Bee Health Improvement Partnership minutes: October 2025

Attendees and apologies

 

• Scottish Government (SG), SASA Senior Entomologist and Chair
• SG Animal Health and Welfare (AHW), Bee Health Policy Lead
• SG Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture (SASA), Entomology Manager
• SG Rural Payments and Inspections Division (RPID), Bee Health Delivery Lead
• Bee Farmers’ Association (BFA), Scottish Representative
• Scottish Beekeepers Association (SBA), President and Bee Health Convenor
• BFA, Membership services
• Scotlands Rural College (SRUC), Bee Health Advisor
• Scottish Native Honey Bee Society (SNHBS)
• SGRPID, Deputy Bee Health Delivery Lead

Observers

• Welsh Government Representative
• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) Policy Team Representative

Apologies

• SGAHW, Head of Animal Welfare and Bee Health
• SBA, Development Officer and Magazine Editor
• David Evans
• Defra Policy Team
• NatureScot
• SGAHW, Veterinary Advisor, Bee Health

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

The chair welcomed everyone to the meeting noting attendees/apologies as above.

Minutes of previous meeting and review of actions

The minutes of the previous quarterly meeting held on 13 May 2025 were agreed and accepted as an accurate record after the last meeting and subsequently published on the Scottish Government bee health web pages. 

Review of Action Points: No comments on action points. 

Update from other administrations

Defra

Yellow-legged hornet (YLH) – had a busy year but seem to have enough resources to deal with the number of nests being found. There have been a number of issues with the laboratory for the analysis of the nests and there will be further inhouse discussion this week. The website is up to date with the current nest numbers: as of 2 October 2025 there were 136 confirmed nests in 2025. 

The hive side training tender has been issued for intermediate beekeeping: Provision of Hive Side Training - Find a Tender. Aim to teach beekeepers about disease and hygiene, and there will be modules to support the online training.

Update on activity from members during the last quarter

SG policy 

Quarterly reports that have been submitted will be sent around.

Action: any other reports please submit to Bee Health Policy lead as soon as possible. 

YLH – Contingency exercise was completed and the lessons learned document issued. The majority of the action points have been addressed. This includes reviewing and updating our comms plan, developing standard messaging, updating standard operating procedures, ensuring inspectors have all the equipment they need, introduce mailboxes and mailbox rules to ensure a report is not missed, risk assessments and contracts are in place for nest destruction. Given the discovery of a YLH nest in North Yorkshire we feel we are in a good position to deal with confirmed sighting.
Bee Farmers training attended by the Honey Bee Health Policy Lead, Delivery Lead and SASA Entimology Manager – at Sand Hutton in York. Useful event. Following the event, we are looking into inviting staff from the National Bee Unit (NBU) to come up to Scotland to talk on the YLH and Tropilaelaps during the winter period. This will be open to all.

SG will be having an European Foulbrood (EFB) planning strategy meeting at the end of October to go over some of the work we have been involved with including the review of the economic impact of EFB that was published on 4 August 2025 and the EFB Survey report which was published on 17 June 2025. We are looking to undertake a cost benefit analysis of using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing to inform the review. 

The Bee Health Improvement Partnership (BHIP) will be updated of this progress. We had a recent meeting to discuss the thresholds for shook swarming, in particular in relation to developing a consistent and effective policy for controlling EFB. Participants discussed the challenges of current approaches, the limitations of existing diagnostic tools and the need for fairness across all beekeepers, in addition to moving towards a 5-year plan with subclinical testing to help beekeepers and inspectors be more proactive. The BHIP will be updated with this work as and when ready. The SBA advised they have been working on DNA screening, the economic aspect of EFB and would hope that the topics they are discussing will tie in with the other work being done. 

The Varroa map has been updated using bee keeper information as gathered by the Bee Health Team over the year. The new information shows that no part of Skye / Raasay is marked as free from Varroa as there are not enough bee keepers in these areas being Varroa free. The area is now classified as mixed. The area around Mull has been extended and the samples from Orkney are still showing as Varroa free. The new flyers and posters were sent out in August and will be taken to the SBA Conference. 

Action: Bee Health Policy Lead to recirculate the Varroa map link to the BHIP. 

The BFA commented that they always try and check the areas requesting new queens before they send anything out to Varroa free areas, but it is difficult when beekeepers try and work around the checks they put in place. The chair thanked all the beekeepers that were contacted by the Team this year for their information regarding their Varroa status change. The BFA commented that there is a UK wide distribution of queens and it might be worthwhile to issue some comms to stress the importance of not sending bees into Varroa-free areas. It also asked if the local Bee Keeping Associations (BKA) could send out comms to remind their members about Varroa control when selling bees and queens.

Action: SG to liaise with SBA magazine editor to initiate a shared communication for distribution by the BHIP, regarding the importance of checking where bees are being sent to i.e. not to Varroa free areas. 

The Small Hive Beetle/Tropilaelaps Contingency Plan has been drafted and is currently under review internally. This will be issued to the BHIP when ready.

