Thanks to all of you for your helpful responses.  The context for this is some criticism we received from novice beekeepers to the effect that our recent new release dealing with illegal importation of honey bees and the complexities of beekeeping is too negative. See http://nlbeekeeping.ca/data/documents/nlbka-news-release-1-Final-2017-04-10.pdf

Our BEEK association only got off the ground in November 2014 so we’ve been busy taking care of basics.  One of our more experienced commercial beekeepers started to offer courses in the summer of 2016 and these will continue this year.  Until then, our new beekeepers had to travel to Nova Scotia for the Modern Beekeeper course offered by Dalhousie University, which isn’t cheap.  There is no mandatory apicultural training here and no mandatory apiary registration.

We certainly refer wannabes to our website especially sections dealing with:

-	getting started - http://www.nlbeekeeping.ca/beekeepers-corner/getting-started/
-	recommended reading http://www.nlbeekeeping.ca/beekeepers-corner/recommended-reading/

I have the strong impression that many of the residents of the province who make contact with an interest in starting beekeeping have not visited this website.  Bizarre!

Apiculture is included in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Animal Health and Protection Act, Animal Health Regulation 33/12, sections 6 and 7.   It allows our government to restrict importation of honey bees and used beekeeping equipment from outside of the province. However, it needs beefing up to include mandatory apiary registration, better quarantine protocols that take into consideration fly zones of foraging honey bees, etc.  The importation restrictions were implemented in the 1980s and until last April, only eggs were occasionally imported under permit, primarily through the Skinner family and their relative, Alison van Alten, who was associated with the OBA’s Tech Transfer program, their Russian breeding program, etc. 10 Kona queens were also imported by these folks on one occasion – all under permit.  The first big change was the government’s decision to allow the importation of 130 packages of Western Australian honey bees for 2 commercial beekeepers and a farmer.  This was highly controversial, despite the fact that WA is free of Varroa, and that the importation obviously met screening criteria imposed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in the context of WTO regulations and processes concerning international trade in live animals.  It was controversial mainly because of lack of consultation with our association, government refusal to accept a moratorium (pending an independent 3rd party risk assessment I would have hoped), lack of information about the genetics, pathogen, pest and disease profiles of the WA bees, and concern that the pathogen profile for these bees may not be the same as our own.   As you may know “honey bee viruses do not currently form part of any statutory disease control programme anywhere and no virus disease of the honey bee is mentioned in the World Organization for Animal health (OIE) Terrestrial Animal Health Code.” See 6.2 Emerging diseases of bees and the international trade in
http://nlbeekeeping.ca/data/documents/generschaubert2010.pdf

So, that in a nutshell is what’s going on here.  Thanks again!

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