If only NZ beeks had access to the gamma sterilisation plant like the Aussies do - for SBA, all gear can be put through, so has a totally clean bill of health.
AFB plan review
- Thread starter John B
- Start date
most older beeks know the risks and don't buy 2nd hand gear, they buy hives that they can inspect before parting with the cash.
Having cleaned up innumerable AFB infected outfits over the years that my father kept buying I have to say that infected gear is the norm rather than the exception. I am not 100% sure how legislation could be worded mainly because I'm not 100% sure what John F's new technology can achieve. Obviously any test would have to be considerably cheaper than the value of the gear being sold but you would think that if you could do a composite test on say 20 or 30 pieces of gear and it came back strongly positive then a match would be a good idea and letting some new beekeeper buy it a bad one. As for old bee gear use for designer gardens et cetera then if they prove clean there is no problem but propolis is a known source of AFB and also old boxes often attract swarms which can lead to-------.
If someone has a heap of dead hives and no live ones, I have to think now we have the new technology that it would be fair enough for them to have to get it tested.
On irradiation of boxes, apparently it works amazingly but I do recall a case of somebody in Auckland doing a trial run on AFB and for some reason it didn't work which led to a big burn up. Not sure why it didn't work and apparently when it does work when you put bees onto that gear they are really healthy for several years.
If someone has a heap of dead hives and no live ones, I have to think now we have the new technology that it would be fair enough for them to have to get it tested.
On irradiation of boxes, apparently it works amazingly but I do recall a case of somebody in Auckland doing a trial run on AFB and for some reason it didn't work which led to a big burn up. Not sure why it didn't work and apparently when it does work when you put bees onto that gear they are really healthy for several years.
If you get the NZ Beekeeper journal, there's part 1 of an article from @NickWallingford on 'A short history of AFB'. Well worth reading to learn from the past, when considering the future. Looking forward to part 2 Nick !
Be clear I am talking about the governance of the AFB PMP. It doesn't matter how good operations are if governance model is poor operations will not be working a 100%
I can only talk about from the time I got interested, which would be about from 2005.
From a public relations point of view the operations is not in a good place. I know there are people who think that harassing people is ok but its not the way to solve a problem.
Most people don't like conflict or overbearing authority and will do anything to avoid it, which usually means hiding problems and mistakes. (who here enjoys being stopped by the police?)
The recent trend to publish articles which all but name the people who have AFB problems just makes people want to hide more. A far better way would have to written a positive story and help the beekeepers turn the problem around and high lighted how the PMP contributed developing and good business.
The governance agency allows bullying to happen via the use of AFB PMP. I have seen it in operation when I was on the AFB PMP and it still happens today.
I dont know how many people remember when top bar hives came on the seen and how owners of top bar hives where given a really really hard time by the AFB PMP committee
Want to make a real change sort the governance model.
Got off track a bit
Because everything is under one roof reporting, training etc should be better, but technology has got better which makes a lot of things easier eg accounting packages, zoom etc
But the one roof model has made it harder to be heard when you complain. With Assure quality there was a long management chain that understood how the law operates and how to ensure it is complied with. Want to disagree now with the AFB PMP , you will most likey need a lawyer to be heard
Because everything is under one roof reporting, training etc should be better, but technology has got better which makes a lot of things easier eg accounting packages, zoom etc
But the one roof model has made it harder to be heard when you complain. With Assure quality there was a long management chain that understood how the law operates and how to ensure it is complied with. Want to disagree now with the AFB PMP , you will most likey need a lawyer to be heard
Steve you need to take a step back and look at the changes to the managing of the plan, a big problem(not the only one) of the past was Asurequality's lack of action on many fronts, in the last few years we have wrestled the job of AP1 off them and taken back the database at great cost. We now have two AP1's North and South Island and are more able to respond and follow up outbreaks of AFB or at least suspicion of out breaks. We now have Hive hub that makes it easier for beeks to manage their information etc, a phone app version is in the works. The published articles about enforcement and sadly destruction of beeks hives etc, was at least showing what we have been crying out for for years for some enforcement to be done. They were not many and very bad situations that have infected many others around them. We would rather beeks sorted their own mess out and get on top of their AFB. There have been a lot of beeks listing sites/hives they didn't do on the back of those reported cases. We have more AP2 on the ground.
