zero over a period of time and remain at that level once achieved. Scientific and case study knowledge show that this goal is attainable if beekeepers follow the correct procedures.

The DECA agreements will be tailored to suit each beekeeper's particular circumstances. If you have little or no AFB you won't need to change your beekeeping procedures much, if at all. Beekeepers with progressively more serious AFB incidence in their hives will need tighter controls and more attention to detail in order to reduce the incidence.

In consultation with the Management Agency or the contractors, you will be able to review your procedures over time to ensure that the goal of AFB elimination is reached. The aim is to use these agreements to ensure that you get all the help and advice available to eliminate AFB from your beehives, and hence, from all beehives in the country!

Who Should Have a DECA?

Hopefully nearly every beekeeper, however many hives, will eventually have a DECA. Remember, the PMS applies to any and every beekeeper, hobbyist and commercial. There will be some who, for a number of reasons, will not enter into an agreement to control AFB.

If you take up the offer of a DECA, you will need to show your proficiency in AFB identification and control by passing a Disease Recognition and Destruction Competency Test. This test can be sat "cold" or after completing a Disease Recognition and Destruction course. These courses will be made available to all beekeepers at centres throughout New Zealand.

If you enter into a DECA and pass the test you will have Approved Beekeeper status and you will receive a Certificate of Inspection exemption. You will not have to complete a Certificate of Inspection each year for your hives.

Without a DECA...

Those beekeepers who fail to respond to the Management agency's offer to enter into a DECA agreement will be, for the purposes of the PMS, "unapproved" beekeepers. These beekeepers must furnish a Certificate of Inspection each year for their hives.

This certificate must be completed by an Approved Beekeeper, or by Management Agency personnel. Most beekeepers will incur some cost to have this work done for them.

Providing the Certificate of Inspection is not optional. If the beekeeper fails to arrange for this to happen the Management agency will authorise a contractor to do that work and the beekeeper will be liable to pay for the services.

Beekeepers who do not pass the competency test must furnish a Certificate of Inspection each year, again completed by an Approved Beekeeper, or by Management Agency personnel. These beekeepers will need to complete the Disease Recognition and Destruction course and pass the test before a DECA will be issued.

Obligations for All Beekeepers

AFB - Exposure

You must not allow honeybees to have access to any hive, equipment or products that have come from an AFB hive. You must not extract the honey from an AFB hive

AFB - Destruction of Hives

You must destroy by burning any of your hives that have AFB within 7 days of it being found, unless you have written permission from the Management Agency to do otherwise.

AFB - Moving Hives

You may not transfer ownership of any AFB hives or infected equipment or products or remove the hives or equipment from the place where it was found without permission of the Management Agency. You may move the diseased hives or equipment, however, if you have a provision in your DECA allowing you to transport diseased hives to a safe place for destruction.

AFB - Notification

If AFB is found in your hives you must notify the Management Agency in writing within 7 days.

AFB - Sterilizing

This can only be done with permission of the Management Agency, using methods that they have approved.

Annual Disease Return

Before 1 June each year you must, on the form mailed to you by the contractor:

record the number of hives you have
the number of AFB hives found during the previous year (if any), the dates on which they were found and where they were found, and the dates that you destroyed them.
any changes to the apiary information you have supplied to the Management Agency
the dates on which you transferred the ownership of any of your hives to someone else, providing the name and address of the new owner.

Apiaries - Registration

An apiary is any group of your hives that are more than 200 meters from any other apiary that you have registered. The apiary must be registered with the Management Agency if hives are to remain more than 30 days. When registering the apiary you will need to state:

your full name and address
the number of colonies in the apiary
the name and initials of the occupier of the property
the road name and address of the property
a written description of where the apiary is on the property
a 260 map series grid reference
whether it is seasonal (stating the months it is usually occupied) or permanent.

If you have a permanent apiary site that has been unoccupied for 30 days or more you must deregister it. You will therefore need to deregister all your permanent apiaries that are not occupied between 1 October and 1 November this year, or alternatively change them to seasonal apiaries if you intend to use them in the next 12 months.

