Inquiry as apiarists split over varroa strategy for South Island

5.00pm

Beekeepers have split so badly over plans for managing the destructive varroa mites threatening the South Island that the Government is to stage a ministerial inquiry.

A board of inquiry will be held into the proposed varroa national pest management strategy, "due to a lack of agreement among South Island beekeepers," Biosecurity Minister Jim Sutton said today.

Mr Sutton said submissions he received showed some apiarists were opposed to the strategy on technical grounds -- such as the feasibility of eradication -- while others considered it an essential means of keeping the South Island free of varroa.

"Due to the diversity of opinion among South Island beekeepers, I have called for a board of inquiry," he said. This would give all interested parties a chance to put their views to an independent body.

The bee-killing varroa mite has spread through much of the North Island but has still not been found in the South Island. The South Island has 135,000 of the country's 300,000 managed hives.

The cost of varroa becoming established in the South Island has been documented at up to $433 million in the worst case scenario -- although much of the cost would be damage to export industries for small herbage seed, such as clover seed, and pastoral farming which relies on bee pollination of clover in pasture.

But a 2001 study showed the added cost of managing hives infested with varroa could force up to 40 per cent of South Island beekeepers out of the industry.

The proposed strategy contains measures to prevent the mite from spreading to the South Island and to ensure its early detection should it arrive in the South Island.

The strategy was proposed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) varroa planning group, made up of representatives from the arable, pastoral, horticultural and beekeeping industries, local government and MAF.

The Board of Inquiry will hold hearings and review the proposal and submissions made on it, before providing Mr Sutton with recommendations on the proposed strategy. The appointment of members of the board of inquiry has started with the board expected to be appointed by the end of April.

MAF would maintain existing Cook Strait movement controls on all beekeeping equipment until Mr Sutton had received the board's recommendations and made a decision on the strategy. MAF was also carrying out varroa surveillance in high-risk areas of the South Island this autumn.

According to New Zealand Bee Industry Group chairman Milton Jackson, the proposed strategy is "a great insurance policy" for the South Island. Varroa mite is estimated to have cut the national bee population by at least 10 per cent in the past three years.

The planning group said it believed, if left uncontrolled, varroa could cost the South Island between $198 million to $434 million over 32 years.

"The bee industry is being asked to meet about one-third of the cost of the proposal," Mr Jackson said. "To spend about $2 a hive to keep varroa out of the South Island for as long as possible is a lot better than $25-plus a hive in treatment when varroa arrives."

But an Ashburton beekeeper Roger Bray, has told the Canterbury Regional Council that he does not want to see money "wasted" on the varroa strategy.

"It's a crook deal," Mr Bray said. "This strategy will cost the South Island $7 million over 10 years and it's not going to do a bloody thing."

The idea behind a surveillance strategy was to destroy any hive the varroa was found in -- which would put the unfortunate beekeeper out of business, Mr Bray said.

He said the eradication strategy was abandoned in the North Island, partly because not all beekeepers complied.

The Government has told southern beekeepers that it will spend up to $5 million on an eradication programme, if such a programme is feasible when the mite reaches the South Island. When the mite was found near Auckland in 2000, eradication was torpedoed because it would have been too big a campaign, too costly, and too hard.

Some other commentators have also claimed that apiarists with big pollination contracts on Bay of Plenty kiwifruit orchards threatened to sabotage any eradication effort that stopped them fulfilling the contracts and exposed them to financial penalties.

The South Island strategy would cost $7 million over 10 years, or about $700,000 a year. South Island regional councils will pick up about $530,000 of the annual cost and beekeepers will contribute the remaining $200,000. That works out at about $2 a hive for each of the South Island's 135,000 managed hives.

Both Federated Farmers and the Bee Industry Group told the Canterbury regional council that they supported the strategy and its funding from beekeepers and landowners.

But Michael Wraight, Nelson branch secretary of the National Beekeepers Association -- from which the Bee Industry Group is a splinter -- said his organisation viewed the figures for potential cost caused by varroa, in an economic study carried out by the planning group as a "scare tactic" and that a solution would be found before the mite caused that much damage.

Mr Wraight also said that the association did not believe that any proposed eradication programme would work. "Eradication will leave residues that would continue to affect hives."

Surveillance was also an issue and beekeepers were looking for a guarantee that infected hives would be picked up as soon as possible.

Rather than dealing with eradication, beekeepers wanted to see their money being spent to keep varroa out of the South Island.

- NZPA