Bees for Development Journal 96

ORGANIC BEEKEEPING - A DISCUSSION

Keywords: honey legislation, honey bee importation, international honeystandards, Nosema ceranae, organic honey, queen rearing, Varma

In March 2010, Mr Ian Staples of the company Rio San Pedro in Chilecontacted B/D. Ian is a commercial beekeeper working to achieve .organic beekeeping. This article presents his comments concerning thedifficulties of meeting organic standards, and his frustration on beingfaced with many different sets of standards. As a honey exporter, RioSan Pedro must endeavour to meet the standards which apply in thecountry where their honey is to be sold, and different markets havedifferent demands.

The article includes also comments from Mr Ulrich Broker, an organicbeekeeping certifier based in Germany, and lastly from B/D.

Ian Staples, from ChileFor beekeepers to gain organic status, one might expect there to beinternational guidelines and rules, administered by the organicaccreditation agencies. However, this is not the case. As Chileanbeekeepers, determined to work to European organic standards, we findthat there are 30 different, wide-ranging certification standards fororganic honey. The differences can be big. Let us compare two of thesesets of rules: those applied in Canada and the USA, with those appliedin Europe. These rules differ on many aspects of beekeeping such aswhat hives should be made of, how hives can be treated, the origin ofqueens, location of apiaries, winter feeding and disease and pestcontrol. On all these points there are marked differences between thetwo sets of rules. The European rules are the most strict and difficult toachieve for a commercial beekeeper, which might be admirable insome cases, but some of the standards, in my view, are impracticalwhile others appear nonsensical. We shall examine two points ofdifference: origin of queens and control of Nosema ceranae.

Origin of queensAccording to European organic standards, at least 90% of new queensmust come from a certified organic beekeeper. According to Canadianand USA standards, queens can come from non-organic queenproducers. If Canadian beekeepers do not buy in queens, they do nothave a business. This is because in Canada the productive season is soshort, that unless they introduce a queen "ready to go" they have nobusiness. If beekeepers must produce their own queens, this means

that the season is nearly finished before a colony has time to develop.

The best, specialised queen breeders are focused on selectingimproved bees. If we take a closer look at Chite, there are no organicproducers geared to sell queens. Orffi of the best queen breeders inChile is a company called Pacific Queens, who export many queens toCanada and the rest of the world. For 15 years this company hasconcentrated on selecting queens with an increasing ability to minimiseVarroa damage. Pacific Queens is not certified as an organic producerand under European rules, the organic beekeeper should not be buyingfrom them. However, their queen breeding programme is developing abee that can live with Varroa, exactly the thing that organic standardssee as desirable. Pacific Queens probably offer the best solution inChile to reduce the impact of Varroa. Unless the European standard canshow that honey produced from a colony from a non-organic queen iscontaminated, the reason for this rule is not clear.

Control of Nosema ceranaeThis is the areas in which European and Canadian/USA standards differmost. Nosema ceranae is a very serious disease of bees, widespread inboth Europe and Chile. At Rio San Pedro, we have been rigorous aboutusing no form of pharmaceutical product to control Nosema althougheach winter the level of infection has risen and we have suffered heavylosses, especially in early spring. We have had to work hard to recoverlost colony numbers. When we discussed this with IMO Switzerland,one of the most respected organic accreditation agencies in Chile, theygave us good advice but we were already following most of theirrecommendations which included not keeping hives on the ground,frequent removal of old comb, not unifying weak colonies with strongcolonies, and ensuring strong nuclei when forming new colonies.

In June to September 2009, with strong and apparently healthy beecolonies that we had moved to the Mediterranean climate in the centralregion of Chile, we started to see huge bee losses with up to50 colonies dying each day. Analysis showed we had a high level ofNosema infection. In the summer the level of infection had been low andwe thought we were on top of the problem. Despite these lossesrefused to use any product until one block of 600 bee colonies had beenreduced to 100.1 then instructed that we should use the pharmaceuticalproduct Fumagillin or we would have lost every single bee.

The honey processing plant at Rio San Pedro Apiary of Rio San Pedro hives, with an Ulmo tree flowering in the centre back ofthe picture

Bees for Development Journal 96

Although some experiments have been done on plant extracts such asachillea, basil, dandelion and thyme, and there is some evidence thatthese can be effective, none are nearly as effective as Fumagillin.

We do not apply Fumagillin in the winter feed, but spray it on the beesin the autumn using a sugar mix. The bees ingest this mix as they cleaneach other but they do not have sufficient to store. Post applicationanalysis shows no residue of Fumagillin in the honey or the wax aftertreatment.

