Written question asked by Derek Wyatt (Labour) on Tuesday, 23 November 2004, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 29 November 2004. It was answered by Alun Michael (Labour) on Monday, 29 November 2004 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans she has to maintain the regulation of (a) Varroasis and (b) European Foul Brood in beekeeping.

Answer: Mr. Wyatt: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to maintain the regulation of (a) Varroasis and (b) European Foul Brood in beekeeping.[199527] Alun Michael: The Department has no plans to maintain a statutory enforcement role for the control of varroasis. Since the disease is now endemic we plan to remove it from the list of notifiable bee diseases in 2005. In the case of European foul brood, we are working towards delisting this as a notifiable disease by the end of 2007-08. This will be subject to making satisfactory progress with trials of the `shook swarm' technique, which the National Bee Unit is currently evaluating.

Secondary information