Approved Beekeepers

Any beekeeper can become an Approved Beekeeper by:

having an American foulbrood disease control plan (known as a 'DECA') for their hives that has been approved by the Management Agency and
having sat and passed, or agreed to sit and pass within a specified period, an AFB Disease Recognition and Destruction Competency Test.

Certificate of inspection

Unless you are an Approved Beekeeper you must ensure all of your hives are inspected by an Approved Beekeeper between 1 August and 30 November each year. You must complete the Certificate of Inspection form, which details the inspection, and forward it to the Management Agency within 14 days of the inspection. The Approved Beekeeper that carries out the inspection will need to fill out parts of the certificate, including signing off the form.

Change of ownership

When you transfer the ownership of your hives you must remove or deface all of your codes on the hives and notify the Management Agency that you have done it. You also need to give them the name and address of the new owner of the hives.

Code numbers

The current beekeeper code numbers will continue and new beekeepers will be given new code numbers. The code number must be marked on the outside of one hive in each apiary or on a sign in the apiary. Only the beekeeper who was allocated a code may remove or alter the code (without written permission from the Management Agency).

You should not have any other person's code number on your hives, or any other number that could be confused with a code number. In reality many beekeepers have equipment in their apiaries they have purchased from other beekeepers over the years. Considering the difficulty of removing code numbers while equipment is in use, it will be considered sufficient in the meantime to remove any confusion by erecting a sign in the apiary with the correct apiary code number.

Compensation

No compensation will be paid by the Management Agency for any losses occurred by beekeepers in having to comply with the Pest Management Strategy.

Drugs

You must not feed any substance to your bees that has the effect of obscuring AFB or attempting to 'cure' it.

Hives - access

You must ensure that the area around your hives is kept free from vegetation to allow normal access.

Hives - moveable frames

You must keep your bees in moveable frame hives. Exemptions may be granted by the Management Agency for research, queen rearing, package bees and public display.

Unregistered/abandoned hives

The Management Agency will take reasonable steps to find the owner of unregistered apiaries. If they are unable to locate the owner they may destroy the hives.

To ensure that the Pest Management Strategy works for the benefit of all beekeepers the Management Agency may have to enforce compliance of the above obligations. This enforcement may take the form of any or all of

canceling beekeeper's approved status
conducting the above obligations on behalf of the beekeeper and sending them an account for the work done, and
bringing a prosecution under the Biosecurity Act.

You will have notice that you may need to contact the Management Agency to gain permission for a number of things that you have been doing already (e.g. keeping bees in non-moveable frame hives, wax dipping, moving AFB hives to a central location to deal with them etc ). This is not a change, as you have always required permission. It was just that it was not enforced before so people didn't bother. The best policy would be for beekeepers to seek permission in writing early on. Indeed, it is an integral part of the DECA agreements that most beekeepers will have with the Management Agency. In most cases the permission will be granted automatically as part of your DECA, although the permission will probably be conditional.

So What Do I Have to Do?

Because of all of the changes and the short time frames, the 1998 season will be challenging for both you, the beekeeper, and for the Management Agency.

Obviously, since the system is just starting, there are currently no Approved Beekeepers. Don't be concerned, having read the information about the PMS in this Guide, that you are suddenly breaching the rules and will have action taken. It isn't going to work that way...

During the spring of 1998, you will get the opportunity to complete a DECA application form. In the meantime, you should inspect each of your hives (as has always been your obligation) and report and destroy diseased hives within 7 days of finding them.

For many/most beekeepers, you can expect a confirmation of acceptance of your DECA application within a short time. As the whole system is new, though, more complicated DECAs may not be accepted until later in the season. You will also be contacted regarding AFB field days, the AFB course and the test within the next 12 months.

All beekeepers will need to complete an Annual Disease Declaration form when it is sent to you next autumn.

Conclusion

The prospect of being able to keep bees in a country free of AFB is exciting. It will save the beekeepers of New Zealand millions of dollars, and much stress and heartache. Almost every beekeeper in the country has had to deal with this disease at some time or another. We would all love to see the end of it. It really can be achieved. So let's do it!

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