As a board member I would like to see the AFPPMP do itself out of a job, because all the beeks got their ship together and dealt with their AFB and we eradicated it, but until that happens????
But now we are consulting on the way forward so please put in submissions, nothing is off the table.
I can see where Steve is coming from but I'm with Dennis on this one.. I am heartily sick of burning hives because of someone else's incompetence and it has happened to me every year two for the last 25 years. It's time those that can't or won't do the job properly get dealt with properly and that seems to be happening now. It's not like they haven't access to good education on the problem and while I don't obviously know every case it happens in New Zealand I personally have not seen the agency acting heavy-handed when people found AFB but were still doing their job properly. I would be the 1st to call them out if I thought they were.
But you’re not presenting evidence of poor governance Stephen. And given that the percentage levels have now stabilised after sone years of increasing then you’d have to say that AFBNZ 2.0 is doing the right stuff here.
I disagree. I think *most* people were sick of inaction. The ‘positive story’ doesn’t work. The people with the high levels don’t believe they’re doing anything wrong, despite evidence of very high levels. They argue the rules don’t apply to them or aren’t binding or don’t affect other people.
As for AQ, no. I’ve heard plenty of lecture stories from beers reporting hive infections. . . to the point where they did the right thing by burning - except report them to save themselves the hassling.
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Stephen please give us real recent examples of bullying by the AFB PMP agency.
I m worry that you call bullying to compliance verification and enforcement actions.
For example:
Cancelling DECAS to beekeepers who don’t comply with their DECA is fair. There must be consequences for no complying with the AFB pmp.
Recovering cost from offending beekeepers is also fair. Why should we use our hard earned levy money to clean up someone else’s mess?
Investigating serious allegations of non conformance is also fair. I will hate reporting something and being ignored by the Agency. However, if I m being targeted for an investigation I may feel like i m being bullied, when they are just doing their job.
Finally,
I saw tension between the Agency and top bar hives owners before MPI gave a ruling on it a few years ago. However, this issue happened not because they are bullies it is because some top bars hives may not comply with rule 11 of the Afb PMP and it it up to the beekeeper to demonstrate compliance.
My experience with top bar hives is that the agency supported them. I did my very best to get them declared illegal as I consider they do not meet the legal requirements of a movable frame hive but I was overruled. I would like to see the definition of a legal hive change to must contain frames made using the bee space principle which will allow any type of hive as long as it had proper frames not sticks. I actually thought the agencies approach to top bar hives was weak.
I may be wrong but top bar hives seem to be disappearing just about as fast as they appeared, well-maintained they are reasonable to inspect but neglected ones are impossible to inspect without causing damage .
I may be wrong but top bar hives seem to be disappearing just about as fast as they appeared, well-maintained they are reasonable to inspect but neglected ones are impossible to inspect without causing damage .
Be advised this thread is not morphing into a top bar discussion.
I don't think this forum is the place to give any perceived examples of bullying by the PMP. I don't think that is what this thread is about. Also, it could involve people that never post on this forum, and that to me would be unacceptable. This thread should be a discussion, to get people thinking about what they would like to suggest, and to mull over the various posts, and think about how things can be improved, and how the PMP delivery can be efficient, cost effective, informative and friendly i.e. take the industry along with them. My thoughts are that this review is to attempt to streamline functions of the PMP and "service delivery", along with consideration to types of identification analysis.
Levy payers are the customers, and the customers should have a say. There are 9000 registered beekeepers out there with nearly a million hives, a huge amount in levy payments coming in, and some will have very good suggestions on how to improve the service delivery, to make it user friendly to the vast majority of levy payers.
I would like to see some sort of anonymous simple feedback function filled out by attendees from courses and those beekeepers who have been inspected. Currently, unless I am mistaken, this is not available.
