Changes to the NZ Beekeeping Industry in the 1990s
In the middle 1990s the New Zealand beekeeping industry found itself in a difficult place. Changes relating to funding, disease control and export certification would force the industry to spend a lot of time and money to try to get it back to near where it started. For me, the scariest part was that had action not been taken, American Foulbrood Disease (AFB) would have been deregulated and all hell would break loose in the industry…
The political landscape of the time was rife with ‘user pays’ generally, resulting in the deregulation of many things along the way. The general approach by the government of the day was to get rid of “industry-specific” legislation, and replace it with umbrella acts that could be used to create (and, ultimately, pay for) many aspects of governmental servicing that had been provided up to that time. Looking back on it now, I am proud that beekeepers of that time made the decisions we did and that, at the very least, we avoided the potential for the loss of regulative protections within the industry.
Regulating the Control of AFB – 1906 to the 1990s
AFB was first regulated in New Zealand with the Apiaries Act 1906. In the years leading up to 1906 the use of movable frame hives enabled ‘modern beekeeping’. These hives allowed a beekeeper to manipulate combs and boxes, to remove surplus honey without killing all of the bees, and – importantly – to inspect colonies for AFB. With most other colonies of bees being kept in boxes (fixed comb) and skeps, AFB brought many movable frame beekeeping operations to financial ruin. Box hive beekeepers, when faced with a colony dying out from AFB, would simply install another colony in the box. AFB was the order of the day, as the box hive beekeepers had no way to identify it, and dealt with it in an ineffective manner, if at all.
There were all sorts of exotic methods used to ‘treat’ AFB in those days. One of the more popular was ‘shook swarming’. If a colony was found with ‘mild’ AFB, all the bees and the queen would be shaken off the combs and into new equipment. The hope was that since they didn’t get to take any of their honey with them, that they might be able to fight off AFB and return to ‘clear’. Remember, this was the practice of many of the beekeepers using moveable frame hives, the progressive beekeepers. And it wasn’t really outlawed until about 1950…
The Apiaries Act made it a requirement that AFB be notified and dealt with. It provided the ability to inspect a beekeeper’s hives, and deal with AFB if it was found. (Remember, however, that ‘dealing’ with AFB could just be shook swarming the hive.) Before 1906, with no legislative instrument and no regulatory powers, there was absolutely nothing that beekeepers could do about reducing the incidence of AFB.
The Apiaries Act 1906, 1907, 1927 and 1969 were all acts in their own right – but there were also amendments to the main acts in 1913, 1920, 1951, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1965, 1967, 1971, 1973, 1978 and 1980. The beekeeping industry – through the National Beekeepers’ Association – throughout this time worked to ensure that any regulatory powers that were needed were provided for.
Transition from Apiaries Act to Biosecurity Act for AFB control
So let’s remember the context of the early/middle 1990s. The Biosecurity Act 1993 was the ‘umbrella act’ that would mean the end of the Apiaries Act. The regulatory authorities of the Apiaries Act would be completely gone – unless a strategy to identify and manage/eradicate a given pest was developed. It wasn’t negotiable; the industry had no choice. If we wanted to continue, or extend, the disease control programme, it would have to be under the new legislation.
From the beekeeping industry’s point of view, loss of the Apiaries Act would be a massive event. Nearly 100 years of industry development on the back of (varying degrees of) inspections and required destruction of infected colonies. AFB was still a big issue, but the entire basis for inspection services, burning of infected hives and, in effect, making AFB ‘illegal’, meant the disease was (again, to varying degrees) kept under control through the 20th century.
The Biosecurity Act was never developed with the beekeeping industry in mind. Our industry relied extensively on the provisions of the Apiaries Act; it was the only thing that kept the industry alive through that time. The Biosecurity Act was really directed, we decided, at such things as possum control and TB control. The government did not seem to realise that a small industry like beekeeping would really need, or would work so diligently and methodically, to in some way avoid the disaster of complete deregulation of AFB. We did not ask to do it. We did not want to do it. We simply needed to do it.
Enforcement of AFB Control under the Apiaries Act
Until the early 1990s, the old Department of Agriculture, and then the Ministry of Agriculture of Fisheries, had a significant presence within the industry. Apiary advisory staff, beekeeping scientists and the issues relating to certification for sale and export were mostly seen as just one more of the ‘public good’ services that a government like New Zealand prided itself on. And in the case of beekeeping, rightly so! But by the early 1990s, many/most of these people and services were being taken away. No longer could we simply say to the government that we, as an industry, needed such servicing to prosper, or even to survive. Once again, the words ‘user pays’ were repeatedly dragged out.
