2004 Inspection Report

Following is a brief summary of the 2004 season. In 2004, 379 resident beekeepers registered 6,296 hives. The
trend of fewer registered beekeepers and hives within Maine continues and reflects the decline of beekeepers
and hives at the national level. Unfortunately, part of this “decline” is attributed to non-compliance with
Maine’s Apiary Registration requirement. In contrast, there is excellent compliance among the commercial
migratory beekeepers that ship bees to Maine for crop pollination and honey production. Last year,
approximately 45,600 hives managed by 33 migratory beekeepers entered Maine for blueberry, apple and
cranberry pollination. About 2,000 of these hives were also situated in canola, small fruits, squash and
buckwheat for pollination and/or honey production.

Hives entered Maine in 2004 under certification from AR, FL, GA, LA, SC and TX. In addition, 480
hives were shipped to Maine from New Mexico under AR certificate and 5,000 colonies from Kern County, CA
without certification because the state of CA and Kern Co terminated apiary inspection. About 3% of these
hives were inspected in Maine after their arrival. California apiary inspection programs are administered at the
county level. Certain counties in California fund apiary inspection while others do not. Colusa Co., for
example provided inspection and certification in 2003 for 1,000 hives shipped to Maine that spring. Last year,
13, 779 hives were issued Maine health Certificates for interstate movement to MA, RI, FL, NY, VT and GA
for cranberry pollination, honey production and wintering. The remaining imported hives moved to honey
production areas after blueberry pollination under AR, FL and TX certification.

Throughout the year, 6,011 colonies were surveyed at random with 2,234 opened and inspected for
disease and parasites. Additional hives used to evaluate Varroa treatments were inspected several times during
the season and are not included in the 2,234 hives inspected. The incidence of American foulbrood was quite
low in 2004 and 0.8% of inspected hives had symptoms. This low AFB incidence is primarily due to the use of
Terramycin and Tylosin by beekeepers. European foulbrood was detected in 0.4% of inspected hives while
sacbrood was present in 0.2% of examined colonies. Varroa mite is detectable in most, if not all beekeeping
operations, both large and small. The emergence and spread of Varroa with resistance to pesticides has
interfered with commercial beekeepers’ ability to maintain colony numbers and has increased colony losses
among the state’s hobby and sideline beekeepers. Inspections in 2004 identified additional beekeeping
operations both resident and non-resident with Varroa mite strains highly resistant to fluvalinate, coumaphos
and amitraz.

In April 2004, the Maine Department of Agriculture was granted repeats of the Section 18, Emergency
Exemptions for CheckMite+(coumaphos) and ApiLifeVar (thymol, menthol, eucalyptol, camphor) by the US-
EPA and Maine Pesticide Control Board. The label for ApiLifeVar was revised from the 2003 label with
respect to the pre-harvest interval that was reduced from 150 days to 30 days. This label change now allows for
a spring ApiLifeVar Varroa treatment before honey production commences. The Maine Pesticide Control
Board will review the Departments request for repeats of the Section 18’s for both CheckMite and ApiLife in
February 2005 prior to forwarding the request for approval by US-EPA.

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Tony Jadczak, State Apiarist

Anthony Jadczak has been the Maine State Apiarist since 1983. He previously worked at Rutgers University researching crop pollination and bee disease control methods.