The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint made in relation to a magazine advert that featured both a child and an adult near bees who were not “wearing protective clothing”.
Two images were used in the advertisement in question for the Irish Buckfast Queens strain – one image featured a child pointing to bees on a beehive, while the second image featured bees in the palm of a hand.
Both individuals featured in the advertisement were not wearing protective clothing.
According to the ASA it received a complaint that the “illustrative pictures used in the advertisements were irresponsible as they suggested that bees could be handled without safety equipment”.
The complainant also objected to the advert because they said that a child “was shown in a dangerous situation close to a beehive, and that no bee association would recommend that a child be brought near a hive or be used for advertising purposes”.
They also said that the advert, which featured a picture of a shirtless man on the website, was “negligent for similar reasons”.
The complainant also stated in their correspondence with the ASA that “hybrid bees, such as the Buckfast bee, are considered by most beekeepers to be aggressive in nature and should only be handled with the appropriate safety equipment”.
Bees
The ASA said that the complainant also referenced a number of claims made in the magazine advert including that “Buckfast queens offer more honey per colony”, that they had “better disease and parasite resistance than other breeds’” and that Buckfast bees offered “simpler and better Irish beekeeping”.
The person that made the complaint to the ASA believed that the claims made in the advert were misleading – particularly to new or inexperienced beekeepers, and that these claims were made without any scientific backing.
In their response to the issues raised the advertisers told the ASA that while they were sorry to hear a complaint had been received concerning their advertising, “the information in their advertising was true and could be proven”.
The advertisers also suggested that the Federation of Irish Beekeepers should be contacted for their opinion and that their advertisement “had run for over ten years without issue”.
“On the issue of safety and depictions of dangerous activity, the advertisers said that they sold docile bees that could be handled without protection, but that this should not have been taken that they advised beekeepers not to use protection,” according to the ASA.
ASA decision
However the ASA complaints committee did not consider that the claims made by the avertisers had been “substantiated” and that “the advertising was in breach of sections 4.1; 4.4; 4.9; 4.10; and 4.33”.
Separately the committee also noted the images used in the advertising had portrayed a child and an adult being near or handling bees without wearing protective clothing.
“They considered that the images in the advertising had depicted an unsafe practice and therefore were in breach of code sections 3.24 (a) and 7.4 (c),” the ASA stated.
The authority’s complaints committee ruled that “the advertisements must not reappear in their current form”.
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