Beekeeping on Mars

[gavin]

Lifted, shamelessly but with reverence, from Ted Hancock's writings on Bee-L. We do need to talk about imports.

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Ted Hancock <xxxxx@XXXX.XXX>
To: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu
Sent: Sunday, 30 September 2007, 19:59
Subject: [BEE-L] Beekeeping on Mars


If they had beekeeping on Mars, I expect they'd talk about importing bees
from Earth. The conversation mite go something like this:

Dip: We're so far from the sun it's hard to raise enough bees. We need to
start importing them from Earth.

Ip: I don't have trouble raising enough bees.

Dip: That's because you're not a real beekeeper.

Ip: What makes you say that?

Dip: Because real beekeepers want to import bees from Earth.

Ip: That's not a rational argument.

Dip: I don't have to be rational, I'm a real beekeeper.

Ip: But Earthling bees have some nasty pests and diseases that we don't
have. If we import them they could kill our bees.

Dip: You're just fear mongering. Even if we did import exotic pests they'd
never survive in our Martian atmosphere.

Ip: How do you know that?

Dip: Look at Earth's moon: varroa can't survive there and we're a lot
further away from Earth than the moon.

Ip: Oh boy. Maybe we could allow the importation of genetic material under
strict scientific protocols.

Dip: A pox on your scientific protocols. Scientitst have no idea what
risks we need to take in order to make a Martian living. If we don't allow
legal cross cosmic distribution of bees, someone's just going to smuggle
them across anyways.

Ip: Now who's fear mongering?

Dip: You need to think more like a human.

Ip: That's hard to do when I'm an intelligent being.

So Mars allows the importation of bees from Earth. Varroa, trachea et. al
prove to be much more virulent on Mars and suddenly no one can keep bees
alive longer than six months.

Ip: Well, this is great. Now we're totally dependent on imported bees from
Earth.

Dip: That's right. And I hope you appreciate my foresight in pushing for
those imports. If we didn't have them our industry would be dead now.

Ip; Youch! I think my brain just exploded!

Dip: Good, I can steal your beekeeping area.


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[fatshark]

We do need to talk about imports.

We do.

Have the SBA made an official statement on SHB and/or an import ban yet? Despite the October magazine having three separate pages mentioning SHB there was nothing I could see other than a statement to be 'vigilant' by Phil Moss. I appreciate the lead time for publication, but can't see anything on the website either.

[Little_John]

For millions of years, diseases have been contained by geographic isolation, but increased human mobility has allowed these natural barriers to be circumvented.

Quite recently the origin of Aids has been tracked to a port in the Congo:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29442642
where the virus remained contained until a rapid population explosion combined with the advent of a railway system enabled millions to easily move around Africa. And so the virus gradually began to spread ...

International travel and movement of goods are also the most likely vectors of a potential SARS or Ebola epidemic.

And let's not forget that the Great Plague (The Black Death) of the Middle Ages was caused by flea-carrying ship's rats bringing the disease here from overseas. Seems we haven't learned too many lessons from history.


In the 20 or so years prior to the Isle of Wight disease outbreak, there was a monumental number of colonial conflicts - I've just begun listing them - as the extensive British Empire began to crumble. British soldiers were duly sent all over the empire, and their points of disembarkation would undoubtedly have been on England's south coast, around the Portsmouth/ Southampton area.

Coincidence ? Maybe - but I think it's a theory worth pursuing ...

LJ

[gavin]

The news broke the day before the October Scottish Beekeeper went to bed: I'm keen that we have something reasoned, informed and agreed for the next one. And also a well thought-out response for the next meeting with the Scottish Government in November, before which we have a chance to debate this with the members at the November SBA meeting. The main reason for posting this thread was to get some open debate going while the SBA decides its stance. For one thing, we have a lot of committed non-importers on here plus a couple of non-members living elsewhere with commercial interests in continuing to import. What about general SBA members - what do they want?

Should a ban, if there is one, be restricted to Italy or, for this first uncertain year of SHB, should it be all sources of bees outside the UK? Anywhere there are known links with Italy? Anywhere in Europe where there is not a tip-top, highly proactive, professional, well-funded bee inspection service? Under what conditions do people regard the current strategy safe enough, that is 100km cordons around known, confirmed detections?

[fatshark]

Little_John is absolutely correct … international trade and travel are two of the primary drivers in the spread of new infectious diseases, parasites and pathogens. AIDS-like retroviruses are (still) regularly acquired by West African bushmeat hunters, but the combination of the railways, consequent worker (male) migration, the resulting sex trade and the development of cheap(er) syringes (in the 1920's in Kinshasa) allowed the virus to become widespread and subsequently global. SARS was spread to 5 continents within a few weeks of entering the human population due to airline travel (admittedly, unknowingly). Similarly, the recent primary and secondary cases of Ebola in Nigeria (imported from Liberia) are again due to travel.

These are infections in humans, but there is equally compelling studies supporting the spread to South America of rinderpest in cattle for example. This is why movement bans are imposed during foot and mouth disease outbreaks. These bans are imposed to protect unexposed valuable domesticated animals. The bans generally cover both live animals and other potential sources of infectious material e.g. semen or embryos.

