The Ezypay Lounge

A Darfield hobby beekeeper is questioning if a tub of United States honey slipping past authorities is one of many breaks in border security.

Harvey Polglase: ‘‘It appears the system, which I thought was foolproof, has not quite worked that wayand there are holes in our biosecurity.’’Harvey Polglase, a payroll administrator, was approached by a work colleague who had received 1.1 kilograms of honey in a package this month from Utah and wondered if it had breached biosecurity rules about honey imports.

Polglase confirmed her suspicions, and biosecurity inspectors from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry collected and destroyed the honey. He said it was a stroke of luck his colleague knew the gift was illegal.

Had left-over honey in the container been thrown out, it could have come in contact with bees to spread disease.

‘‘It appears the system, which I thought was foolproof, has not quite worked that way and there are holes in our biosecurity. I am concerned the risk of imported exotic diseases is quite real.’’

Polglase said it appeared the prevention of honey entering the country relied on the honesty of people sending or receiving similar packages.

‘‘That depends on people knowing our biosecurity rules in the first place – and how is an American supposed to know about our import rules?’’

The honey arrived with packaged sweets and was labelled as containing food, yet slipped through.

MAF officials responded quickly to the callout and admitted they were worried about holes in the system and relied on the screening of mail-delivery services, he said.

MAF Border Operations Central manager Geoff Gwyn said the reporting of the honey to MAF and its subsequent destruction was a good demonstration of the biosecurity system working.

‘‘The system is based on layers of protection that start offshore with exporters assuring that risk has been eliminated, including border inspection, and finish with onshore response activities.’’

Occasionally, risk goods slip past the off-shore requirements and the border controls – for example, food products may not always be declared as such on parcel documentation, Gwyn said.

Thirty-seven million mail items cross the border each year. All items are screened in some manner – either by inspection where risk is flagged on documentation, or by X-ray, detector dogs or random survey.

‘‘It is, however, simply not feasible to physically inspect every item, which is why the system includes an 0800 reporting number to report such incidents to MAF.’’

He said everyone had a role to play in biosecurity protection.

New Zealand beekeepers are dealing with varroa disease, with treatment costs of about $30 a hive. New Zealand has American foulbrood but not European foulbrood, which exists along with other unwanted diseases in the United States. Polglase said the only way United States beekeepers could treat their hives for European foulbrood was with antibiotics, and traces in the honey would negate New Zealand’s clean and green reputation. Beekeepers still felt let down that varroa had entered the South Island from the north despite efforts to slow its expansion.