This is where the European standards and the Canadian/USA standards"are very different. The European organic standards do not permit the useof Fumagillin, whereas the Canadian/USA standards recognise that beesshould be healthy and be helped to survive: Fumagillin is arecommended product.

In conclusion, I would urge a revision of the European standards, withinput from skilled commercial beekeepers, instead of relying onbureaucrats. The risk is that if we ignore these questions, manyunscrupulous producers will simply cheat, undermining the wholeconcept of organic and responsible apiculture. This is unacceptable.

From Ulrich Broker, GermanyIt would be excellent if there were one, world-wide unifying set ofstandards. However, a world-wide consent covering all aspects andinterests of participating parties, considering all differences inbeekeeping economy, structural conditions, natural resources,availability of equipment, access to markets and so on, seems to bedifficult and unlikely to be achieved. IFOAM1 and FAO2 have setoverarching frameworks for organic certification in an attempt to createa common base and understanding for what can be defined as organic.However these are not binding for any individual nation or region.National legislation can set organic rules according to their estimationabout what is appropriate and realistic for their own circumstances.

European standards may appear strict, but under European conditionsorganic apiculture seems to work. Here the majority of beekeepers arehobbyists having less than 30 colonies and their main motivation ispleasure and a concern for ecological relations. The European standardsand organic legislation were not written for nations in the subtropicswith large-scale apiculture and very different conditions and situations.However, the fact remains that for any honey to be sold as organic inthe EU it must be produced under the EU guidelines, or the exportingstate's organic legislation must be approved as equivalent to theEU standards.

Origin of queensThis is not a problem in Europe, where most of the beekeepers raisequeens from their own stock, and where there are a number of organicbreeders. This rule is not written to reduce honey contamination, but toenhance organic production in general, across the whole of thebeekeeping sector. Nobody suggests that honey quality is associatedwith the queen's origin. However, the global trade with queens hasanother aspect: distributing queens - or even colonies - across climatezones and hemispheres, risks spreading honey bee diseases. There are

enough examples of disastrous effects, for example Varroa, small hivebeetle and Nosema. For good reasons, the European organic standarddemands locally, well-adapted strains of bees. Perhaps the solution isto set up an organic queen breeding scheme in Chile.

Nosema ceranaeThe occurrence and cause of Nosema ceranae on Apis mellifera is stilldiscussed and remains controversial. There is nojjrganic patentmedjcine for control. Infestation seems to be related to colonies withpoor performance of vitality, nevertheless strong colonies are underthreat and far from being safe. It is hard to suggest how your goodpractice can be further improved. Part of your problems must be relatedto the structure of commercial apiculture, with a considerableconcentration of colonies which does not occur naturally. Thedifference between the European and Canadian/USA standards is in partone of philosophy. In general, European standards are predominantlybased upon fundamental assumptions, while American standards focuson pragmatism and feasibility.

Another pressing issue within the organic apiculture debate is that ofinspection. How can the application of organic rules be verified duringan inspection of two hours or even one day? How to deal with risksfrom untrue documentation, which is at the same time understandable?1 am concerned with these questions.

At the end of August 2010 Apimondia's 1st International Conference onOrganic Beekeeping will be held in Bulgaria (see Look Ahead). It willprovide a chance to address many issues which have arisen sincecertification of bee products began. There is considerable scope forrevision, adaptation and harmonisation of international guidelines and itis hoped this process will gain momentum with the ApimondiaConference in Bulgaria.

From Bees for DevelopmentIt is difficult to see how one set of rules can apply globally. Insub-Saharan Africa, for example, beekeeping is very different from Chileand Europe. Many beekeepers in Africa practise what might be calledwild or natural beekeeping and hives are distributed throughout vastnatural forests. Producing a map of the apiary (a requirement forcertification schemes) is impossible. Furthermore in Africa, beekeepersobtain new colonies through natural colonisation by wild bees. Theycannot produce any documentation to prove that these colonisingswarms have been "organically reared". Bringing African beekeepinginto the debate about organic apiculture raises additional questions fororganic certification, not just because of challenges of the audit trail,but because B/D would argue that wild or natural beekeeping, aspractised in many countries, is more ecological and organic than thestrictest, organically-certified bee farm.

11nternational Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements

2 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Further readingCONRAD,R. (2007) Natural beekeeping - organic approaches to modem apiculture *

SCHACKER.M (2008) A spring without bees - how CCD has endangered our food supply'

STEINER.R.; BRAATZ.T. (1999) Bees: nine lectures on the nature of bees *

THIELE.M. (1999) The need for organic beekeeping. Bees for Development Journal 50 **

*available from the BfD online store

** www.beesfordevelopment.org/portal/index.php