If you have not already done so, it would seem sensible for you to talk to the farmers or landowners of your sites to determine what they will be doing when bird flu or F&M arrives, and to consider what affect any quarantine might have on you.

With F&M all access to affected sites is prohibited, and is severely restricted in the immediate vicinity. In 2001 the bees went untended for months.

If bird flu, then if they keep any poultry, or have a game preserve, it is likely that you will not be very welcome on certain parts of their land. For example, I have two sites that are in pheasant cover, and maybe those bees need to be moved elsewhere on the farm or somewhere else altogether until an epidemic is over - which may not be for years.

John Howat