One component in the mix was the apiaries register, the listing of apiary sites and locations. Up until that time, MAF had both developed and maintained the register. It was our industry that called for the register in the first place. It was needed to allow for AFB inspections and management, as well as providing an effective ability to certify honey and bee products for export. While MAF used the register for disease control and export certification, it was our industry that needed it to progress. The loss of the apiary register would make both AFB control and export certification problematic if not impossible.
The same thing applied to inspections for AFB by MAF inspectors, and the required destruction of hives with AFB by burning. The loss of regulatory authority would have almost certainly spelled not only the end of advisory staff and inspectors, but also export certification and any sort of regulated approach to AFB control. Unless a pest management strategy was developed, AFB would be completely deregulated. As an industry, we would be back to the early 1900s.
There would be one difference. There would be nothing to stop a beekeeper from feeding drugs to treat AFB, the practice of most of the rest of the beekeeping world. Nothing. If we did not develop a PMS and retain most of the significant features of the Apiaries Act, there would be nothing to compel inspection, destruction of gear, even the reporting of AFB, and nothing to stop the one-way changes that would come with the introduction of antibiotics.
A Pest Management Strategy for AFB
So who could develop a pest management strategy? For such as possum control it was the Animal Health Board, and it was felt that it was to enable them control possums and TB that the Biosecurity Act was really written. If the argument could be effectively made that ‘dealing with TB and possums is a good thing’, and could outline how it would be paid for, managed and carried out – voila! A pest management strategy could be developed. The strategy would come with its own levying system; it didn’t rely on the levy payers agreeing to it all, so long as the government accepted it to be a reasonable activity. That is, even if the ‘users’ who have to pay to have the strategy didn’t like the strategy or the levy involved, it would still go ahead. There was even the possibility of an ‘unfriendly pest management strategy’, with the imposition of a strategy and a levy on an unwilling industry!
So, what was the ‘worst case’ that we were trying to avoid, the outcome of no pest management strategy to replace the Apiaries Act? MAF staff would no longer be available to the industry. And they wouldn’t be there to enforce the Apiaries Act because that act would be gone. All AFB regulatory control would be gone. Inspection would no longer be a requirement in any way, and no one could be made to destroy AFB colonies or deal with the aftermath of an AFB outbreak.
The Change from Hive Levy Act to Commodity Levies Act
But the changes of the time didn’t stop there. The body that had represented New Zealand beekeepers since 1913 – the National Beekeepers’ Association – faced a similar need to navigate and use new legislation. The Hive Levy Act 1975 was to be removed. In its place was the generic/’umbrella’ Commodity Levies Act. In a similar manner to a pest management strategy, any grouping of people could propose a commodity levy. But with this Act there was a difference. In order for a compulsory levy to be put into place, the people who were liable to pay the levy would be able to vote in a referendum, and it would only go ahead if it was clearly the desire of the voting levy payers. And the ballot was to be counted in such a way that it would be very difficult to show that there was overall industry acceptance. We had to get it right.
Here is where the beekeeping industry got canny, trying to retain AFB control, industry representation and to facilitate export certification…
Making Full Use of the Legislation that was Provided…
We felt we needed to achieve an industry levy to support the work of the NBA, to replace the Hive Levy Act when it disappeared. But since we needed to do this through the Commodity Levies Act, why not use that same levying system to create a levy to fund a pest management strategy? The ability to create levies was the same with both Acts, with the only real difference being that the levy payers got a chance to vote for or against a commodity levy, and there would be a reduced cost of raising one levy only rather than working with both acts. The Hive Levy Act related only to beekeepers with 50 hives or more; that Act was designed to fund the NBA itself. When it came to AFB control, we felt that all beekeepers would benefit from an effective strategy to deal with AFB. But from a practical sense, we chose the level of 10 hives or more (or being kept on more than 3 registered sites in the apiaries register). We effectively changed the levying ‘thing’ to be a registered apiary site, rather than a declaration by the beekeeper of hive numbers. Remember, beekeepers were required to keep bees on registered apiary sites at all times; the hive numbers declaration was as at a single point in time. The industry had previously had levies based on honey and on hives – we felt the move to apiary-number based levy could be more readily enforced if needed.
