Australia to move away from trying to eradicate parasite
More now on the varroa mite situation in New South Wales. Danny Le Feuvre is the head of the Australian honey bee industry council. He expects to see additional bee colony losses moving forward.
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00:00 Varroa mites are not something we want to live with and we definitely want to be able
00:05 to eradicate it.
00:06 But unfortunately the size of the response has just become so big and so complex now
00:09 that we've had to abandon our attempts and look to the future and living with varroa.
00:14 Yeah, and so for people who are unfamiliar with this story, what is varroa mite and how
00:19 does it affect bees and damage the potential of them?
00:25 So it's a small parasitic mite that lives on the back of bees.
00:28 It actually feeds on the fat bodies of the bees and weakens and shortens its lifespan.
00:35 It's very host specific, only reproduces on honeybees, European honeybees.
00:40 But where it does its most damage is the transmission of viruses.
00:43 And we're very lucky so far to have not found any of the really bad viruses that this pest
00:48 can transmit.
00:49 But it certainly has significant impacts on the honeybee industry globally with a lot
00:54 of hive losses attributed to varroa mites, the damage it does.
00:59 Yeah, well there have been millions of bees euthanized as part of this effort to eradicate
01:04 it over the past year or so.
01:05 So what kind of effect has it already had on the Australian industry?
01:09 Yeah, well this has been one of the largest eradication programs ever embarked on in Australia
01:15 to try and keep this pest at bay and off our shores.
01:18 Yes, we've eradicated 30,000 hives and that's a really sad part of this eradication program
01:23 is the financial and emotional effect that we've had on all the beekeepers that are involved
01:28 in this response in those zones around Newcastle and New South Wales.
01:32 We need to make sure that we acknowledge and respect the sacrifices those beekeepers have
01:36 made moving forward.
01:37 But we do need to look to the future now on how we're going to manage it and live with
01:41 the mites moving forward into the future.
01:43 Okay, so there's going to be this interim strategy to limit the impacts while a revised
01:49 plan is developed.
01:51 Is that appropriate?
01:52 Yeah, look, the interim strategy, because it's going to take a bit of time to negotiate
01:57 what this will look like moving forward.
01:58 We've got 26 affected parties that are involved in the decision making and all have differing
02:04 needs and interests in the response moving forward.
02:07 So we don't want to rush that decision.
02:08 We want to make sure there's enough time to make a considered plan moving forward.
02:12 But at the same time, we need to give our beekeepers on the ground some clarity and
02:16 assurances as to their future as well.
02:19 So the interim measures that the DPI have proposed and put in place today will give
02:23 those beekeepers that clarity, enable them to get on with business where they can, or
02:28 enable them to plan for their future with some certainty moving forward.
02:33 And growers will be able to opt for voluntary euthanasia in certain zones for their bees
02:39 and be compensated.
02:41 But do you think that is going to happen anymore now?
02:44 No, there's an immediate halt on euthanasia of hives and an immediate halt on baiting
02:50 with fripinil.
02:52 There is an allowance for beekeepers that have been caught in zones.
02:55 Some of those bees have been sitting still for over a month now without food, without
03:00 forage, and they've not been able to make money from them.
03:03 So we have advocated to have an allowance for those beekeepers to be able to choose
03:07 if they want to be euthanized, if they want their hives euthanized, that they will have
03:11 access to the compensation package that all the other beekeepers have had, and make sure
03:16 that we don't give them back hives that aren't healthy and aren't fit for purpose, and ensure
03:21 that we look after them as best we can moving forward.
03:24 And there'll still be a requirement for keepers to continue conducting alcohol washes every
03:29 16 weeks and reporting results.
03:31 Is that fair enough?
03:33 Yeah, look, the plan moving forward is to really slow the spread and minimize the impact
03:38 to our industry and our pollination-dependent partners as well.
03:41 So monitoring how that moves through the landscape, we're not expecting it to move like a wildfire.
03:45 It will be slow and we do have time, but we do need beekeepers to continue to do the surveillance,
03:52 the alcohol washing, to monitor that spread and make sure that we keep check of the mite
03:56 numbers moving forward.