It seems to me that there are three broad approaches that could be taken

1. We continue with the current 100km protection zone
2. Individual countries impose restrictions on a country by country basis, having judged the risk and impact of import bans
3. Since this is the first established outbreak in Europe we have a Europe-wide movement ban, which could operate at the country or regional level

I should add that I don't know the intricacies of European law in terms of what can and cannot be done.

Import bans will impact queen and package producers. They will also impact purchasers - amateur and commercial - who rely on imports to make up for winter losses, replace failing queens etc.. Movement bans will additionally impact migratory beekeeping. If SHB becomes established widely throughout the continent it will impact most of us.

Since we don't know the current extent of the infestation in Italy it would seem wise to restrict exports of bees (queens, packages etc.) from Italy at the very least. Whether this would have to be imposed by other countries forbidding imports, or Italy preventing exports, is unclear. I would favour a more extensive ban on movements of bees within and between countries until the situation is clearer.

One thing that is clear from transmission of other pathogens is that once out and established it takes a huge effort, and a lot of money, to eradicate them … if it's possible at all. Rinderpest was eradicated by culling and vaccination. FMDV by culling. SARS by good epidemiology, patient isolation and thanks to it being a pretty difficult virus to transmit. Varroa is here to stay.

How many don't support a ban on movements/imports but would support culling of their entire stock if the beetle arrived locally?

[Little_John]

The Bee Diseases and Pests Control (England) Order 2006 appears to have a serious flaw - this being that a disease must arrive and be detected before any action is deemed to be necessary. Preventative measures do not appear to feature within the (non-)thinking of legal minds ...
LJ

[Bumble]

Should a ban, if there is one, be restricted to Italy or, for this first uncertain year of SHB, should it be all sources of bees outside the UK? Anywhere there are known links with Italy? Anywhere in Europe where there is not a tip-top, highly proactive, professional, well-funded bee inspection service? Under what conditions do people regard the current strategy safe enough, that is 100km cordons around known, confirmed detections?

If, as it seems likely, these beetles have a foothold in Italy then any ban or restriction on bee movement will only delay the inevitable but it will give a chance to plan. Inevitable, because they can fly or be blown by the wind to a new site, or could be moved in a consignment of fruit.

If you track the movement of the Harlequin Ladybird since it arrived in East Anglia (aggregated map on this page; separate maps on this page) I think you can see what might happen after either, or both, SHB and Asian Hornets first set foot on British soil. The only difference will be that the beekeeper is likely to be a vector for SHB once it's here, especially migratory beekeepers and bee farmers or people who put a caged queen in their pocket and get on a plane, whereas the AH will make its' own way.

Could any ban be enforceable? I tend to think not, sadly.

Would every boat owner get told they can't bring produce (comb honey etc) back from mainland Europe, just in case? - They'd ignore that as quickly as they ignore the rules about bringing back too much booze!

How could you, once SHB is in the country, tell a bee farmer that they mustn't move their bees to fulfil a pollination contract? The knock-on from that would be a reduced harvest for a grower, more imported fruit with associated risks if the fruit is from Italy or any other area with SHB.

Then there are the beekeepers who refuse to register their colonies, or those who see no need to be a member of an organisation. Both types live under the radar, so to speak, and some probably can't even recognise foulbrood. If nobody knows who the people are, or where there bees are, how would they even learn of any control orders? We couldn't rely on the media, they haven't mentioned a thing about the current outbreak, and even manage to misidentify and describe the Asian Hornet. They seem much more concerned with killer spiders!

[Rosie]

Perhaps we should ban imports from Italy plus any other country that continues to allow imports from Italy.

[Jon]

Agreed Rosie.
And a ban would encourage the development of a UK based queen rearing industry as well.
Years ago on the old bbka forum Mike Roberts of Easybee used to say that UK based queenrearing was not a viable business so he started to sell his nucs and packages with imported queens.
Sure, it is easier to rear queens if you live in a place with a better climate, but any individual or group with a will to do it could produce several hundred queens between late May and September. I had half a dozen queens start to lay in Apideas last week.

Several people have posted on bee forums that the arrival of SHB in the UK is inevitable. I don't think we should accept that as we have the advantage of a stretch of water between ourselves and the European mainland. Importing nucs and packages had got to be a far higher risk than importing queens or fruit.

[gavin]

How come we can successfully keep this beetle pest from establishing in the UK since WWII, yet some folk think it inevitable that we'll get SHB quickly?



Here is Defra's current leaflet on keeping this pest out of the UK.

http://www.fera.defra.gov.uk/plants/...Beetle2006.pdf

If bee health really is important to the UK then beekeepers - and all their organisations - should be pushing hard to change practices and regulations to keep this pest out. No-one raising income in the UK need suffer, all they have to do is change what they do. Back to home queen rearing. Increasing the quality of beekeeping so that heavy losses are a thing of the past. Resilience built into businesses so that they can withstand bad years. The only ones who will really suffer are those who have built businesses abroad specialising totally on generating bees for export.

The costs of letting it in will be massive.