30 August 2000

Additional varroa consultation meeting in Gore tomorrow

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has put on an additional regional meeting to consult on the two-year plan for varroa tomorrow in Gore.

The 2pm meeting in Balclutha tomorrow will follow as scheduled.

Regional consultation meetings have been held throughout the country during the past two weeks. Tomorrow's two meeting will be the last of 14.

The meeting attendants are set to discuss and agree on the details of phase two of the plan. MAF and beekeepers will consider issues such as:

• a North Island treatment policy;
• surveillance in the North Island and the South Island;
• movement control both in the North and South Islands;
• appropriate responses to any incursion of varroa into the South Island;
• treatments to be used;
• programmes to inform beekeepers and other affected people on the plan and its implications;
• research underway and proposed; and
• means of administering the plan.

The two-year plan is phase two of a three-phase management plan, aimed at mitigating the impacts of varroa and maintain the South Island free of varroa for as long as possible.

Phase one of the plan is currently underway with the Government funding treatment of hives in infested areas.

Matthew Stone, MAF's Programme Co-ordinator, Exotic Disease Response, said it was important for all beekeepers to take part in developing a plan that best served the beekeeping industry. The shape the plan took would be the springboard for the industry's future, he said.

The additional meeting will be at 10am at the RSA Hall in Gore, followed by the scheduled 2pm meeting in Balclutha at the Telford Rural Polytechnic.