[log in to unmask] (Glyn Davies) wrote:
 
> across southern England.  The Government twice drew a line making it
> illegal to transport bees or equipment to the North.  These were not
> observed by the mite and the line is soon to be redrawn for the third
> time towards the Scotland/England border.
 
 
Concerning the regulations on preventing the spread of the varroa mite.
When Finland joined the EU it became clear that we no more can continue
keeping a barrier zone between the infested and noninfested part of the country
and set regulations to prevent transporting bee colonies over and into this
zone. As I understood the background of the decision is set in EU directive
92/65, Article 15.  In Finland this has been interpreted so, that if we want
to maintain the zone system to prevent the transport of bees to non-infested
areas from infested area in Finland and the rest of EU we should have a
national program for the varroa mite control.  This should include a
surveillance of the mite-free area to show that this area is really mite-free.
Now it has been considered a program that would be too expensive compared to
the benefit from it. Although there still is a considerable part of the country
in the former "varroa-free" zone the bee population in this zone is estimated
to be only ca. 10 % of total bee population of the country.
 
Do you in UK have such a program running in the non-infested area as you have
been able to maintain zoning the country to prevent transporting bees to varroa
free parts of the country?
 
> Its spread appears to be in the direction of UK's strongly prevailing
> summer/autumn winds.  That is from the south west. The mite has moved
> hundreds of miles to the northeast but Cornwall, just to the south west
 
Without commenting on your questions I give just an opposite case of
Varroa spread. Here in Finland the mite was first detected on south-eastern
border to Russia in 1980. Due to regulations on the movement of bee colonies
we have been quite succesful to contain the mite to the south-eastern part
of the country. However, the mite has spread slowly west- and northwards from
the point of original detection but considerable parts of the counry are still
free from Varroa 16 years since the first detection (see my WWW-page
www.mtt.fi/mtt/ksl/erikois/beepage2.htm showing the spread of the mite in
south and central Finland). The prevailing winds in summer
and autumn are similarly from southwest.
 
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