Organic pollination

[Jaspur M 65]

Hi team, just have a question for the experts, do you need to be organically certified to pollinate an organic crop?

[john berry 5,636]

Some organic growers care and others are not worried which doesn't help you much. One answer is just to put them across the fence in the neighbours place. I know this solution has been used before.

[Maggie James 906]

Is this whole property covered by organic status?  If not, and no house on the non organic part, put the hives there if terrain etc suitable

[Philbee 4,675]

1 hour ago, Jaspur M said:

Hi team, just have a question for the experts, do you need to be organically certified to pollinate an organic crop?

Id say that there are probably more organic orchids in NZ than organic Beekeepers  so it must follow that many Organic Orchids are being pollinated by Non organic Hives.

[Ted 404]

1 hour ago, Jaspur M said:

Hi team, just have a question for the experts, do you need to be organically certified to pollinate an organic crop?

Short answer - no.  Using non organic bees to pollinate organic crops does not affect the organic status of the crop.  As @Philbee so correctly points out there are no where near enough organic beekeeping operations around to meet all the organic pollination requirements.

[Philbee 4,675]

There is currently a move by a few Beeks toward Organic status.

I know of only one that actually certified.

 

[Maggie James 906]

2 hours ago, Jaspur M said:

do you need to be organically certified to pollinate an organic crop?

 

You might find that the grower won't want you treating with non organic mite controls whilst hives are on an organic site i.e. you might have to remove hives for treatments, if this is not part of your regimen

[kevin moore 680]

Any way how are you going to stop the non organic bees flying in for a look, i had hives on an organic vine yard, had to use organic mite treatment, that didnt work well the weather was also cold and wet, lose to many bees so now its back to using what i want

[tristan 4,363]

2 hours ago, Jaspur M said:

Hi team, just have a question for the experts, do you need to be organically certified to pollinate an organic crop?

it simply comes down to what the customer will accept. 

it doesn't bother many of them and the rules for organics keep changing and often to make things easier. go figure.

 

technically hives should not be shifted in for pollination as driving isn't exactly organic.

a lot of the places that i've seen with organic hives do not have enough organic land for them to forage on. that includes many orchards, most are way to small to run organic hives.

but again every time i look at the requirements the goalposts have been moved closer.

many of the places that run their own hives end up with dead hives.

hence i suspect many places simply use commercial hives and ignore the organics requirements.

[Philbee 4,675]

16 minutes ago, tristan said:

it simply comes down to what the customer will accept. 

it doesn't bother many of them and the rules for organics keep changing and often to make things easier. go figure.

 

technically hives should not be shifted in for pollination as driving isn't exactly organic.

a lot of the places that i've seen with organic hives do not have enough organic land for them to forage on. that includes many orchards, most are way to small to run organic hives.

but again every time i look at the requirements the goalposts have been moved closer.

many of the places that run their own hives end up with dead hives.

hence i suspect many places simply use commercial hives and ignore the organics requirements.

Id say that overall its about being seen to be moving in one direction as opposed to the other.

This is a process and the position of the goal posts will reflect that.

[Jaspur M 65]

Thanks for all the replies, i will be in touch with the grower and find a happy medium, does oxalic staples come under organic treatment? Might be a topic for another thread

Thanks team

[tristan 4,363]

21 minutes ago, Philbee said:

Id say that overall its about being seen to be moving in one direction as opposed to the other.

This is a process and the position of the goal posts will reflect that.

sorry but no.

the goal posts are shifted because its easier than doing whats right. just like everyone else morals get thrown out when there is money at stake.

 

[Philbee 4,675]

44 minutes ago, tristan said:

sorry but no.

the goal posts are shifted because its easier than doing whats right. just like everyone else morals get thrown out when there is money at stake.

 

If its made too difficult then every attempt will fail and no progress will be made.

The success of others encourages investment and with investment comes progress.

Its also important to consider that we do live in an imperfect world

 

 

[tristan 4,363]

49 minutes ago, Philbee said:

If its made too difficult then every attempt will fail and no progress will be made.

The success of others encourages investment and with investment comes progress.

Its also important to consider that we do live in an imperfect world

 

 

that would be fine if they where starting low and moving to higher standards.

in this case they are lowering standards with profit being the big incentive.

 

if you keep lowering the standards then there is no different between organic and regular commercial.

then the whole exercise becomes nothing more than a PR stunt to increase profits.