SASA 

Results of the EFB Survey have been issued and were in the September issue of the SBA magazine. Members of the BHIP all confirmed that this was good data to confirm that EFB is not in other locations around Scotland. It was confirmed that this data shows that EFB remains mostly contained to known disease areas and is not widespread across Scotland. 

• the analysis for all the samples submitted for the 2025 season have not been completed but were very nearly done and these figures will be added to the 2025 Annual Report
• the Entomology Manager will be attending the NBU in York to attend YLH nest dissection training

SRUC 

• bee health day in Ayrshire this year was cancelled due to poor uptake. Need to analyse the reasons why so that going forward this does not happen again. Need to ensure that the local BKA's are onboard and for them to arrange the venue, etc. Maybe a questionnaire before the event can be used to work out the logistics
• SNHBS mentioned that the queen rearing workshop run by them at Lamanacha this year was down on numbers by about half. Maybe cost was the issue. However numbers improved close to the event, suggesting that postponing any decisions to cancel future Bee Health Days until closer to the event may be sensible, if possible
• the education package was almost complete, just going through final checks
• SRUC Bee Health website – apologies for the incorrect content

SBA 

• nothing to report
• there is an SBA list of talks which can be circulated
• SBA put a call out to speakers who would be willing to talk at training events. Keeping a list for future training. BFA Scottish Representative is happy to go on the list

Action: SRUC/SBA to share the list of SBA speakers. SBA to add BFA Scottish representative to the list.

BFA 

• the Bee Farmers training day in York was a great success and thanks are given to the SG for attending
• there will be a Scottish regional meeting of the BFA held over the winter, details are to be shared when they are available 
• the BFA Annual Convention is to be held at Newark Showground in December, and the SG Bee Health Team will have a presence alongside the NBU

SNHBS 

• delivered a queen rearing workshop in Lamancha. This went well and was designed to help more beekeepers to raise their own queens. Numbers were down but it was still worthwhile
• Welsh Government asked how to set up the training – small groups of 8 on how to handle queens

Inspections 2025 summary

The SG Bee Health Delivery Lead presented a slide show to members with a summary of the inspection season, basic inspection figures from BeeBase and maps of where notifiable disease was most prevalent in the 2025 inspection season. A full analysis of the statistics with priorities for the 2026 inspection season will be delivered at the next BHIP meeting. The SBA asked if we are seeing trends in areas and is there a spread out from the infected apiaries outwith the EFB Control Plan zone, such as East Lothian. The East Lothian outbreak has been contained and we have not seen 
any overspill in the 3km inspections we are carrying out around these locations. Dumfries had outbreaks in both 2017 and 2020, so we do know it is in the area, but again, so far, we are not seeing any overspill.

Swarming options appraisal 

The Honey Bee health Policy Lead presented some slides giving an overview of a paper which has been produced by the SG policy team for the swarming management options 
appraisal which focuses on the following categories:

• prevention 
• free flying swarms 
• lodged swarms 
• collected swarms 
• cross cutting actions 

There was general discussion around the practicalities of quarantine apiaries in areas of high apiary density and the length of time colonies should be isolated for. It was agreed that education on swarm prevention and control was of utmost importance. 

Action: SG to provide copies of the PowerPoint slides for the swarming options appraisal.

Action: SBA and SNHBS to come up with a Best Practice Guide for swarm control to present at the next BHIP meeting. 

Any other business

The SG Bee Health Policy team received correspondence on 8 July from a member of the public. She advised that her daughter and grandson were stung over a 100 times each by a swarm of bees which required them to be airlifted to hospital. She noted that no signage was in place to advise bees were being actively managed and asked that we consider legislation requiring the use of signage when bees are being actively managed. A response was provided to her advising that the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, Section 49 may be relevant in cases where bees cause alarm, injury, or annoyance to the public. This legislation allows for action to be taken if a creature, including bees, causes a nuisance or danger in a public place. We have received further correspondence relating to this matter via MSPs writing to the Cabinet Secretary. This included an update that the lady's grandson now requires the use of an EpiPen along with dealing with the psychological trauma the incident caused.

She has also been in touch as recently as yesterday and she remains frustrated as she feels that due to a lack of what she believes to be specific legislation, either at a Scottish Government or local government level, there is no means of preventing the placement of bees in certain areas. The incident is being raised with BHIP members to ask that consideration be given to a communications campaign on responsible hive placement and management of bees, noting that although outwith the remit of bee health, we do have regular interaction with the appropriate stakeholders. SBA is aware of the incident as it was an SBA member that has been involved. Following the incident, an article was published in the SBA magazine on the placement of hives and acting responsibly. It was noted by the BFA that signage is not recommended as it accepts liability. 

Next BHIP meeting 

To be arranged quarterly for the second Tuesday of the month. Secretariat will issue calendar invitations by the end of the year as this will be the last BHIP for 2025.

SG Honey Bee Health Team
Oct 2025