On surveillance, these hives could be more difficult to inspect. You have a very long unit, and if honey stores, could be difficult to inspect in an urban environment without robbing. Fortunately there never seemed to be more than one top bar hive per site! I once did inspect a top bar hive, with beautifully made frames that included top bar and side bars culminating in a V shape. When they became trendy, at first the beekeeper had to note on the apiary register that they were top bar hives, and I used to factor this into where during the day I would inspect, but then later it became not mandatory to note in your apiary registration that these hives were top bar.
I should have been more clear Alastair - these were beekeepers who dealt with AFB when it was spotted but didnt always report it because of some perceived minor infringement (eg burnt hive on day 8, and not day 7 due to weather). No suggestion that the beekeepers had high levels or weren't dealing with their own infections. And again, back in the AFB days.
I have another story from last conference about 'AFBNZ 2.0' and contrasting it prior iterations of the agency . . but it involves a well-known poster on this forum
you can't leave us hanging, we need the gos to liven things up.I have another story from last conference about 'AFBNZ 2.0' and contrasting it prior iterations of the agency . . but it involves a well-known poster on this forum
Nah bro ..... what happens at conference, stays at conference.
There's nothing worse than sorting through other peoples dirty laundry.John I of course have no idea of whom you speak.
But of greater concern are another class of beekeeper with high AFB in their honey but rarely / never report AFB.
Those are the ones who never report it cos they never find or deal with it.
Such have been some of those cases of guys with ridiculously high numbers of infected hives who were in denial about it and infecting their neighbours.
See, the AFBPMP is not concerned with beekeepers who are doing their job.
They prefer not to waste money and resources on good beekeepers, and focus on dealing with those who need help. Identifying those beekeepers is the trick. A couple of giveaways are (as previously said) AFB in the honey but no AFB reported so no indication if the beekeeper is dealing with the problem.
Another indication is beekeepers reporting multiple AFB but another beekeeper in the same territory never reporting it.
Takeaway from all this. You destroy an AFB hive, report it. You get good kudos for doing that, and it gives needed info to those charged with monitoring and protecting us all.
Good beekeepers have zero to fear from a visit from an AP2. Even poor beekeepers can benefit, from help and education that can be given. I have known of beekeepers in despair over seemingly hopeless situations being helped out of it.
Things only ever get antagonistic when somebody is non cooperative. If the AFBPMP is placed in a situation where they have to deal with AFB without the cooperation of the beekeeper, then reluctantly, they have to do it. Bottom line it is their mandate to attempt to eradicate AFB.
They prefer not to waste money and resources on good beekeepers, and focus on dealing with those who need help. Identifying those beekeepers is the trick. A couple of giveaways are (as previously said) AFB in the honey but no AFB reported so no indication if the beekeeper is dealing with the problem.
Another indication is beekeepers reporting multiple AFB but another beekeeper in the same territory never reporting it.
Takeaway from all this. You destroy an AFB hive, report it. You get good kudos for doing that, and it gives needed info to those charged with monitoring and protecting us all.
Good beekeepers have zero to fear from a visit from an AP2. Even poor beekeepers can benefit, from help and education that can be given. I have known of beekeepers in despair over seemingly hopeless situations being helped out of it.
Things only ever get antagonistic when somebody is non cooperative. If the AFBPMP is placed in a situation where they have to deal with AFB without the cooperation of the beekeeper, then reluctantly, they have to do it. Bottom line it is their mandate to attempt to eradicate AFB.
No goss really. It was more hearing from a beekeeper that the agency were this and that and hadnt dealt with an issue from some years previously. I asked them whether they had bought it up or met Clifton. When they said no, i took them over to Clifton - introduced them and the beekeeper got to tell him of the issue. Clifton agreed it was an issue and I think asked Marco to look into it.
Anyway, the enthusiasm for the agency was markedly different when I enquired of the beekeeper the next morning.
Nah bro ..... what happens at conference, stays at conference.
That's 'airing dirty laundry' James. I . .I . really . . don't . .umm . . what have you been doing?