Health Certificate
Lexikon
The health certificate under Section 5 of the Bee Disease Ordinance is the certification of an official veterinarian that must be presented when moving bee colonies into another authority's district.
The health certificate under Section 5 of the Bee Disease Ordinance is the certification of an official veterinarian that must be presented when moving bee colonies into another authority's district. It confirms that the bees were found free of American foulbrood and that the place of origin is not in a restricted zone.
The certificate may be issued no earlier than September 1 of the previous year and must be no older than nine months. It must be presented without delay after arrival at the new site to the authority responsible there. For temporary migrations, the authority enters the migration data and any diseases found; after returning to one's own authority's district, the certificate is returned.
The basis for the certification is usually an examination of the apiary, generally via feed ring test samples, which are taken by a certified bee inspector and tested in a laboratory for spores of the foulbrood pathogen. Anyone planning to migrate should plan for this in good time, because weeks pass between sampling, laboratory result and issuance. The certificate is also required when selling colonies across district boundaries.