NSW apiarists reviewing biosecurity with list of expectations being made

Spurred on by an incident reported in The Land on November 28, the NSWAA expects a draft document before Christmas.

Lyndhurst beekeeper Frank Malfroy and wife Jenny Douglas were threatened with a $1.1 million fine and initially told to move their bees within 48 hours at least five kilometres away from the home of someone who was anaphalyctic.

A DPI biosecurity officer later changed the distance the bees would have to be moved from the home to 2km.

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But even with such an offset, Mr Malfroy knew an implementation of such rules across the state would cause havoc for the bee industry.

Once the potential ramifications of such an order for the NSW bee industry sank in, Mr Malfroy was bowled over.

NSWAA president, Stephen Targett, said improved communication channels were needed between beekeepers and DPI.

He said the association was in the process of developing a code, or rather a list of what both beekeepers and DPI biosecurity officers could expect and what was expected of them.

He said the association would propose that a water supply must be available for bees within 200 metres of their hives.

He said this would prevent bees flying off their floral resource in search of water and potentially harassing people in the vicinity.

But he said in rural areas, beekeepers' right to farm had to be respected, as had the farmers (often the almond industry or orchardists) whose crops beekeepers service.

"This has huge implications for Leeton, Griffith, even Young, where there are orchards right on the edge of town," said Mr Targett.

He said all professional apiarists paid a national levy, some of which funded DPI bee biosecurity staff.

The DPI field officer who handed Frank Malfroy a Individual Biosecurity Direction ordering him to move his hives last month was not funded by apiarists.

The incident was the second time an apiarist has fallen foul of the biosecurity guidelines, another beekeeper in the Cooma area was also told to move hives from a leased Travelling Stock Route.

This is not the style of interaction apiarists expect with DPI bio-security officers.

Policy economist Michael Clarke, who owns the AgEconPlus consultancy, is now honing a first draft of the policy document he has been hired to write by the NSWAA to help interactions between DPI and beekeepers.

"Really, they've worked hard to get their levies made official and now they want good value from them," he said.

"This push was mainly about American foulbrood and controlling it.

"There is no cure and the only way to stop a detected infection is to burn or irradiate the hives."

Mr Targett said the idea of bee biosecurity officers was to assist the industry.

"We want biosecurity officers to be monitoring the health of our industry and hives.

"We want messy, recalcitrant operators cracked down on," he said.