AFB stats - by bkpr

[tristan]

I also caught him selling infected honey extracted at my facility, under the registered number of another extraction facility.

we have had to deal with beeks who try to illegally pass off their honey under someone else number.
i'm hoping with the downturn a lot of those black market beeks will disappear.

 

[Alastair]

So you took him to court and were able to recover damages.

That is a very different thing to the collective fund you refer to.

 

[JohnF]

Looking back over the posts, I can't find why I asked that question at the end of my post. I may have been enquiring about a 'possible fund' if that route was ever considered further.
The compensation I got was from the specific beekeeper who brought honey onto my property for extraction, didn't follow very clear and strict rules about wrapping supers, and had been negligent in his beekeeping practices. His honey was tested with a very high AFB spore count taken from a random 50g sample from 300kg extracted. Subsequent AP2 inspections on multiple sites found AFB in 80% of his hives. During the disputes hearing, there was confusion by him between having either 15 hives, or 200, or something in between, as he wouldn't commit to a number. I also caught him selling infected honey extracted at my facility, under the registered number of another extraction facility. He only bottled about 50kg in my facility, and took 250kg away in buckets which he bottled himself.
A clear case of someone who should not be keeping bees, and should have been properly prosecuted by MPI.
The whole story is in the Apiarists Advocate emagazine. I found a way to get full compensation for all my losses through the courts.

@HamBees Are you able to share what that AFB spore loading was in the honey Phil? Either spores or Cq values ?

 

[HamBees]

@HamBees Are you able to share what that AFB spore loading was in the honey Phil? Either spores or Cq values ?

Cq Marker 1 - 30.61
Cq Marker 2 - 25.82
Spores/gram - 4549
30g random sample taken from nearly 300kg extracted honey.

The find was reported in the AFB roundup in the Oct/Nov 2021 issue of The Beekeeper, in the Waikato section.
AP2 found 21% of hives infected, beekeeper subsequently found 80% infected.

In the April/May 2021 issue of The Beekeeper, an article from Analytica stated...

"Since the OMAR regarding China was introduced late last year, Analytica has performed over a thousand AFB tests on honey samples from New Zealand. Approximately 86% of the New Zealand samples we have tested resulted in a non-detect. Of the 14% of the New Zealand honeys that tested positive for AFB, approximately 80% displayed a relatively low spore count of <360 per gram of honey, 5% had an intermediate count >360<2,000, and 14% had a high spore count of >2,000."

The spore count in the sample tested was 4549/gram.
I'm not good at maths but 14% of 14% of over 1000 tests, this has to be at the very top end, and one of the highest ever spore counts...

 

[NickWallingford]

The spore count in the sample tested was 4549/gram.
I'm not good at maths but 14% of 14% of over 1000 tests, this has to be at the very top end, and one of the highest ever spore counts...

1000 samples. 14% showed positive - that is 140 samples. 14% of those 140 samples showed high level of spores - that equates to 20 samples.

So my take on this is that your sample would, if included, be into that group of 20, be one more that is above the threshold to be considred 'high spore count'. It doesn't indicate higher or lower spore levels that any of the other 20.

@JohnF - what can you tell us about this sample from cq and spore numbers?

 

[JohnF]

1000 samples. 14% showed positive - that is 140 samples. 14% of those 140 samples showed high level of spores - that equates to 20 samples.

So my take on this is that your sample would, if included, be into that group of 20, be one more that is above the threshold to be considred 'high spore count'. It doesn't indicate higher or lower spore levels that any of the other 20.

@JohnF - what can you tell us about this sample from cq and spore numbers?

It's a high level all right. As Phil says, the values are 'per gram' . .or about just under 1ml of honey. That sort of level in a random sample is definitely a systemic issue in the beekeeping operation.