Trevor Gillbanks

As I understand Food Safety regulations, the generic label is sufficient.

Ecrotek sell nutritional labels. Just copy that, I did. https://www.ecrotek.co.nz/product/nutritional-facts-labels-honey-1000

No. If a customer takes it overseas, then you are not exporting. This has happened many times with my honey. I do not export any honey.

Why on earth would we want to let the possible facts get in the way of a good thread and discussion.

Blenheim

Thanks Matt. Frank is a fantastic man and a wonderful and sharing beekeeper.

I am a personal friend of Frank and Mary-Ann Lyndsey. Neither Frank nor Mary-Ann are members of this beekeeping forum. Frank has been informed of this thread and has asked me to post his reply to clarify both the radio interview and allegations made on this forum. All true. I had two sites I’d didn’t visit: grass up high, supers with rotted corners. These were the last in a days run and missed when you run out of time. The beekeeper was horrified at the condition but it was deliberate as someone had helped themselves to 5 two and three high hives but they leave them alone when left 5 high. The site going into Wellington had to be abandoned. Every Thursday a group of young guys had a party and their party trick was to see how many pallets of hives they could tip over. I didn’t realised they could see the apiary from above and when I camped out nothing happened. So one night I walked in along the railway line for a km and camped out and about midnight surprised them but couldn’t out run them. So moved the apiary. About this time a new railway manager thought it was unsafe to cross the railway tracks even though I had been doing this for 20 years and could advise train control The losses of 400 hives were due to resistant mites. Dr Mark Goodwin has been warning about this for three years. Beekeepers failed to check that their treatments had worked after a treatment round was completed One beekeeper sampling for bee exports found no change in mite numbers, swapped from bayvarol to apistan after a couple of weeks no change. Put on apiguard and mites fell. That beekeeper didn’t warn others so some suffered serious losses. I’m now getting resistant mites in sites close to those that move the hives around the country. Not in other sites. 6 strips in a hive and 10 % mites at the end of 6 weeks. Mite resistance is spreading. Be aware. I now used two treatments together and treat 4 times a year. Last season I used Formic acid flash treatment starting in spring once a month. I started treating weekly from Christmas with Formic acid. By Feb/ March no mites in my hives. IE alcohol washes and no mites dropping on slides under mesh bottom boards (All my hives have mesh bottom boards) Mite bombs name created by Denis van Engelsdorp USA. Any hive dying from mites within a 2 kl of your hives will take out a whole apiary in a month. I tried this in 2001 when I got mites from a log coming down from Northland. I killed or sealed in all the ferals I could find except one, and when this died from mites, the mite fall in my hives 300 metres away was huge. I left strips in to protect the hives. Now this is unlikely to work. So now every beekeeper is dependant of their neighbour. Don’t allow hives to swarm as these will die from mites and be robbed creating a mite bomb. All treat together or else you have wasted money if just one beekeeper doesn’t. AFB two reasons both beekeeper related. I was an AP2 and can pick a diseased hive when it’s just a couple of cell. A Commercial beekeeper left 4 hives behind after moving 40 hives away. The hives in my apiary gradually got AFB. I asked for these hives to be inspected. Free of disease yet I burnt nearly all the hives in two Apiaries. I was told but later the inspector had no sense of smell and didn’t like to wear glasses. So AFB spread. In other sites 2 or 3 AFB in each apiary. PMP would inspect and find disease in other beekeepers hives but no follow up next season so it would continue even though only new gear went on the apiaries. Last season commercials moved in around me. They got AFB but not me although one in the autumn ( over 200 hives now within 3km ) Left all spare boxes on hives as it easier to get rid of all gear when a hive gets AFB. Is AFB a problem. China has detected AFB spores in Canadian, Australian and now NZ honey yet we destroy all AFB hives and honey. What does that tell you. Old at 70 year. Yes slower. Used to have 480 hives but now down to 160. After varroa decimated my apiaries close to other beekeepers, now back to 160 hives again. Hives isolated still no mites at Christmas. Old boxes yes as bees do not mind the condition of the box and you get twice the amount of propolis. However with high densities, bees will now rob if hives not closed down tight. Lots of reports of hobby hives being robbed by the commercial hives 200 metres away. Some just after they opened the hives, some could be due to faulty or late treatment being robbed when bee numbers drop. One has wide open entranced - should have reduced them. Club now promotes robbing screens. Too many hives yes. My production has halved in the last 7 years. Thought it was me but then did a walk around. Where I was the only commercial beekeeper, now some sites have 100 hives within 2 km. Bee hives slow to build. Farming has changed. Scrub cleared, rotational grazing, nitrogen put on reducing clover. Clover cut before it flowers. Most commercials now feeding supplements to support hives. This is not sustainable beekeeping. Frank P.S Frank doesn't belong to any forums as he write for the New Zealand beekeeper and with almost 50yrs of beekeeping and reading, research and attending both NZ and overseas conferences I think he is more informed than most on any forum. Mary-Ann

I cannot disagree with you.

No. Listen to the full 18.22 min interview. It is here on the forum https://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018648894

Such a pity that people are making comments without listening to the interview Maybe if they listened to the interview that would have their facts right, rather than making speculations..

No. Never.

Is this for the house renovations/repairs.

or Buckley's Canadiol Mixture. That was a real mans cough mixture

Yes, I understand that. I was just meaning the holding image. No problem as far as I am concerned as it is your call.

If it is not live. Why is it that we can still see it. Why not just have the name on it's own for a holding image or a photo of New Zealand scenery.