'We are mainly accused to have imported honey into the US in violation of custom regulations with respect to declarations of origin to avoid antidumping duties,' the company's managing director, Alexander Wolff, said in a brief written statement. 'These accusations are wrong and shall be rebutted and we will defend ourselves against these allegations with all legal means,' he added.

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This is the publicatio distributed today about this problem.

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Manuka honey companies which rely on the UMF test for anti-bacterial activity have known for five years it is inaccurate and unreliable. A newspaper distributed today across the manuka honey industry reveals the UMF test is ?not repeatable?, with results from multiple tests on the same sample varying by up to 50%. The UMF (unique manuka factor) test is the basis of domestic and export manuka honey and honey product markets worth more than $100 million a year. The Manuka Expose´ newspaper publishes excerpts from minutes of a meeting of the Active Manuka Honey Association and a letter to AMHA from the testing laboratory which show test problems were known to honey companies in 2003.

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North Dakota is once again poised to lead the nation in honey production, but like every other aspect of agriculture, a number of things could change that scenario in a hurry. One of them is colony collapse disorder, a poorly understood phenomenon that has reduced some apiaries by as much as 90 percent. Many others across the country have reported losses up to 30 percent.

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Ultra-aggressive Africanized bees, haven?t yet spread to some regions of the United States, but they could. A newly launched, three-year NASA project will combine satellite observations of plant growth and projections of how climate might change in coming years to estimate where Africanized bees could ultimately survive in the wild.

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Apiary farmers in the West Nile region should form strong groups if they are to benefit from their enterprise. The chairman, Uganda National Apiary Development Organisation, Jackson Jurua McPeace, said this would help them get funds and equipment from the Government and non-governmental organisations. He noted that individual subsistence beekeepers could not harness enough profits as the large scale commercial beekeeping projects.

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Two executives of a German-based company have been arrested on federal charges of conspiring to import honey contaminated with an illegal antibiotic from China, authorities announced Tuesday. Prosecutors issued a statement saying the honey was falsely labeled as coming from such countries as Russia and Ukraine to avoid paying antidumping duties and contained an antibiotic that was not approved for use in food-producing animals, including bees. A search of the Chicago offices of Hamburg-based Alfred L. Wolff GmbH showed that a shipment of honey was sold to a company in Texas even though it was found to have contained the antibiotic, authorities said. Stefanie Giesselbach, 30, the national sales manager for the Chicago office, was arrested at O'Hare International Airport on Friday night as she prepared to board a flight to Germany.

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A group of scientists has succeeded in capturing images of a drone trying to copulate with an orchid. This curious event occurs through a new trick discovered in the repertoire of sexual lures of these flowers. The species of orchid 'Ophrys exaltata' partially mimics the effects of pheromones of bees to attract the male of the species' Collet cunicularius', which are left to conquer by the seductive aroma. They entangle with its smell the drones, which confused with the females of their species. The drones are unable to resist their momentum and finish in pollinating orchids.

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Dinh Quyet Tam, Secretary General of the Vietnam Beekeeping Association, said Vietnam?s honey output has decreased because of unfavourable weather and the ban on beekeeping in some provinces. According to Tam, many people still don?t see bees as a useful insect for fruit trees. A commune in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak issued an odd regulation: local people are prohibited from raising bees. Farmers in another Central Highlands province, Lam Dong, light fires or spray insecticide to drive away honey bees from their gardens.

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The Fund for the protection of wild animals (FAP), the Ecologist Group Cangúes Azor (GEC) and the Federation of Beekeepers association of the Principality (FAPI), in collaboration with the Biodiversity Foundation organized a talk on beekeeping, which will place next Wednesday May 28, 2008 in the Chool room of Cueto of Arbas, Fuejo in Cangas del Narcea, at 06:00 pm

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