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Beekeepers in Dannevirke are destroying hives after an American foulbrood (AFB) outbreak left their bees infected and at risk of spreading the bacterial disease.
A spokesperson for the Management Agency for the National American Foulbrood Pest Management Plan said as of Thursday there were three confirmed affectedapiaries or bee yards within a 2.5km radius of downtown Dannevirke.
“We suspect AFB has spread in the area from at least two different locations to affect these three different apiaries.”
AFB is a serious and infectious honeybee brood disease that is present in almost all countries where honeybees are found. The spokesperson said the outbreak had come from an unknown source over the past two weeks.
“It does not affect adult bees, but affects honeybee colonies when adult nurse bees feed spores to honeybee larva.”
There have been three confirmed cases of the AFB outbreak in Dannevirke.
They said the likely source of the outbreak was infected hives that were robbed of honey by foraging honey bees from another colony over winter because the infection has a long incubation period, ranging from a few weeks to 12 months.
“AFB is already prevalent in New Zealand at low levels (0.28% of all honeybee colonies in New Zealand for the current financial year) in most areas where bees are kept within managed honeybee colonies.”
The spokesperson said there was a strong possibility the AFB was present in unregistered apiaries in the area.
“If the owners of these hives don’t know how to identify the disease, they could be an ongoing source of AFB infections to neighbouring beekeepers.”
The spokesperson said not dealing with, or transferring ownership of hives or other beekeeping equipment associated with an AFB case, was crucial.
They said the best advice for beekeepers was to register the location of all hives with the National American Foulbrood Pest Management Plan to ensure an inspector would check and verify that no AFB is present.
Once the disease has been identified by a beekeeper, it needs to be reported to the management agency within seven days.
All infected hives and associated gear must be destroyed by fire within seven days and beekeepers must also implement quarantine measures to reduce the onward spread.
Rhys Flack, director of Arataki Honey in Hawke’s Bay, said he was not aware of the outbreak further south.
Flack said it was a growing problem for the beekeeping industry because it needed “constant management”.
Arataki Honey visitor centre manager Liz McNeill and export manager Rhys Flack.
“It’s a problem the beekeeping industry has been living with in New Zealand for 50 years plus, so it just needs constant vigil management.”
The True Honey Co chief executive and founder Jim McMillan said his teams were also unaware of the outbreak in Dannevirke.
“They haven’t been affected in any way, they have been thoroughly checking and preparing all our hives for placement for manuka honey production and haven’t experienced any cases of AFB within our hives.”
Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities.