03:57 And especially in the short term, we have a really clear plan on what this looks like
04:01 moving forward.
04:03 And so how many keepers have left the industry, if any, over the past year because of this?
04:09 Yeah, the eradication program has had significant impacts on some beekeepers, particularly around
04:16 Newcastle and the Kempsey area.
04:18 Some operators have had all their hives destroyed.
04:21 And whilst they've had some ORCs or reimbursement of the cost of the equipment, it certainly
04:27 hasn't made up for the amount of income that they have lost.
04:31 And so it has had significant impact on those people.
04:35 But right across Australia, the whole of the industry has been watching this eradication
04:40 program, hoping that it would eradicate and keep the pest at bay.
04:43 But now that we can't, we need to make sure that all our beekeepers can be educated and
04:47 trained in managing the mite and make sure we put some processes in place to minimise
04:53 the impacts that it's going to have.
04:55 And so how much honey does Australia or New South Wales produce each year?
04:59 And how is that affected over the last 12 months?
05:03 So across Australia we produce about 20,000 tonnes of honey.
05:06 The majority of that is consumed domestically.
05:08 We export a small volume of that.
05:11 We haven't seen that being impacted in terms of the varroa response.
05:14 Oh, that's really positive, huh?
05:17 Yeah, very positive.
05:19 The varroa response has euthanised about 30,000 hives, as you mentioned, and in comparison
05:25 to the national hive numbers, it hasn't had a huge impact.
05:30 But individually, for those beekeepers on the ground, it's been devastating, completely
05:35 devastating to their businesses.
05:37 Some of those are generational, and we completely understand that.
05:40 And it is the really sad part of the eradication program that we've embarked on.
05:44 OK, but now that you've kind of bitten the bullet and accepted that varroa mite is here
05:49 to stay, what effect do you think it could have over the coming years?
05:57 So what we can do is look to overseas and see what the experiences of varroa has had
06:01 there with their industries.
06:03 So we know in places like the US, where varroa has been present there for 50 years, that
06:09 they've been losing colonies over winter.
06:12 In fact, last year they reported 48% colony losses, with beekeepers identifying varroa
06:17 mite as the number one cause for those colony deaths.
06:20 New Zealand, for example, across the Tasman, they've had it there for 20 years now, and
06:25 they too have been experiencing increasing colony losses, up to 13.5% of their annual
06:31 losses have been attributed to varroa mite.
06:34 So we will expect to see additional colony losses moving forward.
06:38 We'll also know that the way we keep bees at the moment will have to change.
06:42 There will be a need for beekeepers to have intervention in the hives to promote and maintain
06:48 hive health, where previously our bees have been very much able to sustain themselves
06:53 with very minimal intervention from the beekeepers.
06:57 We know we're going to have to apply differing treatments, and that's going to be different
07:01 for every beekeeper across the country, depending on their situation.
07:05 But it will mean that we won't be able to just leave our hives like we have been able
07:08 to do in the past, and know that they'll be healthy and happy.
07:12 We are going to have to intervene now, and that will have a significant impact for those
07:16 recreational beekeepers and backyard hobbyists, who all of a sudden will need to pay greater
07:22 attention to the health of their hives moving forward.
07:26 And just looking back on this over the last year or so, what do you think of the way this
07:30 has been handled?
07:31 Do you think there was really any chance that Australia could have kept this out?
07:37 Yeah, look, the Australian biosecurity system is gold-class standard in terms of the world.
07:45 It was always going to be an ambitious task, but it was one we had to have a red hot go
07:49 at.
07:50 We only get one chance to eradicate it, and this pest will be significant to our beekeeping
07:55 industry.
07:56 And so it was really important that we did have a red hot go at it.
07:59 And look, up until probably a couple of months ago, we were in a very good position to have
08:04 it contained and slowly eradicate over time.
08:07 But just the recent developments over the last couple of months, which has seen a number
08:10 of new detections and the whole response grow huge in size, has meant that it's really made
08:16 it not practical to continue with eradication.
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