Beekeeper to Queen gave drug to his bees
HE made his name as the man who supplies royalty with honey from hives across Scotland.
But in a landmark case the Queen’s beekeeper has admitted importing a banned drug and giving it to his bees.
Murray McGregor, who has provided honey for Prince Charles’s Duchy Estate, pleaded guilty to importing broad spectrum anti-infective Terramycin 100mr between July 2009 and October 2010.
The 61-year-old, who owns Denrosa Apiaries in Blairgowrie, Perthshire, had faced seven charges relating to breaches of the Finance Act 1973, the European Communities Act 1972 and the Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2008. Yesterday, at Perth Sheriff Court he admitted he ‘administered unauthorised veterinary medicinal products’ to honey bees.
McGregor possessed Terramycin, which cannot be legally imported into the UK, and was also alleged to have dosed the bees with Checkmite Plus, a small hive beetle treatment from Canada, which can only be licensed by a vet.
However, charges relating to that were dropped by the Crown.
Another charge alleging that on October 10, 2013, he failed to comply with an improvement notice requiring him to remove all traces of oxytetracycline from his bee hives within 14 days, was also dropped.
The court was told yesterday that a further expert report on the current case was being prepared and sentence on McGregor was deferred by Sheriff William Wood. Terramycin is used to treat foulbrood, a contagious disease that affects bee colonies.
In 2013, record numbers of honey bees were wiped out in Scotland.
Academics found that almost a third of managed colonies died in the winter of 2012-13 – the highest rate ever recorded and more than double that of the previous year.
In 2009, a bee farm McGregor owned in the Lothians was targeted by thieves and 11 hives containing up to 500,000 bees were stolen. The bees, which were being farmed under the Denrosa banner, were due to be transferred to the Balmoral Estate.
McGregor joined his father’s firm in 1982 and specialised in heather honey.
He approached the administrator of the Queen’s Highland estate to ask if he could produce honey there. In an interview in 2001, he recalled: ‘He sent me off to see the head keeper, who gave me permission provided it didn’t conflict with any royal operations.
‘My only real worry was that the bees might sting a member of the Royal Family. His reaction was that the Queen or Prince Philip were game enough about such things but, as he said, “don’t get the corgis stung or there’ll be hell to pay!”.’
‘Unauthorised products’