12/2/2004 - Illegal Use of Sodium Cyanide

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state departments of agriculture have recently been alerted that some beekeepers have been using sodium cyanide compound to control pests in their honey bee colonies/hives. Specifically, apiarists have been purchasing and using a sodium cyanide compound as a fumigant in beehives to destroy or mitigate wax moths including the caterpillar and larvae, as well as to cull out weaker hives. These practices are illegal and have the potential for serious harm to human health and the environment. Continued...(PDF)

Registration of Food Facilities Under the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002; Interim Rule
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an interim final regulation for the registration of food facilities. Domestic and foreign facilities that manufacture, process, pack or hold food for human or animal consumption in the United States are required to register with the FDA by December 12, 2003. Registration is one of several tools that will enable FDA to act quickly in responding to a threatened or actual terrorist attack on the U.S. food supply.  Read more about this...
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Begging Beetles Fool Honey bees for Food
Beetles kept as prisoners in honeybee hives trick their captors into feeding them. Read article...

Apiary Inspection Program
New York State Division of Agriculture and Markets

ARS chemist Raul Rivera (left), technician Jesus Maldonado (center), and entomologist William Wilson use smoke and a specially modified hand held vacuum to collect Africanized honey bees to study the impact of parasitic mites on them. Since the discovery of the honeybee tracheal mite and the Varroa mite, the maintenance of the state's viable honeybee population has been of great concern to the Department.

Left undetected or untreated, apiaries infested with these parasites will exhibit a high rate of colony mortality. In 1999, apiary inspectors inspected 5,426 honeybee colonies from 110 apiaries for American foulbrood disease and parasitic mites. The Department also issued certificates to 21 beekeepers permitting the interstate movement of 9,004 honeybee colonies. Approximately 29,500 honeybee colonies entered New York State under permit in 1999.

The small hive beetle, found for the first time in the U.S. in Florida in 1998, is known as an apiary pest in South Africa. The Department, in cooperation with the Department of Environmental Conservation and Cornell University, sought and obtained a FIFRA Specific Emergency Exemption request for the use of coumaphos for the control of the Varroa mite and the small hive beetle in New York State during 1999. In the course of inspections for the interstate movement of hives, the presence of the small hive beetle was reported from a commercial apiary.