Subject: E.C. labeling legislation

From: [email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 15:16:00 GMT

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*from Thorne's Jan. 1996, "BEEKEEPERS NEWS", with editors permission to
use...

                        A CYNICAL VIEWPOINT

        Following on from the new E.C. labeling legislation which
came into effect on October 1st 1995. We have uncovered several more
proposed E.C. directives which will devastate British Beekeeping.

a)  All bees will be Italian in origin, the British Black bee will be
outlawed.

b)  The banding on the bees must not be more than 1.5mm (there is no
imperial equivalent to this dimension)

c)  Queens must not be marked but all worker will be.

d)  No bee shall be permitted to work more than 40 hours per week, apart
from, of course, nurse bees who will work until they drop. The beekeeper
will be liable for a 25,000 EUC fine. 15 years imprisonment or both. To
police this new law DTI are recruiting 5000 new inspectors, making a
total, therefor, for the whole EC of 5001.

e)  All hives will be Langstroth in design, National and WBC will be
banned. There will, however, ba a transition period for the change over
of one week.

f)  All hives will face towards Brussels and as such, bees will not be
permitted to work between 11.a.m. & 3.p.m especially Friday's and
Monday's as this interferes with the weekend.

g)  Swarming will be illegal, bees that swarm will be put down one at
a time under a new job creation scheme.

h)  There will be free movement of bees throughout Europe. Movement
application in quadruplicate must be lodged in every EC language (60
forms, therefore) 8 weeks in advance with your local Dept. of Transport
Office. This applies to pollination movement also.

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 þ QMPro 1.53 þ ... Some bee had stung it newly.