Australia’s 46,000 recreational beekeepers and pure honey producers felt betrayed by AHBIC last week, and they are furious.

AHBIC is an organization meant to work for all beekeepers and look after bees.

This week, AHBIC acted as a lobby group for cartel-style commercial beekeepers and industrial farms, resulting in varroa being super-spread to the almonds and further throughout Australia. AHBIC lobbied to keep borders open, risking further spread throughout Australia.

As a result, AHBIC has lost the trust and support of many honey producers and beekeepers.

The primary reason smaller beekeepers pursue almond contracts is due to the wholesale honey price paid by the Honey Packers, which is so low that it's almost below the cost of production. They need to pursue these large almond pollinations to make ends meet.

The same Honey Packers, like Capilano Ltd, are more than happy to import inferior quality honey while penalizing Australian beekeepers on price for their superior quality product. $3.50 is not enough.

AHBIC could have implemented NMR testing to address the adulteration issue but has stuck with C3 testing because… 

Some beekeepers are pledging not to register their hives or are considering leaving the industry entirely.

It has been alleged that Deputy Chairman  of AHBIC abused his powerful position by gathering information from a private meeting with AHBIC to move thousands of his  hives out of an area just hours before it was declared a red zone.

It has also been alleged that the same person received special treatment to move hives from a purple zone near Orange to pollinate the monoculture almonds.

I invite Jon Lockwood and Bianca Giggins from AHBIC to appear on the "What’s the Buzz" podcast to discuss why almond pollinators have received special treatment and why with the double standard they have risked the entire Australian honey industry by allowing Varroa-infected hives to disperse from the red zones.

We discuss recent events here

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7EhyvvnGRGvFGkZqg03l4r?si=3k0eFzgNS2qOIZANh7Eo3Q

AHBIC has not called for bans on neonicotinoids and glyphosate, which are harmful to bees and contaminate honey. 

They have also supported an irrational eradication and the fipronil poisoning program, which have resulted in the deaths of billions of bees and the livelihoods of thousands.

We must remember. “The privilege of being a beekeeper is not solely about generating as much honey as possible. Beekeepers keep bees to contribute to pollination. The future of beekeeping lies not in one beekeeper with 60,000 hives, but rather in 60,000 individuals with one or a few hives, all approaching the art and craft of beekeeping as a holistic practice”

 (Simon Buxton, "The Shamanic Way of the Bee").

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