Apiary Register
It is a legal requirement1 in New Zealand for all beekeepers and the location of their apiaries to be registered. We maintain an apiary database on behalf of the Management Agency for the American Foulbrood Strategy. The database contains information on over 2700 beekeepers, 21,700 apiaries and 368,000 hives.
co-ordinating and managing apiary inspection and sampling
Apiaries are geo-referenced (i.e have a grid reference), which allows planning of detailed disease surveys and locating apiaries to inspect hives. The register is used to co-ordinate and manage inspection and sampling programmes for both the endemic American foulbrood disease and suspected bee disease as well as clear apiaries for the export of live bees and products.
Contact AsureQuality: 0508 00 11 22 to register as a new beekeeper or to register new apiaries.
1Biosecurity (National American Foulbrood Pest Management Strategy) Order 1998.
Disease control in Apiaries
All hives must be inspected annually by an Approved Beekeeper for the presence of a serious bacterial disease called American foulbrood or AFB (Paenibacillus larvae larvae).
To become approved a beekeeper must pass a competency test in American foulbrood recognition and control and have a Disease Elimination Conformity Agreement (DECA) approved by AsureQuality Limited. If a beekeeper is not Approved then he or she must engage the services of an Approved Beekeeper to inspect their hives and report on the inspection.
Any case of American foulbrood disease must be reported and destroyed within 7 days of discovery. Beekeepers must also furnish a return each year updating all apiary records and stating that their hives have been inspected.
Beekeepers are also required to report any suspect exotic honey bee disease immediately to
MAF Biosecurity: 0800 80 99 66
Valuable links
National Beekeepers' Association of New Zealand
