In message <[log in to unmask]>, Gavin Ramsay 
<[log in to unmask]> writes
Murray ... who I fully expect to join the SBA in 2010 ;-) ... has a 
couple of hundred fold greater than the 10 hive limit and might have a 
considerable supplement to pay should he decide to insure his stock.  In 
general commercial beekeepers have carried their own risk and made no 
particular provision for the damaging losses from large disease 
outbreaks.


No compensation is paid for bee diseases. Destructions are mandatory for 
ALL AFB case no matter how minor, and for EFB in severe cases.

Association insurance policies have, as Gavin correctly states, and 
upper limit of 10 hives, subject to an overall upper limit on total 
claims, after which level is reached they are paid out pro rata. Thus 
from this you can twig that it is only paid out at season end once the 
total is known.

In our case we destroyed 154 colonies in total for EFB, we did not find 
any AFB. Even IF this lot was covered you get the complicating factor 
that of that 154, somewhere between 0 and 20 were actually at the 
compulsory level, and the rest could be deemed a commercial decision.

The reasons for that are twofold. Firstly we wanted to root it out as 
far as we could so ANY symptomatics were destroyed. Secondly is that if 
we did not we would have had to 'shook swarm' all the ones with 
symptoms, and have the entire unit under a standstill order for 6 weeks, 
which would have been in force from just before our single most 
important migration of the year, to the heather.

Cold facts are that destroying the 154 colonies has an attached loss of 
approx GBP 23 K. Missing our heather crop would carry an average loss of 
GBP 180K. The maths are pretty stark. The real impact on me and my staff 
could be even more stark...........unemployment, bankruptcy etc etc.

Private insurance is very costly. Myself and a couple of other bee 
people have been down the same route before. In my case the premiums 
asked were so high that even a loss like this one EVERY year would still 
be much cheaper than the insurance. Add in the fact that this is our 
outfits first foulbrood outbreak since my father set it up in 1950 and 
you get the picture. The risk is tiny and the premiums ferocious. So we 
carry our own risk well aware that occasionally it might work the wrong 
way, but over a period it is in your favour NOT to insure, and to date 
we have never suffered a loss that would come close to equating to the 
insurance premium.

Gavin, not sure the SBA would want me, lol. I am quite sure the 
organisation is better off, and more stable, without any of the 'big 
dogs' to unbalance issues. As you are very well aware (but the 
readership may not be) we have our own organisation where our presence 
is more appropriate.

Must be winter time.............drawn me out of my lurker cave in which 
I vowed to stay. ( Really do not have time, no matter how tempted I am, 
to argue with 'armchair experts' with high ideals in what HAS to be a 
pragmatic world. Have 50,000 frames to assemble, wire, and wax all 
before April, and limited staff to do it until mid Feb when the 
seasonals start returning. Add in a complete reworking of ALL our 
existing brood combs from the unit with the infection and you get the 
picture.)
-- 
Murray McGregor

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