After decades of trying to fund serious varroa research with spare change
found under the couch cushions at CSIRO headquarters, Dennis Anderson has
apparently had enough, and declared himself a free agent, presumably to seek
direct "crowdsourced" funding from growers and beekeepers:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/csiro-accused-of-slighting-bee-cure
-20130914-2trha.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/pattt9l

This is despite being awarded the 2007 CSIRO Medal for Research Achievement
for his work in pollination biosecurity:
http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Food-and-Agriculture/Bee-Team-Award.aspx
or
http://tinyurl.com/ouzqeua

...and being the only person to point out that the varroa infesting Apis
mellifera were oblong, while "Varroa jacobsoni" were circular, thus making
clear that everyone else in bee research had been overlooking the gross
morphology of the pest, and investigating the wrong species of mite:

"Varroa jacobsoni (Acari: Varroidae) is more than one species"
Anderson and Trueman
Experimental & Applied Acarology
March 2000, Volume 24, Issue 3, pp 165-189

A video of him explaining the brood pheromone attraction issue to a
layperson audience, where brood pheromones seem key to triggering the varroa
reproduction sequence, and how much of his funding to study the varroa
problem had to be coaxed from AU funds for "foreign aid to Papua New Guinea"
(or, "P.N.G." in the video below), as the AU government apparently did not
see varroa as a "domestic problem" worthy of funding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P1h6yZVX5E

An initial sponsor has appeared, a maker of women's sandals, who hopes to
help defeet the varroa problem:
http://myhoneybees.com.au/

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