Many beekeepers believed the Hive Levy Act was being variously abused by some (‘other’) beekeepers – under-declaring hive numbers, not bothering to register apiaries, actively working to avoid paying the levy. There is little evidence that that was really the case. It did rely on a declaration by the beekeeper – the number of hives as at a particular date. But we had no way to compare that declaration back to the apiaries register – it was a separate declaration. And the NBA did not even have the details for those beekeepers with 11-50 hives, though we wanted to include them into the levy payments, to spread the costs of AFB control over more of the beekeepers who were impacted by AFB.
The Requirements for the Industry
What did the beekeeping industry really need? Well, a means of controlling AFB would sit near the top of the list. A means to pay for that control. We needed a way forward in the changes to export certification – they, too, were facing these same threats and moves to ‘user pays’. And finally, and humbly, I would identify the need for an effective industry organisation to represent all beekeeping interests. The NBA was fulfilling that role at the time, with the support of beekeepers and other aspects of the greater industry.
The Critical Apiaries Register Issues…
And what do all of those have in common? Oddly enough, it came back to the apiaries register, developed and ‘owned’ by MAF. The register had been at the heart of AFB control for about half a century. Without such a register, AFB control would be a non-starter. Both the industry and government wanted (needed?) the register to enable a credible method of providing export certification. But the Privacy Act meant that MAF would not/could not provide the NBA with the apiary register! Ironically, if the NBA did manage to get a pest management strategy, access to the apiary register could be part of that.
So we couldn’t have a referendum for the commodity levy – consisting of a levy for the NBA, maybe part cost of the apiaries register and the pest management strategy costs – unless we had access to the apiaries register. Once the levy was passed, no problem. Regardless of who finally had to pay for the register (government and/or industry) we would be able to use that apiary register to more objectively levy beekeepers to pay for this wide range of activities. It was more objective to base the levy on the number of apiaries at a specific date, than on a simple declaration by a beekeeper of how many hives they had on that date. Remember, beekeepers needed to have registered apiaries in order to get export certification. They would certainly register the apiaries, but may be less likely to properly declare real hive numbers. Ultimately? MAF played hard ball and refused us access to the apiary register. But they did agree to send out the commodity levy ballots on our behalf, and that was all we needed…
First, Commodity Levy, Then the Pest Management Strategy
In early 1996 the NBA conducted a ballot to confirm support for a new levy. Though numbers participating were small, the referendum was a success – the people to be levied got a chance to vote, and voted to support a compulsory levy for the NBA, disease control and marketing activities. The Commodity Levies (Bee Products) Order 1996 that resulted gave the industry not only funding to survive, but to continue with the changes being forced upon it.
Following that, the industry did develop its own pest management strategy, rather than relying on a (possible?) development by the government itself or the fear of the imposition of an ‘unfriendly pest management strategy’ by outsiders. While these musings have been largely about the levying aspects, the actual development of the NBA’s Pest Management Strategy was absolutely significant and necessary for the future of NZ beekeeping.
Opponents of the pest management strategy argued that we could just leave it all to the individual beekeepers. They argued since it was not ‘fun’ or ‘profitable’ to spend a lot of time dealing with AFB, that all beekeepers can be trusted to try to eliminate AFB from their own ‘hobby’ or ‘commercial’ hives. Oh, yes, and we don’t really need an apiary register for export certification – since most all other countries had AFB already anyway, and a test could be used to provide for certification. But remember – at this stage AFB would be deregulated, there would be no compulsory inspections or prescribed handling of diseased equipment, or prohibition on feeding antibiotics to hives. From the point of AFB control, we would be back to what it was like before the Apiaries Act 1906…
Uses of the Commodity Levy by the NBA for Marketing…
The levy provided for the NBA and also its increasingly important marketing of honey projects. Manuka honey used to be mostly an industry problem. (One might say that it still is, but in a different manner.) The marketing activities were aimed primarily not at manuka, but at select sources of honey generally. We attempted to raise the price of all honeys, by increasing the awareness and understanding of honey, bees and beekeeping.
I’m writing this with a sense of pride that I took some part in these industry developments, as I feel that they were the right decisions for the times. But I would point to the many people, people who were both beekeepers and friends, active in the NBA who successfully steered the NBA through those times, and achieved both the commodity levy and the pest management strategy. Those beekeepers worked effectively in a time of massive upheaval and change, through deregulation and neo-liberal reforms, to retain the aspects necessary to keep the beekeeping industry viable. I would not even begin to start naming the beekeepers who worked so tirelessly, for fear of missing someone out.
But, given enough enthusiasm, I might well write more on one of the topics I’ve mentioned. Again, almost always in the guise of ‘history’. But “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”