Hello Juanse & All,

> Local beekeeper groups and scientists from CSIRO and the Queensland Brain
> Institute (QBI) are worried the Varroa mite, fatal to the European honey
> bee, will soon enter Australia.

Only now getting worried?

One of the largest commercial beeks in Australia has traveled to my house 
three different times and spent several days each trip.

His main reason is to learn ways to survive varroa and last trip nosema 
ceranae. My beekeeper friends in Hawaii I believe really thought they would 
never get varroa. At least my beekeeper friends in Australia are not so 
naive.

A saying in the game of "Chess":

Never underestimate your opponent"

Underestimate control of varroa and varroa will cost you half your bees the 
first go around. Commercial beeks need to get a approved product for varroa 
control in advance of arrival. If U.S. beeks made a mistake other than 
underestimating varroa it was not having at least two approved mitacides 
ready for use when varroa arrived ( notice I did not say *if*).

I still ponder why beeks in the U.S. lost half their bees when tracheal 
mites arrived and then half when varroa arrived. Beeks around the world had 
been fighting varroa for many years and many forms of control were known 
about.

Consider:
Varroa had been in those hives for around 3 years in Hawaii before 
found.(source USDA-ARS)

Check your hives yourself for varroa. Try to catch varroa early. Once varroa 
is found your management has to change. At first varroa is very lethal in 
bees which have never seen a varroa mite. We treated three times a year at 
first and reinfestation killed many a hive even after we had just finished a 
treatment.

I had trouble and I had studied varroa and control for over ten years before 
the first varroa was found in the U.S..


I had many friends which took Grandpa beeks advice and let the susceptible 
die off and breed from survivors. Doing so drove most into bankruptcy or 
cost a large sum of money to rebuild. Many found raising queens was not as 
easy *large scale* as they had thought.

Every commercial beek in Australia should by now have a plan of action if 
(when) varroa is found in Australia.

bob 

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