[yesbut 6,233]

1 minute ago, tristan said:

the whole exercise becomes nothing more than a PR stunt to increase profits

Marketing 101

[Stoney 1,584]

Jaspur we have some work hives that we use for pollination on organic farms. 

We declare any weed control and also varroa treatments (ox/gl ) to the farmer for their paperwork. Formalities. 

No big dramas 

The main hassle is them repeat spraying with organic insecticides during the flowering of the crop. 

I don’t like sprayed bees so it generally involves shifting back and forwards 

[Ted 404]

1 hour ago, tristan said:

that would be fine if they where starting low and moving to higher standards.

in this case they are lowering standards with profit being the big incentive.

 

if you keep lowering the standards then there is no different between organic and regular commercial.

then the whole exercise becomes nothing more than a PR stunt to increase profits.

Which is exactly what it is!!

[tristan 4,363]

9 minutes ago, Ted said:

Which is exactly what it is!!

yes/no.

i'm not knocking organic method or the principles behind it.

but it makes a mockery of it if you change your principles to suit the dollars.

[Philbee 4,675]

1 hour ago, tristan said:

PR stunt to increase profits.

Like Putin once said of Russia

'We could do with a bit of Global warming"

 

 

Edited September 14, 2019 by Philbee

[ChrisM 1,278]

Is there a resource or link anyone can suggest where we can read up what/where these goal posts are (at the moment)? I don't do pollination but I am interested to read up on the rules to understand. I read some older threads on the forum, still none the wiser. I'm not entirely sure what an organic beehive is let alone an organic beekeeper; aside from the varroa treatment side of things I suppose. 

 

[john berry 5,636]

I used to put a lot of hives into organic apple orchards and my hives were not organic .  20 years ago there was a lot of poisoning while the hives were in the orchards but these days it is a lot better and sad to say hives generally come out of conventional orchards in better order than they do from organic orchards. I suspect this is just from the sheer number of organic sprays that they put on and when a bee gets blasted by a high-pressure sprayer it doesn't really matter to the bee weather it has got chemicals in the or not.

What's the difference between a dead hive and an organic hive? About six months.

[tristan 4,363]

1 hour ago, ChrisM said:

Is there a resource or link anyone can suggest where we can read up what/where these goal posts are (at the moment)? I don't do pollination but I am interested to read up on the rules to understand. I read some older threads on the forum, still none the wiser. I'm not entirely sure what an organic beehive is let alone an organic beekeeper; aside from the varroa treatment side of things I suppose. 

 

https://www.asurequality.com/assets/Organic-Files/Organics-Standards/AQ-Organics-Standard-2018-v7.pdf

 

i'm not up with the play these days.

biggest thing that i see is site location. they mention 5km radius, others mention 3km radius. it was down to 1km some years back.

the site is meant to be surrounded by organic land but i see one crowd  has an out where anything is ok unless the bees pick up contamination" which they are not testing for.

i suspect 90% of organic bee sites would fail the 5km radius rule.

 

bees are meant to stay on site, which kinda stuffs up moving them for pollination. 

 

[Dennis Crowley 1,351]

 

I pollinate a couple of organic kiwifruit orchards and have done for twenty years, i'm not organic and use bayvarol while hives are in their orchard.

All they require is a letter that states the reason I'm using the varroa treatment is to stop the hives from dying from varroa, send it in with the invoice, never had a problem.

When bayvarol first came out it was allowed to be used in organic orchards for saving the bees as there was no organic treatment at the time so i presume it still can.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2019 by Dennis Crowley
add extra info

[Bighands 1,065]

1 hour ago, Dennis Crowley said:

 

I pollinate a couple of organic kiwifruit orchards and have done for twenty years, i'm not organic and use bayvarol while hives are in their orchard.

All they require is a letter that states the reason I'm using the varroa treatment is to stop the hives from dying from varroa, send it in with the invoice, never had a problem.

When bayvarol first came out it was allowed to be used in organic orchards for saving the bees as there was no organic treatment at the time so i presume it still can.

 

 

 

 

When I got out of organic honey propduction in 2010/11 bayvrol was not allowed under the A.Q. rules.

 

[Dennis Crowley 1,351]

1 hour ago, Bighands said:

When I got out of organic honey propduction in 2010/11 bayvrol was not allowed under the A.Q. rules.

 

I'm not using it for honey production neither are the orchardists, maybe different rules apply as they get audited and never had an issue.