BEEKEEPERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20322, 2 February 1928, Page 15

BEEKEEPERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES.

BREACH OF REGULATIONS

(Peb Gnitu) Press Association.]

WELLINGTON, February 1. The responsibilities of those who go in for beekeeping were pointed out in the Lower Hutt Magistrate’s Court to-day, when the inspector of apiaries (Mr D. S. Robinson) proceeded against Nomian Barnes Gibbons and John Martin Baigent for keeping bees in hives not conforming to the regulations. The inspector stated that he visited the property of Baigent, a registered beekeeper, and found a number of hives of bees and one swarm in a common benzine box without frame. The whole apiary was badly infected with disease, and notice was served on Baigent ordering the destruction of the apiary. A similar swarm had been found on Gibbons’s property. Mr Robinson explained that the Act laid it down that bees must be kept in boxes with readily movable frames, this being for the purpose of inspection. Bees kept in boxes usually became jnfected with disease. The bees died out, and the boxes were robbecKby bees from neighbouring apiaries. Thus one discarded box might be the means of infecting hundreds of other colonies. Mr Robinson regarded Gibbons as a pirate beekeeper. He had obtained the swarm, put it in a common box, and had failed to register under the Act, which demanded that every beekeeper, no matter if he had only one hive, must apply to the Department of Agriculture to have the bees registered. The new Act came into force on January 1 of this year, increasing all maximum fines for the various breaches of the Act. The inspector added that beekeeping in New wag one of the growing primary industries, and that honey was being exported to all parts of the world in quantities up to 500 tons, showing that although a comparatively new industry in the Dominion it was of considerable' financial value to exporters. The New Zealand honey commanded a higher price than honey from any other part of the world. This was due to the fact that no honey was allowed to leave the country until it had been graded by the Government honey graders. Stating that he believed that neither of the defendants had acted in ignorance the magistrate (Mr J. H. Salmon) fined them £2 each.