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Bees: Imports

Answer

All consignments of honey bee queens imported into Northern Ireland (NI) must be accompanied by health certificates confirming that the area the bees originated from is free of certain pests and diseases. The health certificate must be issued no more than 24 hours prior to dispatch and the certifying officer must also confirm that a pre-export inspection took place. When the imports arrive in NI they are cleared by NI officials. Great Britain (GB) officials do not have access to the systems used by NI so we do not have figures for how many queen honeybees have been imported into NI. Once the imports have been cleared by NI officials, the bees can be moved to GB without any further controls so information about the number of queen honeybees moved from NI to GB is not collected.

NI officials have shared intelligence that since 2021 they have received increased numbers of queen honey bee imports into NI while the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s National Bee Unit has recorded fewer imports of queen honey bees into GB.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL9859

Session

2024-26

Subjects

Imports Northern Ireland Bees

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk